Book Review: Metropolis by B.A. Shapiro

My Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Metropolis Storage Warehouse. One hundred and twenty-three years old. Six stories high. Ninety feet wide. Four hundred and eighty feet long. Almost four hundred storage units of various sizes and shapes; some even have windows”.

In May 2018, thirty-seven-year-old Zach Davidson, owner of Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is in the process of auctioning off the contents of twenty-two abandoned units in the storage facility before ownership changes hands. In January of the same year, an elevator accident resulted in legal trouble that cost Zach his ownership of the storage facility. In the process of the auction, Zach is surprised to find five of the units “staged” in arrangements one would not expect in a storage facility. 

As the narrative switches between past and present, we find out that unbeknownst to Zach, Rose, who managed the property, had an arrangement with the renters of these units in exchange for an additional fee which she pocketed. The five units in question housed the office of a Harvard educated lawyer, the studio of a photographer, a pied-à-terre of a wealthy socialite who also rented another unit to preserve her children’s room in its exact setup, the living arrangement of a Tufts University doctoral student who due to an administrative mistake is now evading deportation and is being pursued by ICE. In other words, people were living and working out of their rented units!

As the story progresses we discover more about these characters, their backstories and how their stories intersect and about the mishap that occurred in January 2018. Was it an accident, attempted murder or attempted suicide? Were any of the renters involved or responsible for the mishap? Why is Zach being forced to sell the property?

B.A. Shapiro’s Metropolis is a unique and engaging novel. The premise is very interesting and it features a diverse cast of characters. With its well-developed plot with a few unexpected twists along the way, the story hooked me in from the very first page and I could not wait to see how the story progressed. Initially, it took a bit to get used to the multiple PoVs but given each of them had quite distinct voices and engaging storylines, the narrative flowed seamlessly to the end. The author manages to touch upon many important themes such as homelessness, mental health, immigration, spousal abuse, drug trafficking and much more. Marta the doctoral student and Jason the lawyer were my favorite characters and I would have liked it more if the backstory of Serge Laurent, the photographer had been developed with more depth but overall I think the author did a good job of establishing all these characters and their stories and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about them.