Book Review – Tuesday Nights In 1980

Tuesday Nights In 1980 is a luminous debut novel from Molly Prentiss who holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The California College of Arts. She is also the recipient of the Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Aspen Institute.

New York is on the cusp of 1980. The art scene is breathless and exciting, pushing boundaries. Three lives intersect and mingle with alchemic results. James Bennett is an art critic for the New York Times with a disability that he has turned into a gift. He combines his single minded love of art with his cross wired senses to write reviews full of unexpected metaphors that elicit a visceral response.

Raul Engales leaves Argentina to paint in New York. He leaves behind his sister, and only family, Franca in a country embroiled in the “Dirty War” where kidnappings occur almost daily. In the early hours of the first day of 1980, Raul meets Lucy. Beautiful and wholesome and just five months in the city from Ketchum, Idaho. It’s love at first sight for her.

The book follows their somewhat melodramatic lives for a year. It reads as if the author enjoyed writing it and is enchantingly evocative.

Ewa Fabris
4/5