A Voice from Old New York: A Memoir of My Youth BY Louis Auchincloss

This book is a quick read. I liked it in parts. I know nothing about this writer except for this memoir. Although I have not liked the writing, I find him consistent in his style. It does not become more interesting or boring. As the book unfolds, I often feel like walking in long, heigh-ceiling corridors of a house with a garden. A household where everything is smooth and functional in the best possible way, but devoid of home-like feeling - what in German is called 'gemütlichkeit.'

Often in the book, there are sections where he talks about his sister and mother, for instance. As a reader, I would like to know more details about them. As the interest in them builds up, the memoirist moves to other episodes of his life. I am also intrigued by the depiction of his mother, and how strongly she wanted him not to be a writer. Perhaps, this had worked in his favor. We want to pursue forbidden things with fervor and rigor.

The best section of the memoir is the one in which he talks about his Irish servant, Maggie. A sensible and lovable maid who worked all her life in the author's home. She disappears when her services were not required any longer. She became redundant when the kids grew up. Although she was not asked to leave, she left the house on her own.

I found it hard to believe. Such a thing happens only in movies. Even in the book, the memoirist tells us that Maggie could have found useful employment with her sister's kids, but the sister did not want to employ her because Maggie was too close – which seems like a very posh – rather cruel – reason. I think, most of the time, people with money do not care for their servants once they are old. So whereas I trusted the author's goodwill toward her. As a boy he must have loved her, but I found it hard to accept that after spending the best years of her life with them, Maggie just disappeared wholly on her own accord.

I wish he could have written more about her. She must have been a nice woman. Else at age ninety Auchincloss would not have been remembering her.