Title: The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Author: Alice Hoffman
ISBN: 9781451693560
No. of Pages: 384
Genre: Historical Fiction
Origins: Scribner
Release Date: 18 February 2014
Bottom Line: Fascinating character study
Synopsis:
“Mesmerizing and illuminating, Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things is the story of an electric and impassioned love between two vastly different souls in New York during the volatile first decades of the twentieth century.
Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.
The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.
With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is Alice Hoffman at her most spellbinding.”
Thoughts: The cast of characters within The Museum of Extraordinary Things is large, diverse, and highly entertaining. It includes mobsters and reformed mobsters, immigrants, those who prey on immigrants, opportunists, the wealthy and the poverty-stricken, the curious and the ambivalent, idealists and realists and so many more. In spite of their backgrounds and likeability – some are more despicable than others – there is a beauty within each of their differences that Ms. Hoffman masterfully showcases. Even the most depraved of the lot have aspects that one finds admirable. It is a fascinating character study, one that highlights the gradations of humanity in all of its glory.
One must include Coney Island among the cast of characters. Unlike any other location within the story, it is the one area that receives pages upon pages of loving description with attention paid to the type of people who visit the attractions and those who make up the attractions. Its vibrancy is tangible, while Coralie’s enthusiasm for its tawdry beauty and its exponential growth is infectious. It is the one area described within the novel that is vividly clear with Ms. Hoffman’s breathtaking descriptions of the good, the bad, and the weird that makes up the island.
One of the more disappointing elements is the misleading emphasis on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Given the synopsis, one might easily consider it to be a key scene within the story. While it is given the attention and gravitas such a serious accident deserves, it is by no means a key plot point. Rather, it is an occurrence that happens within Eddie’s life. The connections between what happens that fateful day and the rest of the story are given lesser attention than Coralie’s growth beyond her father’s influence. The lack of emphasis is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but readers should be warned that it is not the pivotal point within the story as the synopsis may lead one to believe.
The love story within The Museum of Extraordinary Things is a bit of a stretch. Coralie’s and Eddie’s love at first sight does not ring authentic, which is fitting given how sheltered Coralie is and how lonely Eddie is. Theirs is a relationship brought about by foreignness and need, respectively. To see their relationship bloom into something more substantial and long-lasting is beautiful to behold but is a there is an element of fantasy to it given how quickly it occurs with very minimal interaction between them. If this were a true romance novel, it would be easier to accept such sudden eternal love. However, since this story has romantic elements among its other characteristics, their relationship is a shade disconcerting.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things is a surprisingly quiet novel in spite of its characters and locale. Neither Coralie nor Eddie is an action-filled character, and it takes a lot for either one of them to gather the courage and the drive to take decisive action. This does not mean that the story is without action. The factory fire is not the only major scene of catastrophe and there are plenty of bad actions afoot in Eddie’s childhood. Still, there is a peaceful quality to the entire story that not only highlights the beauty within everyone regardless of outward appearance but also fills a reader with hope.

Thank you for this review- you captured what I could not in my take on the book. I was left wanting at the end, as if it weren’t enough. I still can’t explain it well, but you do. Maybe, for me, it was that The Dovekeepers knocked me over with its powerful women and Coralie was not that.
Thanks, Catherine! I still have to get to The Dovekeepers. Good to know it is better than this one!
Hoffman’s a talented & prolific writer. I’ve only read one of hers over the years (At Risk in 1988) but I still recall that it was good. I should read her again. Cheers. http://www.thecuecard.com/
I’m a Hoffman newbie, but I thoroughly enjoyed her and am looking forward to checking out her backlist.
I used to buy Hoffman’s books right away, but I got a bit behind. This one sounds good!
I have at least one of hers on my shelves but have never gotten around to reading anything by her until this one. I’m definitely curious about her earlier books now.
I’ll read anything she writes.
You are not the only one who feels that way.
I have this one. I received it early on but felt like the time was never right to read it. I am glad to hear that it’s on the quite side, given the subject matter.
It goes very quickly, but yes. It’s the kind of novel that just keeps you turning the page because you want to do so, not because you have to do so.