Visible City

Voyeurism between NYC neighbors leads to surprising discoveries in this “glittering novel about fate, fantasy, and the anonymity of urban life” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

After chaotic days of wrangling and soothing her young children, Nina spends her evenings spying on the quiet, contented older couple across the street. But one night, watching the same window, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Confused and intrigued, Nina wonders who these people are, and what happened to her symbol of domestic happiness.

Then Nina crosses paths with both couples on the streets of her Upper West Side neighborhood. Soon, her innocent peeping gives way to a kind of intimacy that has everyone confronting their own desires and disappointments.

In Visible City, Tova Mirvis explores the boundaries between our own lives and the lives of others. From its lavish ghost subway stations to its hidden stained-glass windows, Visible City conjures a New York City teeming with buried treasures.

“An utterly perfect, deeply moving evocation of contemporary Manhattan [that] reminded me of Paula Fox and Laurie Colwin, and also those master chroniclers of the privileged classes, Wharton and Fitzgerald . . . Brilliant.” —Joanna Smith Rakoff, Salon.com