Pier 45 by Scott Alderman

Gritty and real, Pier 45 is a rollicking ride across generations and demographics.

During a time when AIDS wards are flooded with patients and a nation stands horrified and seemingly unwilling to help or to understand, places like Wilde House offer homeless AIDS victims shelter and help. This is where we find Seth, the novel’s narrator.

Here, Seth recounts a turbulent childhood amid Holocaust survivors—specifically with Magda, his mother’s sister who stepped in to raise Seth and his sister after their mother’s death. Seth recounts multiple experiences, including those that left him in the care of a drag queen named Mother, who, on Pier 45, frequently cared for battered, brutalized LGBTQ individuals.

Many years after Seth himself first met Mother, he finds himself gripped by grief as numerous friends and acquaintances succumb to AIDS. Feeling burnt out, he breaks his sobriety and embarks on a terrifying psychological and emotional path that makes him question what is real and what is not.

Pier 45 is an intricate novel, weaving gritty, realist fiction with compelling historical anecdotes about New York City. These anecdotes reveal the area’s significance to the gay community—a connection harkening back to World War I.

The incorporation of these details is significant: they remind the book’s audience that, despite how America has attempted to conceal or to even deny its LGBTQ+ history, many of America’s most important and most influential cities have always had their own LGBTQ+ communities.

Thus, community—the ones people make and where people find them—is an inherent theme. Alderman expertly weaves this discussion into Seth’s entire character. Not only is Seth LGBTQ-identifying, he participates in Narcotic Anonymous. He balances his Jewish identity with his LGBTQ identity, and his recollections about the Jewish community’s influence on his upbringing is ever-present in many chapters. The idea of community is reinforced in settings like Wilde House, and the incorporation of such a place testifies to the power of underground grassroots movements during times of crisis.

While Pier 45 is fascinating from a historical perspective, at times it can be difficult to follow since the chapters alternate time periods and experiences. However, this structure does facilitate multiple aspects of Seth’s persona and experience successfully. First, it reflects Seth’s own changing personality and psychological state. Next, it mirrors the ever-changing relational dynamics due to the AIDS epidemic. The structure intelligently mimics the psychological and emotional shifts caused by grief and uncertainty, and readers are all the better for it.

Pier 45 adeptly tackles important social justice issues America still contends with today. An impactful, unforgettable read, it portrays not only a tumultuous time in America but also a redefining time for New York City.