Dwelling

Kivel debuts with a rollicking and resonant modern fairy tale of real estate and its discontents. Twenty-something graphic designer Evie Cavallo is evicted, along with every other full-time tenant in New York City, as part of the mayor’s radical scheme to boost tourism by converting housing into short-term rentals. Both of Evie’s parents died several years earlier, just a few months apart, and she has lost touch with her younger sister, who was living at home when their parents died and has been institutionalized following a mental-health crisis, which was exacerbated by losing their rented apartment. Evie’s desire for a fresh start and a semblance of family drive much of the narrative. She travels to Gulluck, Tex., and looks up her late mother’s long-lost cousin, Terry Lang, a real estate agent who puts her up in a carriage house. Evie settles in, getting to know Terry’s strange children and a local keymaker named Bertie, while also taking community-college classes in shoemaking and finding she has a knack for the craft. Things take a surreal turn when Evie discovers a legion of secretive, and possibly immortal, shoemakers that it may just be her destiny to join. While Gulluck feels like a magical place, one of the residents insists to Evie, “it’s not exactly that.” Indeed, even as Kivel brings her weird and wonderful cast of characters to vibrant life, she never drops the incisive real-world commentary on the housing crisis and rising inequality. The result is a sui generis delight. (Aug.)