Close cookie details

This site uses cookies. Learn more about cookies.

OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.

If you do not wish to continue, please click here to exit this site.

Hide notification

  Main Nav
The Garden of Lost and Found
Cover of The Garden of Lost and Found
The Garden of Lost and Found
by Dale Peck
A man inherits a valuable piece of Manhattan real estate, leading to unexpected consequences, in this “strange and wonderful novel” (Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland).
 
James Ramsay is twenty-one years old and he has just inherited a building in New York City. After the death of his estranged mother, he finds that he is now the owner of No. 1 Dutch Street—a five-story brownstone near the World Trade Center.
 
As James takes up residence there, trying to figure out his next move, he gets to know the only other tenant: an elderly black woman named Nellydean. Under a mounting tide of taxes, James finds himself faced with a stark choice: He can sell the building for a small fortune—which will mean not only turning Nellydean out of the only home she’s known for more than forty years, but also forfeiting his only remaining connection to his mother. Then Nellydean’s niece shows up, looking for a place for herself and her unborn child—and an older man becomes smitten with James, even as James’s health begins to fail.
 
Prize-winning author Dale Peck’s fiction has been called “terrific” by Jonathan Safran Foer, and Michael Cunningham described his voice as “like an angel chewing on broken glass.” In The Garden of Lost and Found, he maps a tangled network of sexual, familial, and financial complications, over which hangs the specter of 9/11, and “tells the quintessential New York story with his delicious style and piercing ability to move” (Martha McPhee, author of Gorgeous Lies).
 
 
A man inherits a valuable piece of Manhattan real estate, leading to unexpected consequences, in this “strange and wonderful novel” (Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland).
 
James Ramsay is twenty-one years old and he has just inherited a building in New York City. After the death of his estranged mother, he finds that he is now the owner of No. 1 Dutch Street—a five-story brownstone near the World Trade Center.
 
As James takes up residence there, trying to figure out his next move, he gets to know the only other tenant: an elderly black woman named Nellydean. Under a mounting tide of taxes, James finds himself faced with a stark choice: He can sell the building for a small fortune—which will mean not only turning Nellydean out of the only home she’s known for more than forty years, but also forfeiting his only remaining connection to his mother. Then Nellydean’s niece shows up, looking for a place for herself and her unborn child—and an older man becomes smitten with James, even as James’s health begins to fail.
 
Prize-winning author Dale Peck’s fiction has been called “terrific” by Jonathan Safran Foer, and Michael Cunningham described his voice as “like an angel chewing on broken glass.” In The Garden of Lost and Found, he maps a tangled network of sexual, familial, and financial complications, over which hangs the specter of 9/11, and “tells the quintessential New York story with his delicious style and piercing ability to move” (Martha McPhee, author of Gorgeous Lies).
 
 
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    0
  • Library copies:
    0
Levels-
  • ATOS:
  • Lexile:
  • Interest Level:
  • Text Difficulty:


Excerpts-
  • From the book

    Story ProblemsThe man with the van was called Kevin From Heaven, and he charged extra for driving all the way up to Harlem. He was stocky and hirsute, a ruff of fine gray hair sticking out of his T-shirt andcowling his bald head. He said he lived in Jersey himself, yup, heaven was just the other side of the Hudson River, he couldn't see how anyone besides day traders and dot-commers could afford to live in the city anymore--which showed, more than anything else, how out of touch with New York he really was. The back of his van, where Claudia and I rode, was dry and hot and empty save for several blankets and nested boxes and a few dented beer cans, and whenever the van went over a bump the cans would bounce and rattle and one or the other of us would jump a little, nervously, then try to laugh it off. There were a lot of bumps between Dutch Street and 137th.
    As soon as we entered her father's house Claudia set off down the hall, but Kevin From Heaven lingered in the foyer doorway. "Shee-it," he drawled theatrically, and a long low wolf whistle gamboled down the hall like a lapdog chasing its mistress. But Kevin From Heaven surprised me with what came out of his mouth next:
    "Now this is old New York."
    At any other time, in any other place, Kevin From Heaven would have been whistling at the jiggle of Claudia's ass beneath the clinging silver fabric of her dress, but faced with a thirtyfoot corridor off which opened "two, three, four, five, six doors" (Kevin From Heaven ticked them off on his fingers, although on the last digit he just grabbed his crotch), square footage beat round flesh hands down. The hallway's baseboard was so scuffed it was practically black and one of the panels in the fanlight between the living and dining rooms was filled with plywood and a leak had puffed out the ceiling in Claudia's bedroom so that it resembled an oppressively low thundercloud, but nevertheless this was the real deal. This was old New York.
    I pretended to help for a few minutes, but Claudia's method was so haphazard there wasn't much I could do. She ran from bedroom to closet to bathroom then back to the bedroom, high heels thumping like hammerblows in her haste to beat her father back from his bridge game. Even so, her efforts couldn't have been more inefficient. She carried one thing at a time to eleven boxes lined up in the hallway, and with each object there was a moment of contemplation as she decided which box to put it in, what belonged with what--as if, like a hostess seating a dinner party, she didn't want to place two guests together who might not get along.
    When, every once in a while, she actually filled a box, Kevin From Heaven or I would carry it down to the van, but this happened so irregularly that soon I ceded the task to him and just wandered from one seventeenth-story window to the next. You could see all the way down to the World Trade Center from the south exposure, all the way across to the Jersey Palisades from the west, while from the east the planes taking off from La Guardia aimed straight for the ten-foot wide oriel in the living room before arcing north or south or simply higher into the sky. The chair from which Claudia's father took in one or another of these views had a shot cushion augmented with a rump-flat stack of pillows, and beside the chair a copper washtub, green as moss, held a mixed stack of New York Posts and Amsterdam Newses. In the dining room a brownish bit of cutwork sat in the center of a warped round table, in the foyer a Thonet coat tree had been pushed into a corner, as naked and lonely as a hanging skeleton in an anatomy lab. And I mean, sure, it was...

About the Author-
  • Dale Peck is the author of twelve books in a variety of genres, including Martin and John, Hatchet Jobs, and Sprout. His fiction and criticism have earned him two O. Henry Awards, a Pushcart Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. He lives in New York City, where he teaches in the New School’s Graduate Writing Program.
Reviews-
  • EDGE Media "A peculiar, hallucinatory novel... violently emotional, frequently unhinged, always interesting."
  • Lambda Literary Foundation "A strange and wonderful novel [by] a strange and wonderful novelist." --Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland "[Peck] tells the quintessential New York story with his delicious style and piercing ability to move." --Martha McPhee, author of Gorgeous Lies "[Peck is a] brilliant writer, and this perplexing, beguiling, pre-and-post 9/11 Manhattan-set fable could have come from no one else." --Booklist "Peck delivers a novel that explores family, sexuality, AIDS, and the resiliency of the city, and he does it without kowtowing to the populist sentiment that a character ought to be likable: this one certainly isn't . . . In typical fashion, Peck spares no punches."
Title Information+
  • Publisher
    Soho Press
  • OverDrive Read
    Release date:
  • EPUB eBook
    Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
  • Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.

Status bar:

You've reached your checkout limit.

Visit your Checkouts page to manage your titles.

Close

You already have this title checked out.

Want to go to your Checkouts?

Close

Recommendation Limit Reached.

You've reached the maximum number of titles you can recommend at this time. You can recommend up to 0 titles every 0 day(s).

Close

Sign in to recommend this title.

Recommend your library consider adding this title to the Digital Collection.

Close

Enhanced Details

Close
Close

Limited availability

Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.

is available for days.

Once playback starts, you have hours to view the title.

Close

Permissions

Close

The OverDrive Read format of this eBook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.

Close

Holds

Total holds:


Close

Restricted

Some format options have been disabled. You may see additional download options outside of this network.

Close

MP3 audiobooks are only supported on macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) through 10.14 (Mojave). Learn more about MP3 audiobook support on Macs.

Close

Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.

Close

Device Compatibility Notice

The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.

Close

Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen

Close

You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.

To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.

Close

Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.

There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.

Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.

Close

You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.

Close

This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.

Close

An unexpected error has occurred.

If this problem persists, please contact support.

Close

Close

NOTE: Barnes and Noble® may change this list of devices at any time.

Close
Buy it now
and help our library WIN!
The Garden of Lost and Found
The Garden of Lost and Found
Dale Peck
Choose a retail partner below to buy this title for yourself.
A portion of this purchase goes to support your library.
Close
Close

There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.

Close
Barnes & Noble Sign In |   Sign In

You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.

If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.

Accept to ContinueCancel