MANHATTAN NIGHT

Fiction

Beautiful woman, tempted man

MANHATTAN NIGHT

By Colin Harrison

358 pp. Picador

Reviewed by Sue Ellis

Colin Harrison’s Manhattan Night, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year originally named Manhattan Nocturne, is the gripping story of a smart guy who got reckless. His name is Porter Wren, a Manhattan tabloid writer trying to backpedal after a lapse in judgment. It’s an old premise: Beautiful woman, tempted man, and his frantic attempts to hide the indiscretion from his wife. When he’s blackmailed by the richest man in the city (who happens to be the owner of the newspaper he works for), his only option, if he wants to hold onto his family, is to out-think a couple of psychologically twisted people. He seems to be the perfect man for the job. Here’s an excerpt from the first page of the book, an effective hook that reveals the main character’s self image and sets the tone for what’s to come:

I SELL MAYHEM, scandal, murder, and doom. Oh, Jesus I do, I sell tragedy, vengeance, chaos, and fate. I sell the sufferings of the poor and the vanities of the rich. Children falling from windows, subway trains afire, rapist fleeing into the dark. I sell anger and redemption. I sell the muscled heroism of firemen and the wheezing greed of mob bosses. The stench of garbage, the rattle of gold. I sell black to white, white to black. To Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Muslims and transvestites and squatters on the Lower East Side. I sold John Gotti and O.J. Simpson and the bombers of the World Trade Center, and I’ll sell whoever else comes along next. I sell falsehood and what passes for truth and every gradation in between. I sell the newborn and the dead. I sell the wretched, magnificent city of New York back to its people. I sell newspapers.

Wren is well versed in dark side of human nature and employs it to keep his job, but it becomes obvious that he has a wide streak of decency. He and his wife have made a home behind a camouflage of greenery and a set of iron gates—a vintage house that has somehow been preserved despite progress and wrecking balls, and it is in that setting where we’re allowed to see the other side of the Wren character. Harrison writes beautifully and intuitively about the relationship between Wren and his wife and children. 

When his ill-conceived affair threatens both his livelihood and his family, he’s forced to probe the strength of his own morals (which have allowed him to become obsessed with the other woman) and to consider how far he’ll go to avoid being the subject of a tabloid story himself. 

The prose is beautiful, and the glimpse of his home turf in and around Manhattan and New York surely qualifies as travelogue material. Ethnic diversity in all its splendor oozes from the block-by-block giant warren of neighborhoods, a great reason to check out Manhattan Night on its own, but there’s more.

The story puts its own slick spin on the subjects of sex, murder and revenge, stretching out their boomerang effect in one white-knuckle chapter after another. If there’s a negative, it’s that the story is depressing—genuine noir fiction at its ugliest. But if it’s the genre of choice for you, save this one for a long weekend so you can immerse yourself in the carefully conceived, intricate plot. There was a master at the helm of its creation.

The movie version was released on May 20.