The Apartment, Ana Menendez
The Apartment, Ana Menendez
List: $15.99 | Sale: $11.20
Club: $7.99

The Apartment
A Novel

Author: Ana Menéndez

Narrator: Whitney Dykhouse

Unabridged: 6 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/27/2023


Synopsis

From the critically acclaimed author of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd comes a new novel about the search for freedom and the power of community that spans decades of residents in one Florida apartment

The Helena is an art deco apartment building that has witnessed the changing face of South Miami Beach for seventy years, observing the lives housed within. Among those who have called apartment 2B home are a Cuban concert pianist who performs in a nursing home; the widow of an intelligence officer raising her young daughter alone; a man waiting on a green card marriage to run its course so that he can divorce his wife and marry his lover, all of whom live together; a Tajik building manager with a secret identity; and a troubled young refugee named Lenin. Each tenant imbues 2B with energy that will either heal or overwhelm its latest resident, Lana, a mysterious woman struggling with her own past.

Examining exile, homesickness, and displacement, The Apartment asks what—in our violent and lonely century—do we owe one another? If alone we are powerless before sorrow and isolation, it is through community and the sharing of our stories that we may survive and persevere.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Will on August 14, 2024

The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them. – Anne Carson - from the epigraph--------------------------------------We are our own ghosts, dragging our......more

Goodreads review by Tomes And on July 12, 2023

TAMPA BAY FRIENDS! I'll be in conversation with Ana Menendez at Tombolo Books in downtown St. Pete on July 18th! You can RSVP here. 4.5 stars! I loved the way The Apartment was almost a sentient occupant of itself and how ALL it's occupants were such interesting characters building to the end. Full r......more

Goodreads review by Judy on June 27, 2023

Ana Menéndez's latest novel, THE APARTMENT, takes us to Miami's South Beach, Florida, to The Helena, the historic Art Deco apartment building rich in history, time, and character where we meet the many residents of Apartment 2B who have come and gone over seven decades. Built in 1942, many people an......more

Goodreads review by Debbie on October 13, 2023

I may be biased here because the first art deco festival I went to in Miami Beach was in 1985 or 86. Most of the hotels on Ocean Drive (I’m not even sure it was called that then) were boarded up and just starting to be renovated. I remember before then going down there to what is now South Beach, th......more

Goodreads review by Sammi on May 30, 2023

2.5 "The Apartment" by Ana Menéndez follows a single apartment through time (from pre-colonization of Florida to now) and the occupants that inhabit it. I absolutely adore string of connection books in this style and "The Apartment" started off very strong. The first "story" was more of a prequel sta......more