Alligators in the Trees — Cynthia Hamilton

NOT YOUR ORDINARY LOVE TRIANGLE...

Frank's Coffee Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side becomes a safe haven for Tobias Jordan, a paparazzi-phobic 90s rock star, drawn to the obscurity of the dingy hole-in-the-wall, and Philip Glessner, a disgraced architect, who ducks inside to elude a posse of blood-thirsty reporters. What keeps both coming back is their waitress, Priscilla Vanderpool, who becomes an improbable paragon of virtue to the shell-shocked Philip, and an unwitting muse to gifted and jaded Tobias. But neither man sees her as she really is: a philosophical hard-luck case with a quick wit and a twenty-year habit of penning insightful and haunting lyrics that no one has ever heard.

Alligators in the Trees -- a line from one of Priscilla's songs -- symbolizes the bugaboos that lurk in the minds of all three characters: in Tobias, the fear he's lost his talent, and that his string of model-mistresses will be the downfall of his soul; in Philip's guilt-ridden conscience as he struggles with the collapse of his most touted building and the prospect of losing custody of his daughter if he doesn't meet his estranged wife's demands; in Priscilla, the fear of actually making a decision about her life instead of always taking the path of least resistance. Fate intervenes and forces all three to act on their true desires.

"Hamilton's novel is a fun romp for readers drawn to character-driven fiction that offers lessons about life and love." ~ Kirkus Reviews