The Apartment

Praise For This Book

Elle, A Best New Book of the Summer
Booklist's Best Fiction of the Year
Kirkus Reviews, A Best Book Club Fiction Book of the Year

"Intense and emotional . . . [T]he author allows us to understand that she’s been writing about the universal longing for home and the ways in which we identify it, occupy it and lose it . . . Life will continue in the apartment, its door forever open to restless souls, holding out hope of home through human communion. Menéndez has given life to a place both indistinct and emblematic, mining private pain but spreading positive energy in a building—in a city and a country—that could use a lot more of it." —Bethanne Patick, Los Angeles Times

"Throughout the story of a single Miami apartment, readers learn that the places in which we dwell are as much a part of us as those we love. The Apartment's self-contained vignettes—with key overlaps in time—narrate the lives of veterans, housewives, immigrants, ghosts, and precious children." —The Boston Globe

"An evocative and emotionally powerful novel." —Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times

"This sweeping novel explores grief, exile, and the power of community, all within one South Miami Beach art deco building." —People

"With themes of exile, displacement, and homesickness, this novel shows the power of community and sharing stories to get through the toughest times." —Zibby Owens, Katie Couric Media

"Spanning decades, this fresh novel tells the stories of the different residents of one apartment in The Helena building in South Miami Beach. Full of stories, longing, isolation and connection, it starkly mirrors a broader reality." —Karla Strand, Ms.

"Themes ripple through time in the author’s thoughtful consideration on the illusory nature of home." —Mitch Kaplan, Boca Raton Magazine

"The Apartment, Ana’s latest literary feat, explores the power of community, survival through storytelling, and the complex connections that bind us together in the ever-evolving landscape of life. Make sure you add The Apartment to your reading list." —BELatina Daily

"Showcasing Menéndez’s signature sensuous language, dreamlike imagery, ambitious experimentation, and political awareness honed by her decades as an award-winning journalist, The Apartment is a tour de force by an author working at the peak of her powers." —Joy Castro, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Spanning decades, the chapters of The Apartment offer insight into the changing landscape of Miami, generally, and The Helena, in particular, but, more importantly, they suggest the ways that people create homes and foster community . . . The Apartment is an enjoyable read due to its vivid characters and carefully crafted prose." —Jessi Rae Morton, Southern Review of Books

"Menedez finds a perfect setting for her ambitious crossroads-of-humanity story: an apartment building in South Miami Beach, an old deco structure from a seemingly bygone era, hanging on and packed full of human striving, conflict, and desperation . . . [T]he novel really finds itself in the rich, textured, sometimes intersecting stories of all those people who have put themselves into close quarters and found, not exactly a community, but a shared ground for longing and remembrance." —Dwyer Murphy, Literary Hub

"One apartment on Miami Beach becomes a microcosm of seven decades of ordinary, extraordinary lives . . . Vividly drawn characters and finely crafted prose enhance these interwoven tales. In Apartment 2B, the walls do talk, and their tales reveal their tenants’ minds and hearts." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Haunting . . . The novel explores many facets of loneliness and isolation and the feeling of being othered and far from home, and it illustrates the often life-saving importance of community." —Booklist (starred review)

"In Ana Menéndez’s fifth work of fiction, The Apartment, Miami is not just a luxurious playground for spring breakers but also a colorful tableau with an intricately wrought history . . . Through this kaleidoscope of characters and relationships, apartment 2B, with its white mice and diminishing ocean views, proves the transcendent quality of both individual lives and Menéndez’s writing." —BookPage

"Menéndez’s nesting-doll narrative serves as a thoughtful meditation on the transient nature of home." —Publishers Weekly

"Ana Menéndez gives us an intimate, picturesque tale that grows into a mysterious and supernatural journey through time as the conflicted narrators become ghosts and echoes of each other. Striking and haunting, this powerful novel battles between gut-wrenchingly lonely and harrowing moments in America, and the multifaceted, resilient, and radically caring community that has blossomed against them. It’s a reminder that we breathe new air everyday, that we are always connected to each other, that we survive when we stick together." —Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Olga Dies Dreaming

"Menéndez writes from the gut, expertly crafting the tensions and bitterness of misplacement, the suffocation of place. She also writes from the spleen; Menéndez's acerbic wit finds its way interstitially through the pages of this book, finding another gear for an already beautiful prose. The array of characters, all of whom have jumped out of a frying pan and into a fire, and specifically, into apartment 2B of the Helena, are escaping a past that won't let them be. They're immigrants and refugees whose hopelessness at times obfuscates their political realities: here isn't always better than there. At the center of this book, Menéndez has constructed a home, a building, a city; she's also drawn a line—possibly a circle—that stretches from imperialism to mental health." —Alejandro Varela, author of The People Who Report More Stress

"Ingenious in its construction, intimate in its storytelling, and illuminating in its insights, The Apartment is both an unforgettable reading experience and a fascinating character in itself: like the mysterious stranger next door whose history, hopes, longings, secrets, and surprises thrillingly reveal themselves over time." —Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men