Metropolis

 B.A. Shapiro does not disappoint in the new novel,  Metropolis.  Told in alternating chapters about the lives of six people whose lives intersect at the Metropolis Storage Company.

As you walk down the street in a neighborhood, or see a house for sale, don't wonder what it looks like inside?  ow have they decorated or are their lives like?  It has also become the thought on people's minds when you drive by a storage place.  Or maybe as you are putting things in your storage unit, you  are wondering what kinds of things are other people storing?  

What are  the things in someone's life that they cannot live with anymore but they cannot bring themselves to throw away?  These days in a society of such consumption there are even television shows about people who have abandoned their storage units full of belongings.  Where have they gone and why are all these things left behind?

Shapiro takes this concept sets each of our protagonists in a storage unit at Metropolis.  We see  the picture of their belongings they need there and we learn the back story that brings then to this location in Cambridge, MA.  All their lives will intersect as the plot continues.

Zach, the owner, Rose the office manager, Jake, a lawyer, Serge, a photographer, Liddy, an unhappy wife, Marta, a student, from Venezuela finishing her dissertation.  Each of them has a secret and feels the Metropolis Storage Company is a good place for secrecy.

Shapiro has written such an incredible novel that the reader feels attached to each of the characters. You want them all to succeed.  So descriptive that you can picture each of the units as photograph in your mind.  I  did not want to leave the building or the characters.