Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda

 

The world has forgotten about Visitation Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  It's a neighborhood of blue collar workers, of immigrants and those who aren't about to make a mark.  Now a tragedy has happened.  One warm summer night two teenage girls, Val and June, take a blowup raft out on the water but only Val returns.  She doesn't remember anything about that night so June's disappearance isn't solved.

But there are others in the neighborhood.  Fadi runs a grocery and has hope for the neighborhood.  He prints a local newspaper and has high hopes for the cruise ship rumored to be coming bringing tourists to his market.  Cree is about to start community college, getting things together after the horrific murder of his father that tore his family apart.  Jonathan was Val and June's music teacher but he spends his nights getting drunk and picking up anyone who will sleep with him.  Ren paints the walls with his graffati and seems bent on protecting Cree.  As these characters interact slowly the mystery starts to be penetrated and perhaps the mystery of June's disappearance will be solved.

Ivy Pochoda has created a slice of life portrait that brings this isolated neighborhood to life.  The characters are recognizable types, their motivations vague as they try to figure out life.  Life has not been kind to the inhabitants of Red Hook but in various ways they strive towards a more successful life.  This book is recommended to readers of literary fiction with a twist of mystery.