title: The Girl Next Door: A Novel
author:  Elizabeth Noble 
description: Noble charts the intertwining lives of the residents of a New York City apartment building in her charming love letter to Manhattan. After banker Ed Gallagher's promotion necessitates a move from the U.K. to New York, he and his wife, Eve, are thrilled to find the perfect Upper East Side apartment, though Eve struggles to meet people until she befriends Violet Wallace, an 82-year-old fellow Englishwoman in her building who enchants her with the story of her path to Manhattan. Elsewhere in the building, shiftless trust fund baby Jackson Grayling III has fallen in love with Emily Mikanowski, a stunner living downstairs, while Emily's downstairs neighbor and friend, frumpy librarian Charlotte, works up the nerve to speak to Che, the Cuban doorman. And on the sixth floor, the Kramers and Schulmans, married couples with young children, struggle with two sets of very different marital problems. Noble (<i>The Reading Group</i>) presents her sprawling cast without neglecting them as characters or confusing the reader, and though she's got something of a wooden ear for her younger characters' dialogue, her handle on heartbreak and hopefulness is admirable. <i>(Dec.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: The Girl Next Door
  ELIZABETH NOBLE
  MICHAEL JOSEPH 
  an imprint of 
  PENGUIN BOOKS
  
  Contents
  Eight a.m.
  April
  May
  June
  July
  August
  September
  October
  November
  December
  January
  Nine p.m.
  Acknowledgements
  Read on
  Prologue
  Chapter One
  
  For Mari Evans, who is
  wonderful in every way
  
  Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead 
  where there is no path and leave a trail…
  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  
  List of Characters
  Eve
  Gallagher
  New, English resident of apartment 7A; recently
  relocated from Surrey
  Ed Gallagher
  Eve’s husband; an ambitious banker
  Cath
  Thompson
  Eve’s sister; wife of Geo� and mother to Polly and
  George; Eve’s only family
  Violet
  Wallace
  Also English; 78‐year‐old resident of apartment 4B;
  longest resident; organizer of Gardening Committee
  Jason
  Kramer
  A stockbroker, and the owner of apartment 6A
  Kimberley
  Kramer
  Jason’s wife; a homemaker who used to be a tax
  lawyer
  Avery
  Kramer
  Jason and Kimberley’s young daughter
  Esme
  The Kramers’ Jamaican babysitter
  David
  Schulman
  A litigator; joint own