THE GALLERY ASSISTANT

November 2001: A young gallery employee unwittingly exposes several art-related crimes while trying to avoid facing her own 9/11 trauma.

As New York reels in the face of mass tragedy, Chloe Harlow tries to court a sense of normalcy through her job as a gallery assistant, only to end up drinking herself into oblivion most nights with her friends at the bar. But one morning, she wakes naked in bed, unable to remember how she got home from the party in artist Inga Beck’s Williamsburg loft. When she drags herself to work, she learns that Inga was murdered just hours ago. Trying to hide her compromised memory from the cops while quietly investigating what might have happened, Chloe keeps up appearances by attending a top-end Sotheby’s auction at which her gallery purchases a Monet for $20 million for a secret buyer. When her immediate boss goes missing just after Thanksgiving, Chloe is promoted, to the envy of some of her more experienced co-workers. But things are undeniably weird: Her roommate seems to be avoiding her, she catches his boyfriend searching her room, and someone breaks into the apartment. She has flashes of memory from the night of Inga’s death, but they contradict the story others have told her about what happened. Behind it all are her own repressed memories of escaping the North Tower as it collapsed. The setting in post-9/11 New York adds a fascinating layer to the novel’s poignancy and urgency. Chloe’s quest to solve the mysteries around her reflect a young generation’s desire to find some stability in a world literally fallen around them. Discovering the truth about the intrigue at the gallery becomes Chloe’s path to healing that is not the same as forgetting but holds space for all this is lost as well as for the messy joy of living.

Engagingly clever and elevated by its unique setting.