The Garden of Lost and Found

The fourth volume of the Gospel Harmonies, The Garden of Lost and Found tells the story of James Ramsay, a 21-year-old man who discovers, upon the death of his estranged mother, that he’s inherited a building in New York City. James takes up residence in No. 1 Dutch Street, a five-story brownstone, whose only other tenant is an elderly black woman named Nellydean. Because of its location a few blocks from the World Trade Center, the building’s lot is worth millions, but the estate is cash poor. James is immediately faced with a choice: sell the building for a small fortune—and turn Nellydean out of the only home she’s known for more than forty years—or attempt to stave off the mounting tide of taxes that will cause him to forfeit his only connection to a mother he never knew. Then Nellydean’s niece shows up, looking for a home for herself and her unborn child, and an older man becomes smitten with James, even as James's health fails.

The Garden of Lost and Found maps a tangled network of sexual, familial, and financial complications, over which hangs the specter of 9/11. A hallucinatory, lyrical, and often darkly hilarious portrait of 21st-century America.

Dale Peck is the author of twelve books in a variety of genres, including Martin and John, Hatchet Jobs, and Sprout. His fiction and criticism have appeared in dozens of publications, and have earned him two O. Henry Awards, a Pushcart Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. He lives in New York City, where he has taught in the New School’s Graduate Writing Program since 1999.