Novels written by celebrities can be risky reads, but not in the hands of David Duchovny...who has crafted a witty and profound showstopper about ancient myths, modern New York City, and the persistence — and magic — of love ... Read Miss Subways as a wonderful fantasy, an exquisite love story or a valentine to New York City, but you can also, like Emer, look deeper
...the native New Yorker adeptly transforms the ancient Irish Cuchulain-and-Emer legend of star-crossed lovers into a postmodern fable, lovingly grounded in New York City ... Duchovny mostly keeps his loosey-goosey storytelling rolling with zany characters and playful wit worthy of Tom Robbins and recent Thomas Pynchon. He writes Emer so genuinely that readers will either fall for her, or identify with her, or both. For lovers of myth, for lucid dreamers, and for passionate readers willing to suspend belief to embrace an enchanting tale of crazy love, this is a rollicking underground ride.
...this may be the only novel ever to start with epigraphs by W.B. Yeats and Ed Koch. Take that incongruity as fair warning for the blarney that lies ahead ... But Duchovny is in no hurry to cycle through that doomed romance. Miss Subways is definitely single-tracking, with lots of unloading along the way. If you can get yourself to sit back and stop focusing on the destination, there are plenty of oddly charming incidents to enjoy. Duchovny is particularly funny on the antics of schoolchildren and their uptight parents. He’s also got a great ear for the anxieties of dating, and the sweet comedy of middle-aged sex ... dark elements provide emotional ballast to what might otherwise have been a merely silly tale. That darkness can’t permanently overshadow the story, though. This is, after all, a classic romantic comedy — not a grim Celtic myth. It’s a novel that wonders, 'How steadfast is your belief in what is real?' — just the kind of question Agent Mulder might ask.
...a quirky, wholly original — and at times baffling — novel that tackles an Irish myth and gives it a contemporary spin, mixing it with legends and stories from other worlds ... Duchovny masters dialogue and various monsters and mythologies to weave this tale that’s probably not for everyone. While rooting for Emer and Con to find happiness, readers will also question fate and reality. Miss Subways reads like a hybrid of the TV show Twin Peaks and the 1998 film Sliding Doors merged with a love letter to New York City. A wild and unpredictable journey from Duchovny’s bold imagination awaits readers.
Emer has a dreamy side, compounded by a benign brain tumor, that makes her, and the reader, wonder whether she is hallucinating or if her reality keeps changing as she wages a battle for her right to love. Duchovny’s humor and fondness for New York City enliven every page. Give this to readers willing to go on a wild ride.
...a spooky domestic drama that is equal parts Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman ... Duchovny finds a deft balance here between Emer’s domestic rituals and the machinations of actual gods and monsters. It’s also worth praising the novel’s upside-down love story in which Emer grows into the hero of her own story, not merely the object of a man’s quest ... Duchovny adroitly couches a Nora Ephron–esque romance in the sphere of Joseph Campbell.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
