“Le Doorman”, New York in all simplicity

Title: Le Doorman
Author: Madeleine Assas
Editions : Actes Sud
Release date : February 3, 2021
Genre : Roman

First novel by Madeleine Assas, actress, Le Doorman is the novel of a secret man dressed in a black suit with golden buttons, a character with multiple origins who will blend into New York, the city with plural identities in order to better observe it, browse it and love it . Become the doorman of a Park Avenue building in the 1960s and over time, the discreet accomplice of several dozen residents who like him once came from elsewhere, Ray takes a humble and discreet look at the evolution of the megalopolis both from an architectural and human point of view.

Built around anecdotes lived during forty years of career but also around the walks of Ray and his friend Salah through the various districts of the city, Le Doorman is the portrait of a city in perpetual motion, an entity adrift during the 70s and 80s but which, thanks to the strength of its inhabitants, has been rebuilt.

Through the story of Ray and the 10 Park Avenue building, some will also see a metaphor for the functioning of New York and a parallel between these invisible professions, doorman, concierge, steward, who keep the luxurious condominium afloat and all the people who over time, arrived in the city in search of a better life, exercised the shadow trades, in order to allow the city to shine with a thousand lights.

Thanks to a fluid and airy style, the author makes us discover the city through its most humble inhabitants, walking through streets abandoned by tourists, to meet a New York far removed from the image that we usually do.

Le Doorman is a work full of lightness and poetry, which will grab you directly to never let go. The film of forty years in the life of Ray and also of the constantly evolving New York and America, which attracts talent from all over the world like a magnet.

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