Door-Man

In 1917, while a large reservoir was under construction in the Catskill hamlet of Gilboa, New York, a young paleontologist named Winifred Goldring (1888-1971) studied fossils of an ancient forest. The forest had been submerged millions of years earlier, when plant life flooded the air with oxygen and made the later evolution of humans possible. New York City needed the reservoir's water, so the fossils were flooded a second time, along with the town itself.

Part history and part invention, the novel follows three generations of intertwined families who carry a painful loss from the final days of Gilboa. It is narrated by Winifred's grandson, a disillusioned New York City doorman assigned to the Central Park Reservoir while it is being decommissioned in 1993.

The book considers how brief and provisional a human life is, and how the histories of particular places, people and events give it meaning. Its meditation on Deep Time unfolds alongside the tangled roots and fragile bonds of family. The Door-Man was named to The New Yorker's list of the best books of 2022.