Metropolitan Stories

Coulson’s sly, whimsical debut takes the form of a collection of connected stories set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Grounded in the author’s decades of experience working at the Met, the surreal stories scamper among multiple points of view, both human and other. Ghosts appear, and pieces of furniture and paintings express their opinions. In “Musing,” the museum’s ambitious director seeks a Muse to take to a meeting, auditioning candidates from the Greek and Roman galleries as well as more recently painted Muses, all of whom banter among themselves about him and the auditioning process. In “Big-Boned,” an “underdrawing,” concealed for centuries by the paint of a finished work, slips out to work in the staff cafeteria. “Adam” and “Night Moves” both regard the tumble and fall of a statue, from the views of the statue itself, yearning to wiggle, and the guard who leaves his post by the statue to do the push-ups that he hopes will make him look more manly. The Met that emerges from these stories is both grandiose and cheerfully mundane, a place so packed with wonders that no one person can know them all. Those who think they know the place will be beguiled by the look behind the scenes; those unfamiliar with it will be prompted to make its acquaintance. (Oct.)