Cohen, Gabriel 1961–

views updated

Cohen, Gabriel 1961–

PERSONAL:

Born July 16, 1961. Hobbies and other interests: Playing guitar and practicing tai chi.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Has worked as a reporter, teacher, waiter, script reader, musician, and researcher. Founder of Sundays at Sunny's Reading Series in Brooklyn, NY.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Nominated for Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, 2002, for Red Hook.

WRITINGS:

Red Hook (novel), St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Boombox (novel), Academy Chicago Publishers (Chicago, IL), 2007.

The Graving Dock (novel; sequel to Red Hook), St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Storms Can't Hurt the Sky: A Buddhist Path through Divorce (nonfiction), Da Capo Press (Cambridge, MA), 2008.

Contributor to newspapers and magazines, including New York Times and Time Out New York.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gabriel Cohen's body of work includes crime novels and other fiction about urban life as well as nonfiction. Asked by an interviewer for the Mystery One Bookstore Web site why he chose to write in the crime genre, he replied: "Crime novels can provide a way to explore all sorts of fundamental mysteries in life, and that's what attracts me to them. (Of course, you better tell a good story too.)" For instance, in his debut novel, Red Hook, the mysteries include not only who committed a murder but, as Cohen told the interviewer: "Why did a once-thriving neighborhood turn into a near-ghost town? Why do parents and their kids have such a hard time communicating? Why is the wealth of the world spread so unevenly? How can human beings live day-to-day knowing that they're going to die?"

Red Hook takes its title from a once-thriving working-class section of Brooklyn that has since become depressed and infested with crack dealers. Its protagonist, Detective Jack Leightner, grew up in Red Hook and returns to investigate the stabbing death of Dominican Tomas Berrios, a hardworking young husband and father whose body was about to be thrown in the river with concrete blocks tied to his legs when his killers were spotted. Jack has been involved with hundreds of murder cases, but when he and Detective Gary Daskivitch view the corpse, Jack vomits. Jack becomes obsessed with the murder, but in returning to Red Hook, he is forced to face his own demons: his failed marriage, the death of his fifteen-year-old brother, and the emotional disconnectedness of his alienated son, Ben. In his loneliness, Jack becomes depressed and drinks excessively, and his only friend is his landlord, with whom he often drinks beer and watches television in the evening.

Several critics praised Cohen's characterizations and setting, among other aspects of the novel. In January magazine online, Karen G. Anderson noted that the story "is rich with character and blessedly devoid of stereotypes. The gang of young Hispanic men we meet in the novel's prologue seem ominous at first glance, but it turns out they've gathered only to ride their racing bikes through the night." Marilyn Stasio wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Cohen "gives you a real feeling for the neighborhood." Anderson added: "Humor lightens—just barely—Leightner's love life, which consists of a tawdry relationship with an attractive but bitter Columbia University instructor, Sheila Dixon. Preoccupied by the Berrios case, uneasy about the relationship that has little going for it outside of sex, Leightner finds himself imagining Sheila's living room as a murder scene and Sheila as the victim."

Library Journal contributor Jo Ann Vicarel commented that Cohen "has included elements of the literary novel, the police procedural, and the mystery but has forgotten the basics of each." A Publishers Weekly writer, on the other hand, found that "this first effort from Cohen works both as a good mystery and a literary novel. It is better than promising (may the gods take note): it is accomplished." Booklist reviewer Connie Fletcher wrote that "this compelling novel offers an amazingly deft mystery of character."

Cohen's second novel, Boombox, is not a crime story but, as the author told Brooklyn Paper writer Adam Rathe, was like his first "in a sense because I was still writing about the mystery of why people behave the way they do." Boombox takes place in a different section of Brooklyn, a gentrifying area called Boerum Hill. Residents grouped around a courtyard are mixed by ethnicity and income level, and all are dealing with personal issues. Problems involving the whole neighborhood arise when an African American teenager plays gangsta rap loudly, causing a variety of negative reactions and overreactions. Cohen tells the story from the viewpoints of several different characters.

Some reviewers deemed the novel a nonstereotypical tale of urban conflict. The objections to the teenager's music "might sound like a thin conceit for a novel, but Cohen beautifully uses this predicament to explore the painful issues of race and class that underlie this changing neighborhood," remarked Sara Eckel in Time Out New York. She praised Cohen's use of shifting points of view and his "complicated, flesh-and-blood characters." Norman Oder, on the Web log Atlantic Yards Report, called Boombox "a snappy and engaging read" that "captures a tension perhaps most peculiar to post-millennial Brooklyn, yuppies and ‘urban youth’ sharing streets that have ever-precious brownstones on one side and ever-permanent housing projects on the other." A Publishers Weekly critic dubbed the novel "impressive," adding that "Cohen's tight plot, complex characters and vibrant cityscape create a convincing slice of urban life."