As I’m typing this I just finished the last page of your book, and was overwhelmed. 

Cahey’s story moved so fluidly and with so much detail that the years melted by as I read. I found myself looking around the city with a fresher lens, trying to imagine horses running through Times Square, mud kicking up on the streets. Your writing is so grounding. It has the density of research and reporting but is tempered by contemplative, questioning moments. It’s lyrical, like a steady breath.  

I relate to this character. His matter-of-fact nostalgia, the way his knowledge and experiences seem to aggregate with his relationships, and his and his friends’ scrappy businesses. I also appreciate it ending with a new beginning, a birth in the midst of more loss and separation. 

You once told me that as we age, the best of our friends move away, and we have to make a decision to nurture the future as much as the past. I tell myself that often, while understanding that I am the moving away friend to many.  

Reading this book gave me a jolt that I needed, and I thank you.