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Restoration Heights
A debut novel about a young artist, a missing woman, and the tendrils of wealth and power that link the art scene in Brooklyn to Manhattan’s elite, for fans of Jonathan Lethem and Richard Price
Reddick, a young, white artist, lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically black Brooklyn neighborhood besieged by gentrification. He makes rent as an art handler, hanging expensive works for Manhattan’s one percent, and spends his free time playing basketball at the local Y rather than putting energy into his stagnating career. He is also the last person to see Hannah before she disappears.
When Hannah’s fiancé, scion to an old-money Upper East Side family, refuses to call the police, Reddick sets out to learn for himself what happened to her. The search gives him a sense of purpose, pulling him through a dramatic cross section of the city he never knew existed. The truth of Hannah’s fate is buried at the heart of a many-layered mystery that, in its unraveling, shakes Reddick’s convictions and lays bare the complicated machinations of money and power that connect the magisterial town houses of the Upper East Side to the unassuming brownstones of Bed-Stuy.
Restoration Heights is both a page-turning mystery and an in-depth study of the psychological fallout and deep racial tensions that result from economic inequality and unrestricted urban development. In lyrical, addictive prose, Wil Medearis asks the question: In a city that prides itself on its diversity and inclusivity, who has the final say over the future? Is it long-standing residents, recent transplants or whoever happens to have the most money? Timely, thought-provoking and sweeping in vision, Restoration Heights is an exhilarating new entry in the canon of great Brooklyn novels.
Reddick, a young, white artist, lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically black Brooklyn neighborhood besieged by gentrification. He makes rent as an art handler, hanging expensive works for Manhattan’s one percent, and spends his free time playing basketball at the local Y rather than putting energy into his stagnating career. He is also the last person to see Hannah before she disappears.
When Hannah’s fiancé, scion to an old-money Upper East Side family, refuses to call the police, Reddick sets out to learn for himself what happened to her. The search gives him a sense of purpose, pulling him through a dramatic cross section of the city he never knew existed. The truth of Hannah’s fate is buried at the heart of a many-layered mystery that, in its unraveling, shakes Reddick’s convictions and lays bare the complicated machinations of money and power that connect the magisterial town houses of the Upper East Side to the unassuming brownstones of Bed-Stuy.
Restoration Heights is both a page-turning mystery and an in-depth study of the psychological fallout and deep racial tensions that result from economic inequality and unrestricted urban development. In lyrical, addictive prose, Wil Medearis asks the question: In a city that prides itself on its diversity and inclusivity, who has the final say over the future? Is it long-standing residents, recent transplants or whoever happens to have the most money? Timely, thought-provoking and sweeping in vision, Restoration Heights is an exhilarating new entry in the canon of great Brooklyn novels.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 22, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
February 3, 2019
A compelling mystery peppered with a generous amount of social issues and art!
This was a well-crafted debut that really dissected the social issues impacting New York City... Full disclosure I do not live in New York, I have never been to New York, I probably will never go to New York, I live on the other side of the country in good old southern California where we have our own set of issues.... obviously we have a lot of the same social and racial issues, we are also a melting pot, however the LA area is very spread out and from what I can tell NYC is not.... all this is to say if you are a New Yorker or familiar with the area I think this book will resonate with you a bit more than it did me... that’s not to say I did not enjoy the book, I really did, I really enjoyed the characters, I loved how the story was told, I appreciated the discussion of social issues without being preachy, and most of all I really found the mystery complex and compelling.... Wil Medearis has seamlessly woven together a book that will make you both think and feel...
Reddick is a white man living in a mostly black area of Brooklyn... this is where he is most comfortable and he is not a fan of the impending gentrification of the area... he is also a struggling artist currently working as an art handler... if you are like me and had no idea there was such an occupation, he would go to the homes of the very wealthy and hang their priceless artworks... while working in the home of a wealthy family he hears about a missing girl, and soon figures out he might be the last one to have seen her.... but what would the fiancé of such a wealthy man be doing at a party in his Brooklyn apartment building? And even more puzzling why is the fiancé not more concerned? not contacting the police? Reddick is like a dog with a bone, he will stop at nothing to figure out what happened to Hannah...
Reddick was very passionate about social and racial issues and sometimes it clouded his judgment when it came to figuring this mystery out... it also dictated him getting involved in the first place, it was never quite clear why he would care so much about a complete stranger, other than to prove that this wealthy family was up to no good.... fortunately he had many friends in his life to ground him and to bounce ideas off of... I also really liked how he used his art to try to solve the mystery...And as he got deeper into the mystery he learned that things are much more complex than they appear to be... the web of deceit knows no color!
A slow burning mystery full of well-crafted characters and some thought-provoking issues, absolutely recommend!
🎧🎧🎧 I can guarantee that the audiobook narration to this story definitely added to my enjoyment! Angelo Di Loreto has a stellar voice and really brought all these characters to life, Reddick in particular... he really painted a picture of the story with his voice! And extremely well done audio!
🎵🎵🎵 song running through my head! Lyrics to the song really have nothing to do with this book, however this really was the song running through my head, because it is set in Brooklyn
No sleep till,
Brooklyn!
Foot on the pedal
Never ever false metal
Engine running hotter than a boiling kettle
My job ain't a job
It's a damn good time
City to city I'm running my rhymes.
On location
Touring around the nation
Beastie Boys always on vacation
Itchy trigger finger
But a stable turntable
I do what I do best
Because I'm willing and able.
Ain't no faking
Your money I'm taking
Going coast to coast to watch all the girlies shaking.
While you're at the job working nine to five
The Beastie Boys at the Garden
Cold kickin' it live.
No sleep till
Another plane
Another train
Another bottle in the brain
Another girl
Another fight
Another drive all night.
Our manager's crazy
He always smokes dust
He's got his own room at the back of the bus....
Beastie Boys 1986
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZeXhC6...
*** A huge thank you to Harlequin and Harper Audio for my copy of this book ***
This was a well-crafted debut that really dissected the social issues impacting New York City... Full disclosure I do not live in New York, I have never been to New York, I probably will never go to New York, I live on the other side of the country in good old southern California where we have our own set of issues.... obviously we have a lot of the same social and racial issues, we are also a melting pot, however the LA area is very spread out and from what I can tell NYC is not.... all this is to say if you are a New Yorker or familiar with the area I think this book will resonate with you a bit more than it did me... that’s not to say I did not enjoy the book, I really did, I really enjoyed the characters, I loved how the story was told, I appreciated the discussion of social issues without being preachy, and most of all I really found the mystery complex and compelling.... Wil Medearis has seamlessly woven together a book that will make you both think and feel...
Reddick is a white man living in a mostly black area of Brooklyn... this is where he is most comfortable and he is not a fan of the impending gentrification of the area... he is also a struggling artist currently working as an art handler... if you are like me and had no idea there was such an occupation, he would go to the homes of the very wealthy and hang their priceless artworks... while working in the home of a wealthy family he hears about a missing girl, and soon figures out he might be the last one to have seen her.... but what would the fiancé of such a wealthy man be doing at a party in his Brooklyn apartment building? And even more puzzling why is the fiancé not more concerned? not contacting the police? Reddick is like a dog with a bone, he will stop at nothing to figure out what happened to Hannah...
Reddick was very passionate about social and racial issues and sometimes it clouded his judgment when it came to figuring this mystery out... it also dictated him getting involved in the first place, it was never quite clear why he would care so much about a complete stranger, other than to prove that this wealthy family was up to no good.... fortunately he had many friends in his life to ground him and to bounce ideas off of... I also really liked how he used his art to try to solve the mystery...And as he got deeper into the mystery he learned that things are much more complex than they appear to be... the web of deceit knows no color!
A slow burning mystery full of well-crafted characters and some thought-provoking issues, absolutely recommend!
🎧🎧🎧 I can guarantee that the audiobook narration to this story definitely added to my enjoyment! Angelo Di Loreto has a stellar voice and really brought all these characters to life, Reddick in particular... he really painted a picture of the story with his voice! And extremely well done audio!
🎵🎵🎵 song running through my head! Lyrics to the song really have nothing to do with this book, however this really was the song running through my head, because it is set in Brooklyn
No sleep till,
Brooklyn!
Foot on the pedal
Never ever false metal
Engine running hotter than a boiling kettle
My job ain't a job
It's a damn good time
City to city I'm running my rhymes.
On location
Touring around the nation
Beastie Boys always on vacation
Itchy trigger finger
But a stable turntable
I do what I do best
Because I'm willing and able.
Ain't no faking
Your money I'm taking
Going coast to coast to watch all the girlies shaking.
While you're at the job working nine to five
The Beastie Boys at the Garden
Cold kickin' it live.
No sleep till
Another plane
Another train
Another bottle in the brain
Another girl
Another fight
Another drive all night.
Our manager's crazy
He always smokes dust
He's got his own room at the back of the bus....
Beastie Boys 1986
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZeXhC6...
*** A huge thank you to Harlequin and Harper Audio for my copy of this book ***
February 25, 2019
4.5 stars!
The white kids will complain—another bullshit corporate condominium, destroying the neighborhood—but those same white kids will move in. I never thought I’d live in a place like this but, ugh, I need a dishwasher. And I hate laundromats. All my friends are here and besides, the design fits the neighborhood, not like those other buildings, plus a doorman. All the cachet of the neighborhood and none of the hassles. The guilty thrill of being surrounded by blackness without having to live like them. Not separate but unequal.
Wil Medearis’s debut novel, Restoration Heights, cleverly weaves together the lives of the wealthy and the destitute, the disenfranchised and the entitled, and the color lines between black and white into a sublimely realistic portrait of the class and race divisions in this country, as seen through the lens of gentrified Bed-Stuy, New York. More than that, though, this novel is a thrilling page-turner with a protagonist you can root for and supporting characters who aren’t often what they seem.
Leaving aside the summary of this novel, as the description blurb is wholly accurate, Restoration Heights was a delightfully surprising find for me. In many ways, it reminded me of Sam Graham-Felsen’s Green , published in 2018, in that it is a novel written by a young white man about the experiences of living in the middle of a mostly minority neighborhood. Medearis’s protagonist, Reddick, not only identifies with the neighborhood and feels wholly at home there, but he embarks on a search to find a missing woman he met only briefly the night before that ultimately forces him to confront his place within that neighborhood—and within society’s stone-set caste system as well. And as he explores economic disparities and racial tensions in the inner-city, Reddick, who constantly mentions his part African-American grandfather in innocent attempts at proving his authenticity, finds himself at the heart of a makeshift investigation of a young woman’s disappearance—a young woman who’s engaged to an old-money Upper East Side scion but is last seen drunk with two black men in Bed-Stuy. This such racial and class tensions in play, the stakes have never been higher.
I’ve got some sorry news. There is no people. That’s the hardest lesson this country taught me. It is the heart of my success. You want this to be a community but it’s only a territory. Individuals stuck in the same place, battered by the same forces.
Medearis shines in this debut as an emerging author who understands both the obvious and unspoken rules of various caste systems that converge in our society. He explores them skillfully through a fluid intermixing of characters who can use “slang so thick it bordered on code” side by side with those who own William Merritt Chase paintings and drink from Wedgwood cups. The way they brush against each other is both believable and simultaneously flushed with the acridity one would expect from such interactions. At the same time, Medearis does manage to bring something new to the table: He manages to both stun and thrill with unexpected plot twists and characters who are life-sized and realistic. While you’ll find a few well-known typecasts within these pages, Medearis manages to give them more dimension, life and bite; they never fall into the category of played-out stereotypes and that I appreciated. Restorations Heights offers addictive and authentic prose that moves in cadence with the realism of our everyday lives and interactions with the world around us, something I look for in contemporary writing. Thus, Wil Medearis won me over, and I give his debut novel 4.5 stars.
*I received a copy of this novel from the publisher, Hanover Square Press, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
The Navi Review Blog | Twitter | Instagram
The white kids will complain—another bullshit corporate condominium, destroying the neighborhood—but those same white kids will move in. I never thought I’d live in a place like this but, ugh, I need a dishwasher. And I hate laundromats. All my friends are here and besides, the design fits the neighborhood, not like those other buildings, plus a doorman. All the cachet of the neighborhood and none of the hassles. The guilty thrill of being surrounded by blackness without having to live like them. Not separate but unequal.
Wil Medearis’s debut novel, Restoration Heights, cleverly weaves together the lives of the wealthy and the destitute, the disenfranchised and the entitled, and the color lines between black and white into a sublimely realistic portrait of the class and race divisions in this country, as seen through the lens of gentrified Bed-Stuy, New York. More than that, though, this novel is a thrilling page-turner with a protagonist you can root for and supporting characters who aren’t often what they seem.
Leaving aside the summary of this novel, as the description blurb is wholly accurate, Restoration Heights was a delightfully surprising find for me. In many ways, it reminded me of Sam Graham-Felsen’s Green , published in 2018, in that it is a novel written by a young white man about the experiences of living in the middle of a mostly minority neighborhood. Medearis’s protagonist, Reddick, not only identifies with the neighborhood and feels wholly at home there, but he embarks on a search to find a missing woman he met only briefly the night before that ultimately forces him to confront his place within that neighborhood—and within society’s stone-set caste system as well. And as he explores economic disparities and racial tensions in the inner-city, Reddick, who constantly mentions his part African-American grandfather in innocent attempts at proving his authenticity, finds himself at the heart of a makeshift investigation of a young woman’s disappearance—a young woman who’s engaged to an old-money Upper East Side scion but is last seen drunk with two black men in Bed-Stuy. This such racial and class tensions in play, the stakes have never been higher.
I’ve got some sorry news. There is no people. That’s the hardest lesson this country taught me. It is the heart of my success. You want this to be a community but it’s only a territory. Individuals stuck in the same place, battered by the same forces.
Medearis shines in this debut as an emerging author who understands both the obvious and unspoken rules of various caste systems that converge in our society. He explores them skillfully through a fluid intermixing of characters who can use “slang so thick it bordered on code” side by side with those who own William Merritt Chase paintings and drink from Wedgwood cups. The way they brush against each other is both believable and simultaneously flushed with the acridity one would expect from such interactions. At the same time, Medearis does manage to bring something new to the table: He manages to both stun and thrill with unexpected plot twists and characters who are life-sized and realistic. While you’ll find a few well-known typecasts within these pages, Medearis manages to give them more dimension, life and bite; they never fall into the category of played-out stereotypes and that I appreciated. Restorations Heights offers addictive and authentic prose that moves in cadence with the realism of our everyday lives and interactions with the world around us, something I look for in contemporary writing. Thus, Wil Medearis won me over, and I give his debut novel 4.5 stars.
*I received a copy of this novel from the publisher, Hanover Square Press, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
The Navi Review Blog | Twitter | Instagram
February 26, 2019
Late one night in Bedford Stuyvesant, Reddick is approached by a very drunk young woman. Before he can send her home in a car she disappears into one of the apartments in his building. Reddick is an artist whose main source of income is his job as an art handler. The next day Reddick goes to an upper east side townhouse as part of a crew arranging and packing paintings for the wealthy Seward family. In an amazing coincidence, Reddick discovers that the young woman just happens to be the fiancé of Buckley Seward. Buckley seems mildly disturbed that Hannah seems to have disappeared, but the Seward family has no intention of calling the police. Reddick is then approached by one of the Seward’s neighbors who asks Reddick to try to find Hannah. Of course it makes perfect sense for some random neighbor to make this request of a total stranger who has no experience as a detective (and for the stranger to accept the mission).
Reddick runs around in circles trying to find Hannah and peppers his friends with wild speculations about her disappearance. Unfortunately, the stakes in this mystery turned out to be very low, and there was really no pay off at the end. My reaction to the conclusion was “so what”? The book does not have any compelling characters, but it has a lot of discussion about gentrification, real estate deals, racial stereotypes and basketball.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Reddick runs around in circles trying to find Hannah and peppers his friends with wild speculations about her disappearance. Unfortunately, the stakes in this mystery turned out to be very low, and there was really no pay off at the end. My reaction to the conclusion was “so what”? The book does not have any compelling characters, but it has a lot of discussion about gentrification, real estate deals, racial stereotypes and basketball.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
August 6, 2018
3.5 stars Thanks to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Publication Feb 1, 2019.
Hannah is missing!! Reddick was the last one to see her. This sits very heavy on his heart and mind. It consumes him. They are virtually strangers. He has let his own faltering career decline, he loses his job, he begins to lose friends. He is consumed with the disappearance of Hannah. He must find her. Is she buried under the new urban high rise being built? Just who is to blame - her fiancee or the man she is cheating with, who is a long time friend of her fiancee?
This story is so much more. It speaks to the decline of a black neighborhood and the separation of the middle and the wealthy classes. We see Reddick, a white man, living comfortably in an all black neighborhood, trying desperately to prevent the corporate world from redesigning and changing it's culture, while hitting a brick wall from both the developers and the neighborhood itself. We see the wealthy and the down trodden. We see the good in people and also the vile, reprehensible underworld.
This is not a mere mystery, but a mystery set in the present day upheaval of ethnic neighborhoods against corporate greed.
Hannah is missing!! Reddick was the last one to see her. This sits very heavy on his heart and mind. It consumes him. They are virtually strangers. He has let his own faltering career decline, he loses his job, he begins to lose friends. He is consumed with the disappearance of Hannah. He must find her. Is she buried under the new urban high rise being built? Just who is to blame - her fiancee or the man she is cheating with, who is a long time friend of her fiancee?
This story is so much more. It speaks to the decline of a black neighborhood and the separation of the middle and the wealthy classes. We see Reddick, a white man, living comfortably in an all black neighborhood, trying desperately to prevent the corporate world from redesigning and changing it's culture, while hitting a brick wall from both the developers and the neighborhood itself. We see the wealthy and the down trodden. We see the good in people and also the vile, reprehensible underworld.
This is not a mere mystery, but a mystery set in the present day upheaval of ethnic neighborhoods against corporate greed.
March 12, 2019
#Many thanks to Netgalley, the author, and Hanover Square Press for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
An evenly-paced debut mystery that wraps commentary about gentrification, racial bias, and economic gaps around a thrilling plot headlined by a likable, complex protagonist.
I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. The book was well-developed and intriguing. It could have perhaps benefited from an epilogue, but even in its absence, the book didn't suffer.
4 stars to this gritty debut novel with heart.
An evenly-paced debut mystery that wraps commentary about gentrification, racial bias, and economic gaps around a thrilling plot headlined by a likable, complex protagonist.
I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. The book was well-developed and intriguing. It could have perhaps benefited from an epilogue, but even in its absence, the book didn't suffer.
4 stars to this gritty debut novel with heart.
August 8, 2018
This was a hard book for me to get through because I just couldn’t get into it. I appreciated the narrative on race relations and Reddick’s relationship to the city and the mystery was sort of interesting, but it felt like two completely different stories. I would forget what was happening with the mystery while I was slogging through something like Reddick playing basketball. Also, I’ve never been to New York City and it felt like some things relied heavily on having some sort of background knowledge of how the city works. I’ve ready plenty of books about places I’ve never been to without any issues, but I had to look up several things just to know what was going on.
Shelved as 'soon-to-be-read'
June 25, 2018Wow, I'm really happy that I got an ARC of this!
October 25, 2019
An old school mystery with a thoroughly modern vibe set against the back drop of the glittery art scene in a gentrifying New York City.
August 28, 2021
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Restoration Heights is a difficult book to review. On the one hand, I didn't dislike it, yet, I didn't make me feel much of anything. The narration is rather cold, which creates a distance between the reader and the characters, and the mystery itself...well it resembled a prolonged meandering from A to B and back again.
The story focuses on Reddick, a thirty-something, white artist, who lives in a historically black Brooklyn neighbourhood. He makes his living as an art handler, working for the people he despises the most: the rich.
The day after he crosses paths with a young drunk woman, he discovers that she is 1) Hannah, the fiancé of the son of one of the wealthiest family in the city and 2) she has gone missing.
Feeling responsible, and seeing that no one else seems worried for her, he undergoes an investigation of his own.
In spite of Reddick's obsessive search for Hannah, this story didn't strike me as being a mystery or an amateur detective type of story. Yes, he 'interviews' people, he concocts wild scenarios in which Hannah was killed because of this or that...most of Reddick's friends tell him to drop it but he isstupidly determined to find the truth. The trails he follows were boring and often had little to do with Hannah.
A large part of this novel revolves long conversations/discussions that Reddick has with his 'friends'. From gentrification, race and class biases, definitions of 'privilege' and or the benefits and limitations created by 'labels'....these could be interesting interactions. Often however, I felt that I was reading a social commentary on New York —and the United States— rather than a piece of fiction. It was almost didactical: person A offers one view, person B offers another, person C agrees with both A and B...it felt contrived at times.
I love novels that have a great sense of place and time but in Restoration Heights these seemed almost overwhelming. Reddick is constantly going on about Restoration Heights —a new housing development— and even before he has any actual evidence he believes that Hannah's disappearance is connected to this development. The buildings and Reddick's various surroundings are rendered in a rather methodical way. Yes, we know what the structure of Reddick's neighbourhood but other places he visits in his 'investigation' but they didn't strike me as vividly as they should have, especially given the page-time the author spends on them. Barbara Vine, one of my favourite authors, who writes a very different sort of crime, breathes life into her buildings/houses. Given that Restoration Heights is narrated in such an unemotional manner I found that both its characters and its location lacked life.
Once I adapted to the impersonal writing style, it was easier for me to keep reading. I can't say that I was ever invested in the storyline or affected by any of the characters but there were occasional observations (often relating to a painting) that really stood out.
If you can look past a pointless mystery, or if you enjoy using google maps, well, look no further.
Maybe American readers will find the novel's setting and social commentary more engaging than I did.
Restoration Heights is a difficult book to review. On the one hand, I didn't dislike it, yet, I didn't make me feel much of anything. The narration is rather cold, which creates a distance between the reader and the characters, and the mystery itself...well it resembled a prolonged meandering from A to B and back again.
The story focuses on Reddick, a thirty-something, white artist, who lives in a historically black Brooklyn neighbourhood. He makes his living as an art handler, working for the people he despises the most: the rich.
The day after he crosses paths with a young drunk woman, he discovers that she is 1) Hannah, the fiancé of the son of one of the wealthiest family in the city and 2) she has gone missing.
Feeling responsible, and seeing that no one else seems worried for her, he undergoes an investigation of his own.
In spite of Reddick's obsessive search for Hannah, this story didn't strike me as being a mystery or an amateur detective type of story. Yes, he 'interviews' people, he concocts wild scenarios in which Hannah was killed because of this or that...most of Reddick's friends tell him to drop it but he is
A large part of this novel revolves long conversations/discussions that Reddick has with his 'friends'. From gentrification, race and class biases, definitions of 'privilege' and or the benefits and limitations created by 'labels'....these could be interesting interactions. Often however, I felt that I was reading a social commentary on New York —and the United States— rather than a piece of fiction. It was almost didactical: person A offers one view, person B offers another, person C agrees with both A and B...it felt contrived at times.
I love novels that have a great sense of place and time but in Restoration Heights these seemed almost overwhelming. Reddick is constantly going on about Restoration Heights —a new housing development— and even before he has any actual evidence he believes that Hannah's disappearance is connected to this development. The buildings and Reddick's various surroundings are rendered in a rather methodical way. Yes, we know what the structure of Reddick's neighbourhood but other places he visits in his 'investigation' but they didn't strike me as vividly as they should have, especially given the page-time the author spends on them. Barbara Vine, one of my favourite authors, who writes a very different sort of crime, breathes life into her buildings/houses. Given that Restoration Heights is narrated in such an unemotional manner I found that both its characters and its location lacked life.
Once I adapted to the impersonal writing style, it was easier for me to keep reading. I can't say that I was ever invested in the storyline or affected by any of the characters but there were occasional observations (often relating to a painting) that really stood out.
If you can look past a pointless mystery, or if you enjoy using google maps, well, look no further.
Maybe American readers will find the novel's setting and social commentary more engaging than I did.
December 13, 2022
Flip-flopped on this one a bit. The plot was sort of weak and not a lot happened. Was a bit of a setup to talk about issues of racism and class. That was interesting but felt a bit forced. Hard topics to engage through fiction - some of the discussions between characters felt too forced, but still worth the read I think.
June 19, 2018
Restoration Heights is a mystery novel that is of interest to anyone who has ever wanted to help someone. In his debut mystery novel Wil Medearis introduces us to Reddick, a young white artist turned detective in a historical black Brooklyn neighbourhood. Reddick’s imagination leads him in many directions when he decides against everyone’s advice to help a young woman he believes has been kidnapped and possibly murdered.
Reddick is an unfulfilled artist who works crating and moving other people’s art and hanging it on other’s people’s walls. One night, while taking out the garbage, he is approached by a young woman who makes a pass at him and then quickly disappears. The next day while working in the mansion of one of the richest families in the world he realizes that the same girl is the fiancé of his client’s son. When he sets off the alarm the family tells him there is nothing to worry about. Regardless, Reddick just can’t stop thinking about the young woman and the search begins. He is basically taken down two paths one where he mingles with the rich who insist he doesn’t belong and the other where he wallows in the underbelly of criminal society, which threatens to cause him harm. All the time he is asking himself “Where is the girl?”
I really enjoyed the protagonist in the story. Reddick truly wants to help but he is an inexperience detective. When he bounces ideas off his friends they all say, “Stop this or you will get yourself killed!” He goes down many tracks and has to backtrack many times when his basic assumptions prove wrong. He is not brilliant or exceptionally tough. He just wants to help. He could be anyone of us. What’s not to love about this guy?
The story is exceptional. We are introduced to the clash of the world of artists who are just getting by and the world of real estate, which threatens their existence. Has their been a crime? Who is the criminal? Shouldn’t the police be called? All these questions come up continuously and few of them are answered until the end of the book. I highly recommend this book to those that love a good story with lots of interesting characters and strong character development.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for providing me with a copy of this excellent book in exchange for a fair review.
Reddick is an unfulfilled artist who works crating and moving other people’s art and hanging it on other’s people’s walls. One night, while taking out the garbage, he is approached by a young woman who makes a pass at him and then quickly disappears. The next day while working in the mansion of one of the richest families in the world he realizes that the same girl is the fiancé of his client’s son. When he sets off the alarm the family tells him there is nothing to worry about. Regardless, Reddick just can’t stop thinking about the young woman and the search begins. He is basically taken down two paths one where he mingles with the rich who insist he doesn’t belong and the other where he wallows in the underbelly of criminal society, which threatens to cause him harm. All the time he is asking himself “Where is the girl?”
I really enjoyed the protagonist in the story. Reddick truly wants to help but he is an inexperience detective. When he bounces ideas off his friends they all say, “Stop this or you will get yourself killed!” He goes down many tracks and has to backtrack many times when his basic assumptions prove wrong. He is not brilliant or exceptionally tough. He just wants to help. He could be anyone of us. What’s not to love about this guy?
The story is exceptional. We are introduced to the clash of the world of artists who are just getting by and the world of real estate, which threatens their existence. Has their been a crime? Who is the criminal? Shouldn’t the police be called? All these questions come up continuously and few of them are answered until the end of the book. I highly recommend this book to those that love a good story with lots of interesting characters and strong character development.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for providing me with a copy of this excellent book in exchange for a fair review.
August 20, 2018
Reddick worked as an art handler and spent his free time playing basketball at the Y, ignored his own painting career. On a winter’s night in his Brooklyn neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesan, a young blond woman, drunk, followed Reddick into an alley and invited him to kiss her. He declined, offering instead to get her a ride home. Before he could call a car, she disappeared into his apartment building, apparently returning to a party that she’d momentarily escaped. The next day, he mined the story for laughs until a coworker reminded him that a woman went missing under similar circumstances in Coney Island a few years earlier and her body had been found on the beach. He began questioning his inaction, worrying about the fate of the girl.
That day he was working with a crew dismantling and installing art at the home of the Seward family, one of the wealthiest families in the country and a patron of the arts. While at their home, he learns the woman he encountered the night before was Hannah, the fiancee of Buckley Seward, the family’s only child. He was eager to share his information, but the family was hostile, demanding he refrain from contacting them about Hannah or going to the police hardly veiling that they would have him fired if he disobeyed.
Aghast at their reaction and convinced Hannah was in peril if not dead, Reddick began his own investigation. As he uncovered the layers of relationships in the Seward family and among Buckley’s friends, he confronted the scourge of gentrification in his neighborhood, the specter of a mysterious crime boss, The Genie, and his own racial identity.
Something about the book grabbed me, and I stayed up almost all night reading it. I enjoyed the writing style and was invested not just in the mystery of Hannah’s disappearance but in the question of Reddick’s investment in the case. The characters engaged in difficult and honest questions about race, class, and privilege. Fittingly, these themes were never resolved but offered continual touchpoints throughout the novel. The book also returns to the idea of biases that distort the truth, and Reddick must confront his own assumptions as he unfurls the connections between Hannah, his neighborhood, and the elite world of the Sewards.
In the vein of Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda, Restoration Heights vividly evokes a Brooklyn neighborhood and its class and racial tensions. Wrapped in the guise of a mystery, Restoration Heights delivers much more.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hanover Square Press for providing an advance electronic reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.
That day he was working with a crew dismantling and installing art at the home of the Seward family, one of the wealthiest families in the country and a patron of the arts. While at their home, he learns the woman he encountered the night before was Hannah, the fiancee of Buckley Seward, the family’s only child. He was eager to share his information, but the family was hostile, demanding he refrain from contacting them about Hannah or going to the police hardly veiling that they would have him fired if he disobeyed.
Aghast at their reaction and convinced Hannah was in peril if not dead, Reddick began his own investigation. As he uncovered the layers of relationships in the Seward family and among Buckley’s friends, he confronted the scourge of gentrification in his neighborhood, the specter of a mysterious crime boss, The Genie, and his own racial identity.
Something about the book grabbed me, and I stayed up almost all night reading it. I enjoyed the writing style and was invested not just in the mystery of Hannah’s disappearance but in the question of Reddick’s investment in the case. The characters engaged in difficult and honest questions about race, class, and privilege. Fittingly, these themes were never resolved but offered continual touchpoints throughout the novel. The book also returns to the idea of biases that distort the truth, and Reddick must confront his own assumptions as he unfurls the connections between Hannah, his neighborhood, and the elite world of the Sewards.
In the vein of Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda, Restoration Heights vividly evokes a Brooklyn neighborhood and its class and racial tensions. Wrapped in the guise of a mystery, Restoration Heights delivers much more.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hanover Square Press for providing an advance electronic reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 21, 2018
*** 4 Stars ***
Reddick is an artist, working as an art handler, and living in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Hannah is a girl that goes missing and Reddick is the last person to see her, when he randomly meets her one night outside his building while taking out the trash. Issues between race and economic classes arise throughout this book during Reddick's work to find out what has happened to Hannah. I really enjoyed this book, there were definitely some slow parts and not a ton of action, but the ending picked up and brought everything together well, providing closure. I loved the character development and writing style. Some parts were a little wordy and could have been simplified but overall I really liked this book and would recommend it.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for this advance read copy in exchange for an honest review.
Reddick is an artist, working as an art handler, and living in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Hannah is a girl that goes missing and Reddick is the last person to see her, when he randomly meets her one night outside his building while taking out the trash. Issues between race and economic classes arise throughout this book during Reddick's work to find out what has happened to Hannah. I really enjoyed this book, there were definitely some slow parts and not a ton of action, but the ending picked up and brought everything together well, providing closure. I loved the character development and writing style. Some parts were a little wordy and could have been simplified but overall I really liked this book and would recommend it.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for this advance read copy in exchange for an honest review.
July 11, 2018
For the past ten years there have been many novels written about the encroaching gentrification of formerly run down New York neighborhoods, with varying results. Mostly they concern residents who were holdovers from an earlier day when the area rents were affordable, and their efforts to hold onto their homes, realizing their days under rent control were numbered and they'd be hard put to find a new place. Wil Medaris has kicked it up a notch by throwing in a mystery.
Reddick, his protagonist who is a stalled artist working for a company that stores and hangs art collections of the 1%, finds himself an unlikely detective in trying to find what happened to a missing girl. We are given insights into building sites in Bed/Stuy, concrete office buildings in Williamsburg, and 5 story townhouses in the upper East Side of Manhattan. But Brooklyn is ground zero, and I particularly liked descriptions of the artist collectives as well as Reddick's thoughts as he relaxed shooting hoops. As housing becomes harder and harder for the urban resident to attain and retain, anyone who has been in a bidding war will recognize the situation. But Reddick who is 1/4 African American but bears white skin, blond hair, shares an identity crisis with his neighborhood, My 3 start rating is due to the fact that the book, while intriguing and raising many contemporary issues, is quite repetitive and could have been trimmed by at least a 1/3.
Reddick, his protagonist who is a stalled artist working for a company that stores and hangs art collections of the 1%, finds himself an unlikely detective in trying to find what happened to a missing girl. We are given insights into building sites in Bed/Stuy, concrete office buildings in Williamsburg, and 5 story townhouses in the upper East Side of Manhattan. But Brooklyn is ground zero, and I particularly liked descriptions of the artist collectives as well as Reddick's thoughts as he relaxed shooting hoops. As housing becomes harder and harder for the urban resident to attain and retain, anyone who has been in a bidding war will recognize the situation. But Reddick who is 1/4 African American but bears white skin, blond hair, shares an identity crisis with his neighborhood, My 3 start rating is due to the fact that the book, while intriguing and raising many contemporary issues, is quite repetitive and could have been trimmed by at least a 1/3.
December 24, 2018
Once you accept the New-York coincidence (the fact that the Upper West Side fiancé is last seen outside Reddick’s Bed Stuy apartment building), the reader can enjoy Medearis’s very good writing. In Restoration Heights, he provides searing commentary on gentrification, on athletes, on white rage, on the art community, and education vs experience. It is a good mystery that provides more than just a hunt for the plot’s truth. With a quick nod to Mosely, Medearis is a writer to be followed.
For my full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2018/12/22/re...
For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog/
For my full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2018/12/22/re...
For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog/
June 28, 2019
Interesting setting. Confusing plot lines. Ludicrous reasoning behind Reddick’s role as ‘detective’.
July 6, 2018
Will Medearis’s debut novel, Restoration Heights, brings a new angle to the existing canon of whudunnit mysteries: race. Where mystery writers of yore infuse glamor and intrigue, Medearis focuses on gentrification and racial bias. A story like his holds huge potential to engage a wide audience; unfortunately, the plot of Restoration Heights falls short in translating its social focus to its murder-mystery plot.
Reddick is that guy “you know.” He’s an average-looking, a-few-years-over-thirty white guy who has been a native of Bed-Stuy for nearly a decade. He’s led an unremarkable life, that is, until he meets a woman named Hannah. One evening’s strange encounter sparks a massive pivot in Reddick’s life: he goes from being an art handler/artist to a full-fledged investigator looking into Hannah’s disappearance. Reddick holds rather tightly to the idea Hannah has been murdered, which sends him spiraling down a series of poor decisions, ranging from breaking laws and into apartments to alienating himself from most of his friends. Everyone, including Hannah’s soon-to-be in-laws��who Reddick also happens to work for—lacks confidence in his ability to prove the involvement of foul play, but Reddick feels it is his duty to Hannah to find the truth.
Interspersed in Reddick’s questionable investigative practices are conversations about art, class, and race. The first signs of gentrification arrive in Bed-Stuy a few years prior, but the book’s namesake construction project, Restoration Heights, threatens the entire fabric of the community. Tensions are high, protests abound, and bitterness percolates among most Bed-Stuy natives.
With juice bars and cycle classes looming, Medearis uses the community’s forced transition to discuss the obvious racial implications of the situation at hand. Reddick’s own story almost always permeates these conversations; he constantly makes references to the fact that he was the only white kid in his neighborhood growing up, and that he feels more comfortable among black people than white people (he even jokes a number of times about how his “grandfather was black” at the beginning of the novel). To Medearis’s credit, he covers a lot of ground when it comes to talking about privilege and oppression, but he fails to form a strong connection between these conversations and the murder case itself, thus weakening both aspects of the story. The race motif is related to Hannah’s disappearance only in the form of the suspects tied to the case; two are white and two are black. Other than this fact, Medearis’s larger conversation on race is, unfortunately, largely forced.
Restoration Heights may be the first step towards creating a twenty-first century whodunnit, one that carries a social focus in addition to classic detective work. In this case, the novel’s murder-mystery plot does not sustain its relationship to Medearis’s diligent social commentary. What’s left is a disjointed text with unbelievable information, dialogue, and characters. Despite the worthy attempt, the execution simply falls short of what readers will want to see.
Reddick is that guy “you know.” He’s an average-looking, a-few-years-over-thirty white guy who has been a native of Bed-Stuy for nearly a decade. He’s led an unremarkable life, that is, until he meets a woman named Hannah. One evening’s strange encounter sparks a massive pivot in Reddick’s life: he goes from being an art handler/artist to a full-fledged investigator looking into Hannah’s disappearance. Reddick holds rather tightly to the idea Hannah has been murdered, which sends him spiraling down a series of poor decisions, ranging from breaking laws and into apartments to alienating himself from most of his friends. Everyone, including Hannah’s soon-to-be in-laws��who Reddick also happens to work for—lacks confidence in his ability to prove the involvement of foul play, but Reddick feels it is his duty to Hannah to find the truth.
Interspersed in Reddick’s questionable investigative practices are conversations about art, class, and race. The first signs of gentrification arrive in Bed-Stuy a few years prior, but the book’s namesake construction project, Restoration Heights, threatens the entire fabric of the community. Tensions are high, protests abound, and bitterness percolates among most Bed-Stuy natives.
With juice bars and cycle classes looming, Medearis uses the community’s forced transition to discuss the obvious racial implications of the situation at hand. Reddick’s own story almost always permeates these conversations; he constantly makes references to the fact that he was the only white kid in his neighborhood growing up, and that he feels more comfortable among black people than white people (he even jokes a number of times about how his “grandfather was black” at the beginning of the novel). To Medearis’s credit, he covers a lot of ground when it comes to talking about privilege and oppression, but he fails to form a strong connection between these conversations and the murder case itself, thus weakening both aspects of the story. The race motif is related to Hannah’s disappearance only in the form of the suspects tied to the case; two are white and two are black. Other than this fact, Medearis’s larger conversation on race is, unfortunately, largely forced.
Restoration Heights may be the first step towards creating a twenty-first century whodunnit, one that carries a social focus in addition to classic detective work. In this case, the novel’s murder-mystery plot does not sustain its relationship to Medearis’s diligent social commentary. What’s left is a disjointed text with unbelievable information, dialogue, and characters. Despite the worthy attempt, the execution simply falls short of what readers will want to see.
June 25, 2018
**Netgalley free copy received.
Rating: 3.4 / 5
"The guilty thrill of being surrounded by blackness without having to live like them. Not separate but unequal...The truth was that it looked like a good place to hide a body."
It's little snippets of description like this, as well as the character of Reddick himself, that make this a quick and relatively enjoyable read. To be honest, not exactly my cup of tea as much as I thought it would be based on the summary, but good enough to enjoy over an afternoon of literal tea.
The story starts off with Reddick, more or less an everyman sort of character, a white artist living in Restoration Heights--aka white people's building in a mostly-black neighborhood. (Not sure if it's all black, because it's described as "mixed", but since Reddick himself is "mixed" but looks all-white, I'm not sure if there are mixed messages with this, but oh well.) Anyways, he's walking along, minding his own business and tossing out his garbage in an alley, when crazy-drunk girl Hannah starts flirting(?) with him, goes into the building to a "party", and is never seen again.
Flash-forward to the next morning, and Reddick is trying to explain things to the girl's fiance and his family, but, being rich, snobby, and "I'm too superior to listen to you", Reddick ends up being spurred by said rich family's neighbor(?) Mrs. Leland instead, both interested in the bare principles of "what's wrong and right". So...justice.
Anyway, the story follows Reddick in his pursuit of finding out what happens to Hannah, and, as promised, the journey does shake his morals and fundamentals, even gets the reader thinking as well. The entire story takes place over approximately a nine-day period, but at times, it feels longer than that. Because of this, the fact that the ending was....yeah, not at all something that I enjoyed in this context (though I have liked those sorts of endings in other works), and also that I wasn't always sure what was happening or the who's-who (description wasn't always clear in this book, like the author expected us to already know some details, either that or the details weren't deserving of more description, in which case I think he might have left them out altogether), while I do think this book deserves perhaps a one-time read, I don't see myself going back to it necessarily, or even recommending it. If it's someone else's cup of tea though, I guarantee you'll find something in it to love.
With that being said, I'd actually like to quote the very last line of the book in describing my feelings about this as being distinct overall: "...was surrounded by them, consumed--you look and look but you'll never see the difference."
So....another book.
Rating: 3.4 / 5
"The guilty thrill of being surrounded by blackness without having to live like them. Not separate but unequal...The truth was that it looked like a good place to hide a body."
It's little snippets of description like this, as well as the character of Reddick himself, that make this a quick and relatively enjoyable read. To be honest, not exactly my cup of tea as much as I thought it would be based on the summary, but good enough to enjoy over an afternoon of literal tea.
The story starts off with Reddick, more or less an everyman sort of character, a white artist living in Restoration Heights--aka white people's building in a mostly-black neighborhood. (Not sure if it's all black, because it's described as "mixed", but since Reddick himself is "mixed" but looks all-white, I'm not sure if there are mixed messages with this, but oh well.) Anyways, he's walking along, minding his own business and tossing out his garbage in an alley, when crazy-drunk girl Hannah starts flirting(?) with him, goes into the building to a "party", and is never seen again.
Flash-forward to the next morning, and Reddick is trying to explain things to the girl's fiance and his family, but, being rich, snobby, and "I'm too superior to listen to you", Reddick ends up being spurred by said rich family's neighbor(?) Mrs. Leland instead, both interested in the bare principles of "what's wrong and right". So...justice.
Anyway, the story follows Reddick in his pursuit of finding out what happens to Hannah, and, as promised, the journey does shake his morals and fundamentals, even gets the reader thinking as well. The entire story takes place over approximately a nine-day period, but at times, it feels longer than that. Because of this, the fact that the ending was....yeah, not at all something that I enjoyed in this context (though I have liked those sorts of endings in other works), and also that I wasn't always sure what was happening or the who's-who (description wasn't always clear in this book, like the author expected us to already know some details, either that or the details weren't deserving of more description, in which case I think he might have left them out altogether), while I do think this book deserves perhaps a one-time read, I don't see myself going back to it necessarily, or even recommending it. If it's someone else's cup of tea though, I guarantee you'll find something in it to love.
With that being said, I'd actually like to quote the very last line of the book in describing my feelings about this as being distinct overall: "...was surrounded by them, consumed--you look and look but you'll never see the difference."
So....another book.
July 27, 2018
The story opens with Reddick making a chance acquaintance with an inebriated woman as he steps outside into the alley to set out his trash. Although she's willing to follow him inside into his Brooklyn apartment, he urges her to go back to the party that she left. He watches as she's guided inside.
A struggling artist, Reddick earns his living working for a company that hangs art work inside the homes of wealthy clients. There he learns that the wealthy client's son is distraught that his fiance Hannah is missing. When Reddick sees her picture he realizes that the blonde he met in the alley is Hannah.
This begins a quest in which Reddick is compelled to find either the girl or discover what happened to her. The setting is Bedford-Stuyvesant and Restoration Heights is a gentrification project that's changing the community. The story focuses on the consequences of gentrification for the community and the problems with racial stereotypes. An underlying theme centers on Reddick's lack of enthusiasm for his own career. Between spending time shooting hoops at the Y and obsessing over Hannah's plight and investigating his own theories of what might have happened, he's eventually forced to consider his own future as well as the future of a rapidly changing community.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it a great addition to my collection of books exploring Brooklyn's sociological history.
A struggling artist, Reddick earns his living working for a company that hangs art work inside the homes of wealthy clients. There he learns that the wealthy client's son is distraught that his fiance Hannah is missing. When Reddick sees her picture he realizes that the blonde he met in the alley is Hannah.
This begins a quest in which Reddick is compelled to find either the girl or discover what happened to her. The setting is Bedford-Stuyvesant and Restoration Heights is a gentrification project that's changing the community. The story focuses on the consequences of gentrification for the community and the problems with racial stereotypes. An underlying theme centers on Reddick's lack of enthusiasm for his own career. Between spending time shooting hoops at the Y and obsessing over Hannah's plight and investigating his own theories of what might have happened, he's eventually forced to consider his own future as well as the future of a rapidly changing community.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it a great addition to my collection of books exploring Brooklyn's sociological history.
January 4, 2019
Please do not be influenced by blurbs comparing this novel to Richard Price or Jay McInerney. There's no way. "Restoration Heights" has an unconvincing premise uncomfortably blended with gentrification angst that make it hard to struggle through.
Reddick is an artist living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant. neighborhood of Brooklyn, working as an art handler, moving and rehanging the art collections of very wealthy people. On his latest job, he realizes that the fiancee of the family scion is missing and that he, Reddick, may have been the last person to see her. Another uber-wealthy family asks him to look into what might have happened--why they would ask him to do this makes no sense: he's someone who packs and hangs art, not someone who is connected with anything or anyone.
Reddick becomes obsessed with his search, losing his job, his friends, and almost his mind. He turns up a few surprising things and learns something about his neighborhood that he didn't expect.
What I did like is that Wil Medearis spreads the gentrification anxiety around, with some of the African-American characters being its biggest supporters. There's no simple solution to the changes sweeping so many neighborhoods, and it was good to see a wealth of opinions represented.
Reddick is an artist living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant. neighborhood of Brooklyn, working as an art handler, moving and rehanging the art collections of very wealthy people. On his latest job, he realizes that the fiancee of the family scion is missing and that he, Reddick, may have been the last person to see her. Another uber-wealthy family asks him to look into what might have happened--why they would ask him to do this makes no sense: he's someone who packs and hangs art, not someone who is connected with anything or anyone.
Reddick becomes obsessed with his search, losing his job, his friends, and almost his mind. He turns up a few surprising things and learns something about his neighborhood that he didn't expect.
What I did like is that Wil Medearis spreads the gentrification anxiety around, with some of the African-American characters being its biggest supporters. There's no simple solution to the changes sweeping so many neighborhoods, and it was good to see a wealth of opinions represented.
May 22, 2018
Those of us living in the ever changing, gentrifying environs of New York City will easily be pulled into this very odd mystery revolving around the obsessive search for a mysterious young woman who may have been killed.
The main character, Reddick becomes submerged in his search for Hannah, who he believes might be the victim of a crime. His search takes the reader through the hipster art community, the homes of the wealthy and the issues surrounding gentrification and displacement in many neighborhoods.
We get to meet many interesting people during his search, but I felt there were too many characters involved and were hard to keep track of. I enjoyed the main plot line but I found it obfuscated by the many, many subplots surrounding Reddick.
Certainly an interesting read for book clubs which will give the readers lots of material for discussions.
The main character, Reddick becomes submerged in his search for Hannah, who he believes might be the victim of a crime. His search takes the reader through the hipster art community, the homes of the wealthy and the issues surrounding gentrification and displacement in many neighborhoods.
We get to meet many interesting people during his search, but I felt there were too many characters involved and were hard to keep track of. I enjoyed the main plot line but I found it obfuscated by the many, many subplots surrounding Reddick.
Certainly an interesting read for book clubs which will give the readers lots of material for discussions.
August 1, 2019
This thought-provoking literary mystery is all about urban gentrification and shifting power between blacks and whites. It is issue-oriented concerning both race and distribution of wealth.
If there is such a thing as a plot that is too complex, this may qualify. It takes a bit to get into and then gets very twisty as many new threads are woven into the disappearance of a young woman. Each story thread presents a new way to think about the situation: a policeman's view, the artist's view, the wealthy people, the party-goers, etc. There are bad guys who are not so bad and good guys who are not so good. Lots of reconceptualizing as you read along.
The conclusion is clearly philosophical, almost existential. The author wants you to question what you think you know about what you know about "others." Who is really good or bad? This part is great though one part of wrapping up the story seemed a bit lame (no spoilers).
The main character clearly grows as a person. His childhood background is established and this offers credibility to his views and character as a man. This story, at the risk of overgeneralizing, would nicely fall into that "Books for Dudes" category, but also for any young person who has headed to the big city to explore their dreams. While defined as a mystery, and there is one, this is not what I personally would expect from a book labeled as such. Great read. Different.
If there is such a thing as a plot that is too complex, this may qualify. It takes a bit to get into and then gets very twisty as many new threads are woven into the disappearance of a young woman. Each story thread presents a new way to think about the situation: a policeman's view, the artist's view, the wealthy people, the party-goers, etc. There are bad guys who are not so bad and good guys who are not so good. Lots of reconceptualizing as you read along.
The conclusion is clearly philosophical, almost existential. The author wants you to question what you think you know about what you know about "others." Who is really good or bad? This part is great though one part of wrapping up the story seemed a bit lame (no spoilers).
The main character clearly grows as a person. His childhood background is established and this offers credibility to his views and character as a man. This story, at the risk of overgeneralizing, would nicely fall into that "Books for Dudes" category, but also for any young person who has headed to the big city to explore their dreams. While defined as a mystery, and there is one, this is not what I personally would expect from a book labeled as such. Great read. Different.
July 11, 2019
I was not a fan of Reddick and his savior mentality, but overall this was effective as a mystery. The setup was problematic (Reddick's fixation on a girl he saw in an alley), and many of his friends told him that, but it was fairly satisfying to see him putting the pieces together and there was a good payoff at the end. Also some good, if occasionally clunky, discussions about race and identity and gentrification.
August 17, 2018
Restoration Heights: A Novel by Wil Medearis is a complex look into racial inequality and tensions between the have and have nots, as well as your rank in society and who you know or think you know. It is a thought provoking book which has similarities of the times we are living in today. Thrown into the mix is a missing person mystery which adds another layer of intrigue to an already multi layered story.
Reddick is a struggling white artist living in Brooklyn who has a memorable encounter with a beautiful affluent blonde girl named Hannah. Reddick's primary job is working for a company which moves artwork. He ironically overhears a conversation between their latest client and her son about the son's fiancé going missing. Riddick sees her picture and realizes this is Hannah.
He tells them he has seen her and is suddenly hired to look into what happened to her. Hence begins a story of race, money, greed and class status. It also shows what some will do in order to survive both emotionally as well as financially.
Reddick, who for his own personal reasons, begins a crusade to find the missing girl. During his journey he begins to see the complexities of race and its unfairness in inner city life and what it takes to survive in a neighborhood where new people are moving in and trying to change the lifestyle many who have lived there all their lives are use to.
Restoration Heights is a thought-provoking mystery which makes you think and feel until the last page.
Thank you netgalley.com and Harlequin for the advanced copy. The book will be out in January, 2019.
Reddick is a struggling white artist living in Brooklyn who has a memorable encounter with a beautiful affluent blonde girl named Hannah. Reddick's primary job is working for a company which moves artwork. He ironically overhears a conversation between their latest client and her son about the son's fiancé going missing. Riddick sees her picture and realizes this is Hannah.
He tells them he has seen her and is suddenly hired to look into what happened to her. Hence begins a story of race, money, greed and class status. It also shows what some will do in order to survive both emotionally as well as financially.
Reddick, who for his own personal reasons, begins a crusade to find the missing girl. During his journey he begins to see the complexities of race and its unfairness in inner city life and what it takes to survive in a neighborhood where new people are moving in and trying to change the lifestyle many who have lived there all their lives are use to.
Restoration Heights is a thought-provoking mystery which makes you think and feel until the last page.
Thank you netgalley.com and Harlequin for the advanced copy. The book will be out in January, 2019.
November 27, 2018
Very enjoyable would love to read more by Wil!!
February 18, 2019
Starts off with an interesting character and premise. An artist who’s avoiding painting runs into a girl at midnight and decides she is missing the next day. All kinds of unlikely circumstances play into the story but mostly it ends up with lots of speeches about art and wealth and race and privilege among the 99%. Since they’ve known each other for awhile you’d expect their views to be widely known. I don’t know if this is how gen x lives but it’s pretty boring and pretty shallow. Or maybe it just the author. Whatever. The mystery deflates and the unlikely luck continues til you just wish he’d find a body and move on. Felt typical self absorbed Brooklyn although author moved location to an edgier spot.
August 10, 2019
Wil Medearis' first novel, 'Restoration Heights', is a clever mystery wrapped up in a bunch of racial, economic, social, and New York City-esque issues. Its main character, Reddick, is a white artist who grew up poor in the South and now lives in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant district, a traditionally black area undergoing gentrification. He spends his days working as a manual laborer in the art world, hanging expensive paintings in rich folks' homes. His nights revolve around playing basketball at the Y, drinking, smoking pot, and bitching about the potential change in his neighborhood due to the influx of real estate money. He ought to be 'doing art' but really doesn't have the time or energy.
Reddick's world changes abruptly one evening as he takes out the trash. A young, seemingly drunked up white woman surprises him, engages him in a strange conversation, offers to kiss him, and disappears back into his apartment building. He makes light of the encounter to his friends as they hang art for a famously wealthy client until he overhears a conversation about the disappearance of the fiance of the scion of the family. Viewing a photo of the young woman, he's convinced it was the same person he engaged near his apartment. He speaks to the family, they discount his story, yet a competitor family with an interest in the case 'hires' him to find our what happened to the girl. For unknown reasons, nobody wants to officially report her absence to the police. Reddick, with nothing more interesting to do and with a strong desire to satisfy his own curiosity, takes on 'the case' and the fun begins.
This really is a New York story- I'm not sure you'd get the combination of wealth stratification, gentrification, population density, crime, race, art, neighborhoods, nightlife, slackers, and everything else embedded in this complicated story anywhere else, nor would it make sense anywhere else. One really interesting aspect of the novel is how Reddick touches on so many hot button topics (gentrification and income inequality, for a couple examples) as he goes along on his quest for justice (or at least, understanding).
This is a very unusual mystery in that it's almost a police procedural, sans police. Reddick latches onto his investigation and keeps at it while almost everyone he's in contact with warns him to back off. He does 'traditional' police stuff, like creating a drawing illustrating connections among the players, yet also commits minor crimes himself, such as breaking into a construction site in search of 'evidence'. The ending has a nice twist and it's not one of those that comes totally out of nowhere- it makes sense in the context of the complex situation into which he placed himself.
The writing in Restoration Heights is excellent, and Medearis has a good ear for dialogue. Character development for Reddick was quite good, other minor characters understandably a bit less thorough. My only quibble with the novel was that Reddick was able to get away with a lot of activity that would either get himself thrown into jail or beaten up by the locals, but hey, it's New York so what do I know? An excellent first novel, highly recommended.
Reddick's world changes abruptly one evening as he takes out the trash. A young, seemingly drunked up white woman surprises him, engages him in a strange conversation, offers to kiss him, and disappears back into his apartment building. He makes light of the encounter to his friends as they hang art for a famously wealthy client until he overhears a conversation about the disappearance of the fiance of the scion of the family. Viewing a photo of the young woman, he's convinced it was the same person he engaged near his apartment. He speaks to the family, they discount his story, yet a competitor family with an interest in the case 'hires' him to find our what happened to the girl. For unknown reasons, nobody wants to officially report her absence to the police. Reddick, with nothing more interesting to do and with a strong desire to satisfy his own curiosity, takes on 'the case' and the fun begins.
This really is a New York story- I'm not sure you'd get the combination of wealth stratification, gentrification, population density, crime, race, art, neighborhoods, nightlife, slackers, and everything else embedded in this complicated story anywhere else, nor would it make sense anywhere else. One really interesting aspect of the novel is how Reddick touches on so many hot button topics (gentrification and income inequality, for a couple examples) as he goes along on his quest for justice (or at least, understanding).
This is a very unusual mystery in that it's almost a police procedural, sans police. Reddick latches onto his investigation and keeps at it while almost everyone he's in contact with warns him to back off. He does 'traditional' police stuff, like creating a drawing illustrating connections among the players, yet also commits minor crimes himself, such as breaking into a construction site in search of 'evidence'. The ending has a nice twist and it's not one of those that comes totally out of nowhere- it makes sense in the context of the complex situation into which he placed himself.
The writing in Restoration Heights is excellent, and Medearis has a good ear for dialogue. Character development for Reddick was quite good, other minor characters understandably a bit less thorough. My only quibble with the novel was that Reddick was able to get away with a lot of activity that would either get himself thrown into jail or beaten up by the locals, but hey, it's New York so what do I know? An excellent first novel, highly recommended.
December 29, 2018
A girl has gone missing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically black Brooklyn neighborhood, and no one seems to care. Reddick, a white man, an artist, art mover, and basketball player is convinced that he spoke to Hannah Granger the night she disappeared. Hannah was the fiance of Buckley Seward, the only son of an extremely wealthy family, but Buckley and the rest of the Sewards refuse to involve the police or even believe that something untoward has happened to Hannah. Reddick embarks on an investigation that dives into the gentrification of Bed-Stuy, and causes him to question himself.
I had a difficult time enjoying this book. I think it is a well-written novel, but part of that comes from how much Reddick annoyed me as a character. His focus and obsession with the case, even when told by everyone around him that there is no case, just a woman who left her fiance, almost drove me away from the book. However, the events and discoveries that Reddick uses to create his theory of the case are things that could, in a poorly written mystery, actually be the story that is being told. He is caught up in a world where everything has a double meaning, and the other characters continue to tell him that sometimes things really are as simple as they seem.
The story may not have appealed to me as a mystery, but had I approached it as a social commentary novel based around the tropes of mysteries, I think I may have enjoyed it more. The heart of the novel is an exploration of the gentrification of the historically black neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, and how Reddick’s identity as a white man who lives in the neighborhood responds to the process. He does not see himself as part of the gentrifying force, citing his experiences growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood and his resistance and outrage over the new construction projects as reasons that he is part of the group that is being pushed out of the area. A number of characters challenge him on that front, pointing out that for all his experiences he will always be someone who moved into the area after completing art school, not someone who has been part of the ethos of the neighborhood since birth, and he can never share the experience of being black in Brooklyn.
Final verdict: While I did not particularly enjoy the book, I can see where others would. Great material for book groups that want to tackle gentrification, race, and wealth disparity, but I would hesitate to recommend it as a mystery.
I had a difficult time enjoying this book. I think it is a well-written novel, but part of that comes from how much Reddick annoyed me as a character. His focus and obsession with the case, even when told by everyone around him that there is no case, just a woman who left her fiance, almost drove me away from the book. However, the events and discoveries that Reddick uses to create his theory of the case are things that could, in a poorly written mystery, actually be the story that is being told. He is caught up in a world where everything has a double meaning, and the other characters continue to tell him that sometimes things really are as simple as they seem.
The story may not have appealed to me as a mystery, but had I approached it as a social commentary novel based around the tropes of mysteries, I think I may have enjoyed it more. The heart of the novel is an exploration of the gentrification of the historically black neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, and how Reddick’s identity as a white man who lives in the neighborhood responds to the process. He does not see himself as part of the gentrifying force, citing his experiences growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood and his resistance and outrage over the new construction projects as reasons that he is part of the group that is being pushed out of the area. A number of characters challenge him on that front, pointing out that for all his experiences he will always be someone who moved into the area after completing art school, not someone who has been part of the ethos of the neighborhood since birth, and he can never share the experience of being black in Brooklyn.
Final verdict: While I did not particularly enjoy the book, I can see where others would. Great material for book groups that want to tackle gentrification, race, and wealth disparity, but I would hesitate to recommend it as a mystery.
March 19, 2019
Mysterious Book Report No. 367 – Restoration Heights
Gentrification is a recently coined term that describes the displacement of blue collar, working-class residents from their long established city neighborhoods by newer and wealthier persons who’ve moved in and bought houses where the people with less money used to live. It’s a contributing cause of homelessness, and it’s happening in every major city in America. One of the most notable examples is found in New York City, where whole neighborhoods are being gobbled up and their character destroyed by huge influxes of hip, upwardly mobile and prosperous move-ins. The social friction and unrest caused by that kind of displacement is the subject of a compelling and thoughtfully written debut novel that combines social commentary with dramatic crime fiction.
Restoration Heights, by Wil Medearis, takes place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. It’s where we meet Reddick, a white guy living in the traditionally black neighborhood that’s deep in the throes of gentrification. Reddick’s a struggling artist, drawn to the area eight years earlier by the cheap rent and large studio spaces. He makes his expense and rent money working as an art handler, where he installs, takes down, crates up and stores, priceless works of art for some of the city’s richest families. As such, he rubs elbows with both the ultra-rich, as well as the ultra-average black citizens with whom he plays basketball at the local YMCA every spare moment. By accident, Reddick is the last person to see Hannah, the fiancé of Buckley Seward, heir to the largest fortune of the entire art-collecting community in New York. When the Seward family refuses to call in the police, Reddick takes it upon himself to solve the young woman’s disappearance and possible murder. This simple act of compassion and caring about a seemingly disposable person puts Reddick deep into the cross-currents and riptides of high society where wealth and power and influence trump all; where face and social standing are more important than the lives of common folk. It’s where the brine is deep and money-fueled megalodons prey upon the unprepared and the unwary. Restoration Heights is a startling, complex and auspicious first novel from a young wordsmith who’s bound to become a force in the literary world!
Gentrification is a recently coined term that describes the displacement of blue collar, working-class residents from their long established city neighborhoods by newer and wealthier persons who’ve moved in and bought houses where the people with less money used to live. It’s a contributing cause of homelessness, and it’s happening in every major city in America. One of the most notable examples is found in New York City, where whole neighborhoods are being gobbled up and their character destroyed by huge influxes of hip, upwardly mobile and prosperous move-ins. The social friction and unrest caused by that kind of displacement is the subject of a compelling and thoughtfully written debut novel that combines social commentary with dramatic crime fiction.
Restoration Heights, by Wil Medearis, takes place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. It’s where we meet Reddick, a white guy living in the traditionally black neighborhood that’s deep in the throes of gentrification. Reddick’s a struggling artist, drawn to the area eight years earlier by the cheap rent and large studio spaces. He makes his expense and rent money working as an art handler, where he installs, takes down, crates up and stores, priceless works of art for some of the city’s richest families. As such, he rubs elbows with both the ultra-rich, as well as the ultra-average black citizens with whom he plays basketball at the local YMCA every spare moment. By accident, Reddick is the last person to see Hannah, the fiancé of Buckley Seward, heir to the largest fortune of the entire art-collecting community in New York. When the Seward family refuses to call in the police, Reddick takes it upon himself to solve the young woman’s disappearance and possible murder. This simple act of compassion and caring about a seemingly disposable person puts Reddick deep into the cross-currents and riptides of high society where wealth and power and influence trump all; where face and social standing are more important than the lives of common folk. It’s where the brine is deep and money-fueled megalodons prey upon the unprepared and the unwary. Restoration Heights is a startling, complex and auspicious first novel from a young wordsmith who’s bound to become a force in the literary world!
October 13, 2019
Medearis shows great promise in his debut novel. Restoration Heights works well as a mystery novel and is passable as social commentary. TBH, as a middle age man with an adult daughter living in Bud-Stuy/Clinton Hill I'm a bit biased to like the social commentary.
The story centers around Reddick, a rootless 20-something artist trying to solve a disappearing girl case. Reddick earns a living hanging art which acts as a story device to bridge working class laborers with the top .1 of 1 percenters who hire his company. Reddick has worked his way out of the North Carolina mill town into the rarefied air of art collectors. He grew up as a poor white kid in black neighborhoods and learned to play ball as a means of fitting in.
Reddick acts a bit superior through the novel. He feels that his black ties, including his does-she or doesn't-she-exist black grandmother, allows him to feel aggrieved about the ongoing gentrification of Bed-Stuy. In his mind he's one of the first whites, the first artist, to move in before all the other hipsters. Towards the end of the story he starts to recognize, that, regardless of his intent, his presence makes the neighborhood more desirable and ultimately more marketable to developers. He rails against his "woke" friends that put a white privilege label on him while he feels that his family poverty gives him a reprieve.
I appreciated the Medearis's take on Brooklyn gentrification. For someone in Reddick's position, the shift to Brooklyn has to be a necessity. As an artist, he must be near the art world but isnt in a position to afford to live too close. Manhattan has been priced out for decades. But every struggling artist that moves into Brooklyn either raises rents or crowds out a native Brooklynite. The Reddicks of the world will have to decide how to make their presence be a positive one.
The mystery is a plot device to connect the art world, the developers, the natives and the 20-somethings moving in. Towards the end, the connections seem forced. We readers have to suspend disbelief of the otherwise tenuous connections. However, it's well written as a mystery. The story and the characters are mostly credible. While the ending is a little too tight, I enjoyed the book and look forward to more novels from Medearis.
The story centers around Reddick, a rootless 20-something artist trying to solve a disappearing girl case. Reddick earns a living hanging art which acts as a story device to bridge working class laborers with the top .1 of 1 percenters who hire his company. Reddick has worked his way out of the North Carolina mill town into the rarefied air of art collectors. He grew up as a poor white kid in black neighborhoods and learned to play ball as a means of fitting in.
Reddick acts a bit superior through the novel. He feels that his black ties, including his does-she or doesn't-she-exist black grandmother, allows him to feel aggrieved about the ongoing gentrification of Bed-Stuy. In his mind he's one of the first whites, the first artist, to move in before all the other hipsters. Towards the end of the story he starts to recognize, that, regardless of his intent, his presence makes the neighborhood more desirable and ultimately more marketable to developers. He rails against his "woke" friends that put a white privilege label on him while he feels that his family poverty gives him a reprieve.
I appreciated the Medearis's take on Brooklyn gentrification. For someone in Reddick's position, the shift to Brooklyn has to be a necessity. As an artist, he must be near the art world but isnt in a position to afford to live too close. Manhattan has been priced out for decades. But every struggling artist that moves into Brooklyn either raises rents or crowds out a native Brooklynite. The Reddicks of the world will have to decide how to make their presence be a positive one.
The mystery is a plot device to connect the art world, the developers, the natives and the 20-somethings moving in. Towards the end, the connections seem forced. We readers have to suspend disbelief of the otherwise tenuous connections. However, it's well written as a mystery. The story and the characters are mostly credible. While the ending is a little too tight, I enjoyed the book and look forward to more novels from Medearis.
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