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The Angel Of Forgetfulness by Steve Stern
01/08/2005 . Source: Sue Davies 
pub: Viking. 404 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US), $36.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-670-03387-1. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.penguin.com
When Saul decides to meet his Aunty Keni, his only blood relative in New York City, he doesn't know how far the meeting will take him.
It's 1969, a time of radical movements, drugs and the Vietnam War. Saul is studying in New York but he's lost and alone. He seeks company and finds more questions than answers. His Aunt Keni dying, her tantalising glimpses of another time and place leave him dissatisfied with his life. Dismissing her nurse, he looks after Keni day and night.
Keni shows him her long-dead husband's unfinished manuscript. This is the story that Nathan told to woo her away from her painter lover. Long years after Nathan's death, it has never been completed.
Once Keni is dead, Saul falls through the cracks. He meets his future mentor, Billy Boots, in a mental institution and begins his drug-fuelled period of self discovery.
Nathan's story entwined with this is of the early twentieth century immigrant Jew. He arrives with nothing and proceeds to attempt to make a living. The chance encounter with Keni provokes an intense, at first unrecognised desire. The story of Mocky the fallen angel seemingly woven from the air is his method of seduction.
The angel has his own voice in these pages, also marked by a change in typeface. His narrative is distinct and comes quite late in the novel. Having left his son in Paradise he has become forgetful of his past as an angel. His wings are scaly protrusions on his back. He is the itinerant 'gofer' of the resident Fagin of the East Side of New York. Visiting the theatre one night, he is drawn into the story on stage and realises that it is a version of his descent from Paradise through the inverted Tree of Life. The playwright is his long-forgotten son.
All the stories are told inter-sequentially. Each has superb detail which evokes the period it is set in. You can practically smell the East Side of New York comprehensively illustrated with descriptions of the time and place this is not a story to rush through. It has texture and a lushness that makes you want to linger. The story being broken into three parts is again broken down into further story fragments. There are other people here also need to have their tales told.
All in all, this proved to be an enervating and provoking story. The mystery wrapped up in its complex plotting does not yield until the very last page and this final confession from Mocky the angel will make you revisit the pages again.
Sue Davies
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