"Mrs. Bridge" by Evan S. Connell

This summer I have decided to reread books that I really loved once. Mrs. Bridge is just one of those books.
The story is of a privileged woman, named Mrs. Bridge, in upper class Kansas City just before the start of WWII. Told in short vignettes, the novel chronicles a history of Mrs. Bridge's life in the context of her family: her absentee husband who works hard to provide wealth for the family but is barely present, the oldest daughter (Ruth) an independent girl who seems to have been born to the wrong mother, the middle daughter (Corky) who is "sturdy" and takes after her mother in her conservative nature, and finally, Douglas (the youngest son), who Mrs. Bridge sees as quite strange and distant because he is not conscious of what other people think of him.
The story told is of a woman who cannot help but hold onto a "simpler" past while the family around her is in constant motion and change.
Really wonderful stuff.

Here is a chapter:
6. Displaced Dummy
On a winter morning not long after one of these excursions, Mrs. Bridge happened to come upon Douglas in the sewing room; he was standing quietly with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bent slightly to one side. So adult did he look in the depth of his meditation that she could not resist smiling. Then she saw that he was staring at the dummy of her figure. She had kept the dummy there near the sewing machine for a long time and had supposed that no one in the family paid any attention to it, but after this particular day--unless she was using it to make herself a dress--the dummy stood behind an up-ended trunk in the attic.

"Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin

Although it was published during the depths of Reagan's 80s, "Winter's Tale," (which should not be confused with the Shakespeare play) feels like it was written as a true genesis story for New York. Think of 100 Years of Solitude except a) colder and b) of a slightly different brand of magic realism. What makes this book worthwhile is that it poses sincere questions about the nature of a city. What does it mean to live in a place where the absurdly poor and absurdly rich walk side by side everyday? What does it mean to live in a city of both intense suffering and intense beauty? What does it mean to love in such a city? This novel does give the occasional middle finger to Marxism, a gesture I can forgive for the sake of a good read and the time in which it was written, if only because Helprin touches some fundamental uncertainties about the way we live and die in the modern world. Also, Peter Lake is quite a compelling rogue.