Visitation Street

Paperback, 306 pages

Published April 15, 2014 by Dennis Lehane Books/Ecco, Ecco Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-224990-6

No rating (1 review)

Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue collar neighborhood where hipster gourmet supermarkets push against tired housing projects, and the East River opens into the bay. Bored and listless, fifteen-year-old June and Val are looking for some fun. Forget the boys, the bottles, the coded whistles. Val wants to do something wild and a little crazy: take a raft out onto the bay. But out on the water, as the bright light of day gives way to darkness, the girls disappear. Only Val will survive, washed ashore semi-conscious in the weeds. June's shocking disappearance will reverberate in the lives of a diverse cast of Red Hook residents. Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner, trolls for information about the crime. Cree, just beginning to pull it together after his father's murder, unwittingly makes himself the chief suspect, although an elusive guardian seems to have other plans for him. As Val emerges from …

Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue collar neighborhood where hipster gourmet supermarkets push against tired housing projects, and the East River opens into the bay. Bored and listless, fifteen-year-old June and Val are looking for some fun. Forget the boys, the bottles, the coded whistles. Val wants to do something wild and a little crazy: take a raft out onto the bay. But out on the water, as the bright light of day gives way to darkness, the girls disappear. Only Val will survive, washed ashore semi-conscious in the weeds. June's shocking disappearance will reverberate in the lives of a diverse cast of Red Hook residents. Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner, trolls for information about the crime. Cree, just beginning to pull it together after his father's murder, unwittingly makes himself the chief suspect, although an elusive guardian seems to have other plans for him. As Val emerges from the shadow of her missing friend, her teacher Jonathan, Julliard drop-out and barfly, will be forced to confront a past riddled with tragic sins of omission.

6 editions

barbara fister reviewed Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda

Review of 'Visitation Street' on 'LibraryThing'

No rating

Two girls go out late at night on an adventure, taking a pink air mattress down to the water and launching it out into the night from Red Hook's waterfront. Later, a washed-up musician finds one of them, unconscious, under the docks. Her best friend is missing. Though there is an investigation into what happened that night, this is more a portrait of people whose lives touch on the tragedy in a part of Brooklyn that is feeling the stresses of gentrification. Very in-depth character development and a strong sense of place..