by Dana Czapnik
In between us is the threshold of the door to my apartment. He stands in the vestibule, staring at me with an intensity. I look up into his face and marvel at the beauty. He is really quite a creature. And no, he wouldn’t fit in a J. Crew catalogue or in a high-fashion spread in Vogue. He’s somewhere between them. Or separate. On his very own planet. And that freckle in his eye. My goodness.
Dear Percy, you will always be my very favorite optical illusion.
One day in the distant future, I will think about you again, and my heart will lurch in an ancient muscle memory. And the fleeting sting of the moment will have nothing to do with you and everything to do with the seventeen-year-old girl who loved you and the impossibility of unforgetting her.
I thank him for the book and give him a hug. He hugs me back very tightly and then he leaves. I stay in the doorway for some time and listen to his footprints echo as he descends the stairs. I remain there long after the sound is gone.
* * *
Up on the roof, I zigzag my way around pools of water. The steamy smell of rain lingers. I take in all the honking and the construction and the conversations below me. Soon I’ll figure out what I love more, New York from the inside or New York from a distance. It feels like the city is begging me to stay. Just look at me, it’s saying. Don’t leave, it’s saying. But that’s just my own añoranza. New York doesn’t care one way or the other.
I wonder whether, if aliens dropped down in their spaceship right now, right here, on this rooftop, and they looked out over all of New York, the Emerald City, the Promised Land, gleaming around us, would they think, “What a piece of work is man,” or “What a fucking piece of work is man”? Or would the aliens, in their infinite wisdom, with their intergalactic travel and their spaceships and their telekinesis and their superior intelligence, would they understand, would they know, that we are a river that runs both ways?
I lean against the edge of the roof and open the book he gave me. It begins,
René leaves and I find myself alone and happy. The kettle whistles and I walk across the small room to the burner and the whistling slowly dies. I brew some black Darjeeling tea I’d purchased last week with a fraction of the earnings I’d made from an article I’d written. I add milk from the icebox and some honey and walk to the window. René has left me in a state of undress and I do nothing to alter it. It is my own small room and I’m the only one with a key. Outside on the street, I see him mount his bicycle and pedal alongside some motorcars. He may return to me. He may not. I take a seat at the table. There is a blank page in the Remington. I begin to type: “Juliette Marchand exists for no one, darling. And who is no one? I think I met her once. Her name is Juliette Marchand.”
I stop there and smile as I watch the sky above New York turn from gray to a light yellow and finally to a dark blue. I take out the blue felt pen that’s been stuck in my hair and on the bottom of the page I write: “Lucy Adler exists for no one.” I put the book in my back jeans pocket and the pen back in my hair and head down to the street and walk to the subway.
Where to go? Where to go?
Girl. Wherever the fuck you want.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While most of the paintings, photography, and other works of art in this novel are from my imagination, I thought a lot about the work of real-world artists, including Jenny Holzer, Dina Goldstein, Tracey Emin, Marilyn Minter, Barbara Kruger, Margaux Lange, Betty Tompkins, Herb Ritts, and Richard Avedon, as well as artists from the early 1990s who had work in the NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star exhibit at the New Museum in 2013.
I’ve taken many liberties with the names and locations of stores, restaurants, schools, and buildings in every neighborhood Lucy traverses, but I must credit Jeremiah Moss and his amazing blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York for jogging my memory several times and allowing me to temporarily visit the New York of my youth in photographs.
Juliette Marchand and her novel On Being Alone are entirely fictitious.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel was written and published with the help of some profoundly generous people and organizations.
I’m forever indebted to Salman Rushdie, whom I admire so deeply as a writer and a person. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your support.
My sincerest thanks to Peter Carey, Colum McCann, and everyone at Hunter College’s MFA program, in particular the Hertog Foundation. A special thanks must go to Colum, the best teacher I’ve ever had. Thank you for your encouragement and your generosity of spirit.
Massive thanks to the Center for Fiction and the Jerome Foundation, as well as to the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Thank you to my amazing agent, Sarah Bedingfield, who has been an ally, reader, and friend throughout. I’m so grateful for your hard work, your encouragement, and your perspective.
A bighearted thank-you to Daniella Wexler for believing in my book and for helping to shape it into the best version of itself. Thanks also to Lisa Keim for championing this book abroad, to Benjamin Holmes and Molly Pisani for their attention to detail, and to the entire team at Atria and Simon & Schuster.
Deep thanks to my Hunter crew, most especially Vanessa Manko, dear friend and publishing spirit guide, and Jesse Barron, the smartest, sharpest reader I know.
Thanks to my friends George Davies, my on-call “physics guy,” and Zac Costello, my on-call “sports guy.” A big thanks to Jesse Aylen, who was an early champion of this novel. And a thank-you filled with love to Karyn Czapnik, for being my sister.
* * *
This book is for . . .
Aaron, my best friend and my home . . .
My son, who sparkles, who radiates, who is incandescent . . .
My mom, who has provided me with the best model for motherhood and always imparted the importance of justice, kindness, and honesty through actions and words . . .
My dad, who has read this novel almost as much as I have and gave me notes at every stage. From college newspaper articles to job interview follow-up emails to graduate school application essays to my first novel, you’ve always been my best editor . . .
* * *
And for New York, whoever you are.
Reading Group Guide
The Falconer
Dana Czapnik
This reading group guide for The Falconer includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
New York, 1993. Seventeen-year-old Lucy Adler, a street-smart, trash-talking baller, is often the only girl on the public courts. Lucy’s inner life is a contradiction. She’s by turns quixotic and cynical, insecure and self-possessed. Despite herself, she is in unrequited love with her best friend and pickup teammate Percy, scion of a prominent New York family who insists he wishes to resist his upper-crust fate.
As Lucy navigates this relationship in all its youthful heartache and prepares for life in the broader world, she begins to question accepted notions of success, bristling against her own hunger for male approval and searching for an authentic way to live and love. She is drawn into the world of a pair of provocative female artists living in what remains of New York’s bohemia, but soon even their paradise begins to show cracks.
Told in vibrant, quicksilver prose, The Falconer provides a vivid snapshot of the city’s youth as they grapple with privilege and the fading of radical hopes, and paints a captivating portrait of a young woman in the first flush of freedom.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. In the first few pages, we are introduced to the protagonist as she plays basketball. Describe how the author uses this physical scene to bring us into Lucy’s inner world. What does the description illuminate about the experience of playing sports as a woman? What does basketball mea
n to Lucy in particular?
2. The third chapter begins with snapshots of the Lower East Side of the 1990s as Lucy perceives it. Does her description of the city remind you of the New York you know today? Why or why not? And how does this break in the narrative serve the larger story?
3. In that same chapter, Lucy tells Violet the story of how she got the white scar on her lip, a self-inflicted attempt to imitate the pretty scar that her classmate Lauren Moon got from a split lip. What does this revelation say about Lucy’s self-perception versus how she believes her peers see her? What do you make of Violet’s comment that even self-inflicted scars are earned?
4. Privilege plays an important role in the story and means something different for each character. Discuss what it means for Lucy, Percy, Alexis, and Violet; how it influences their choices and ways of being; and how being the children of Baby Boomers figures into all of this.
5. Why does Lucy admire the Falconer statue? What is its significance?
6. After her makeover at Percy’s house, Lucy asks Brent’s girlfriend, Kim: “Do you ever think makeup is a signifier of our inferiority?” Examine their conversation. With whom do you agree, and why?
7. After being hit in the face at a basketball game, Lucy takes a moment to herself in the bathroom before leaving the gym. Why does she decide to leave?
8. Lucy and Percy’s dynamic changes over the course of one transformative night. Describe how the author presents the scene to us. What’s running through Lucy’s mind in this moment? How does Lucy’s perception of love and of Percy change?
9. Lucy spends New Year’s Eve with Alexis at a diner where they share their favorite moments of the past year. Alexis observes that “we’re both chasing a feeling of weightlessness.” What do you think she means? What else does Lucy learn about her friend that night?
10. Examine Lucy and her mother’s frank conversation about motherhood. How does it pertain to today’s discussions about feminism, and how do generational differences play into their exchange?
11. Compare Lucy and Percy’s relationship at the beginning of the book to their relationship as it stands at the end. What has been lost, and what gained?
12. Trace Lucy’s character development throughout the book. What does she learn about herself and what she wants? How do you feel about the ending? What do you think Lucy’s future will be like?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. New York comes alive in The Falconer because Lucy relies on all five senses to describe her city. In your own words, try to describe your hometown or city as you perceive it.
2. Lucy’s observations are often full of musicality and precocious insight. Which lines stuck out to you the most?
3. How would you describe your own coming of age in comparison to Lucy’s? Lucy’s solace throughout the book is basketball. What was yours? Discuss.
4. Lucy is seen reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Read this novel in your book club and discuss how it might relate to The Falconer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANA CZAPNIK is a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction at the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2017, she was awarded an Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Center for Fiction. Czapnik earned her MFA at Hunter College, where she was recognized with a Hertog Fellowship. She’s spent most of her career on the editorial side of professional sports, including stints at ESPN The Magazine, the United States Tennis Association, and the Arena Football League. A native New Yorker, she lives in Manhattan with her husband and son.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Dana Czapnik
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First Atria Books hardcover edition January 2019
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Interior design by Alison Cnockaert
Jacket art and design by Lynn Buckley
Author photograph © Sylvie Rosokoff
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Czapnik, Dana, author.
Title: The falconer / by Dana Czapnik.
Description: First Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Atria Books, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018010866 (print) | LCCN 2018013923 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501193248 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501193224 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501193231 (trade pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Teenage girls—Fiction. | GSAFD: Bildungsroman
Classification: LCC PS3603.Z823 (ebook) | LCC PS3603.Z823 F35 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010866
ISBN 978-1-5011-9322-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-9324-8 (ebook)