PositiveBookslutTeju Cole's Open City is neither a melodrama, nor is it about a city that has technically been declared 'open' during wartime. The novel is set in New York City, no more than a couple of years ago, and narrated by a Nigerian psychiatrist on a research fellowship ... As a narrator, Julius is aloof, exact, learned and a little bit chilly. His need to find that line that connects him is real, because for all his powers of observation, he construes himself as an outsider and impartial observer in all things, including his own history. But there are threads that connect him to the city and to the people in the city, some of which prove to be less than pleasant ... This weighty moment in the history of a city, its days and nights, its landmarks and its inhabitants buzz exquisitely, so many fireflies trapped under the glass of Cole's crystalline prose.
