The Doorman: A Novel

"The many characters, who come from a variety of socioeconomic, racial and ethnic scales, are all captured convincingly by narrator Edoardo Ballerini."—The Washington Post

"This novel is way better than good...Cynical, tender, sharp, dense, funny, and loaded with inside dope about how New York works (and how it doesn’t)."—Stephen King

A pulse-pounding novel of class, privilege, sex, and murder, from the New York Times bestselling author of Two Nights in Lisbon and The Expats.

Chicky Diaz is everyone’s favorite doorman at the Bohemia, the most famous apartment house in the world, home of celebrities, financiers, and New York’s cultural elite.

Up in the penthouse, Emily Longworth has the perfect-looking everything, all except her husband, whom she’d quietly loathed even before the recent revelations about where all the money comes from. But his wealth is immense, their prenup is iron-clad, and Emily can’t bring herself to leave him. Yet.

And downstairs in 2a, Julian Sonnenberg—who has carved himself a successful niche in the art world, and led a good half-century of a full and satisfying, cosmopolitan life—has just received a devastating phone call that does nothing at all to alleviate his sense that, probably for better and worse, he has aged out and he’s just not that useful to anyone any more.

Meanwhile, gathered in the Bohemia’s bowels, the building’s almost entirely Black and Hispanic, working-class staff is taking in the news that that just a few miles uptown, a Black man has been killed by the police, leading to a demonstration, a counterdemonstration, and a long night of violence across the tinderbox city.

As Chicky changes into his uniform for tonight’s shift, he finds himself breaking a cardinal rule of the job: tonight, he’ll be carrying a gun, bought only hours earlier, but before he knew of the pandemonium taking over the city. Chicky knows that there’s more going on in his patch of sidewalk in front of the Bohemia than anyone’s aware of. Tonight in the city, enemies will clash, loyalties will be tested, secrets will be revealed—and lives will be lost.

This program is read by award-winning narrator Edoardo Ballerini, called "a master in his field" (The New York Times) and "in a class by himself" (Oprah Daily).

“Edoardo Ballerini’s masterful performance highlights growing tension in Chris Pavone’s The Doorman, a tense portrait of New York City’s social and economic divisions.”— BookPage

"Narrator [Edoardo] Ballerini skillfully offers varied voices, accents, and emotions in the outstanding audio production." — Library Journal

A Macmillan Audio production from MCD Books.