Katy Hays
Author of The Cloisters
Works by Katy Hays
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Disclaimer: I was given an ARC of this book from Atria to review as a bookseller, and in return for honest feedback. This is a spoiler free review.
I really, truly wanted to like this book. The description and the comparison to Ninth House and The Secret History sold me right away, and the opening of the book was incredibly intriguing. I was equally intrigued by the characters from the beginning, and had very high expectations for the remainder of the book as a result.
However, I think one of show more the major mistakes that this book made was in the marketing campaign. Selling it "for fans of Ninth House and The Secret History" felt inconsistent with the actual content of the book and set expectations for me that weren't met. It wasn't that I didn't like the narrative or the writing, but rather that I expected something entirely different out of this work based on the way it's being marketed. While this work could have easily run with either the dark, murderous academia of The Secret History or the secretive occultism of Ninth House, I feel that it touched on these aesthetics without truly delving into them fully, and this lukewarm nature caused the narrative to drag on very slowly for me.
I felt, while reading, as if I were eternally waiting for the true action to begin. Scenes that were clearly meant to be climactic didn't have enough build-up to really create an emotional attachment or reaction, and the reveals near the end of the book felt as if they were simply pigeonholed into the plot, rather than existing as a good twist or even a convincing product of the narrative. I wanted to love the characterizations, too, but again, I felt that they had a good foundation and yet did were not pushed to their full potential. I wanted the narrative, described as it was ("sinister and "atmospheric") to lean far more deeply into the unhinged and insane nature of the some of these decisions being made, but it never did.
My other big issue with this work is that, though the description and comparisons to other titles I enjoy suggested otherwise, I don't feel that I was the intended audience for this book. The emphasis on the mysterious nature of tarot throughout, especially as the driving force for the plot, fell flat for me, as I am someone who regularly interacts with tarot and occultism on a daily basis. Much of the plot was propelled by the question of "can these cards really tell the future?" and while I could see this being an interesting consideration for more mainstream readers, I don't feel that the audiences of something like Ninth House and other similar encompassing novels will enjoy seeing it here.
Overall, again, I really wanted to like this book, and I certainly didn't hate it, but I found it falling flat in many areas. The pacing was slow, and there was not enough climactic build-up to justify the important reveals. The magical realism aspects were rather dull in comparison to the titles this work is being equaled to, and though I know there is a good audience out there for this work, I don't believe that I am it.
Still, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to read this ARC, and glad for the chance to form my own opinions about this work. I did enjoy some of the artistic aspects of the novel, including the setting itself, which drew very vivid and atmospheric energy. A huge thank you to Atria Books for sending a copy for review! show less
I really, truly wanted to like this book. The description and the comparison to Ninth House and The Secret History sold me right away, and the opening of the book was incredibly intriguing. I was equally intrigued by the characters from the beginning, and had very high expectations for the remainder of the book as a result.
However, I think one of show more the major mistakes that this book made was in the marketing campaign. Selling it "for fans of Ninth House and The Secret History" felt inconsistent with the actual content of the book and set expectations for me that weren't met. It wasn't that I didn't like the narrative or the writing, but rather that I expected something entirely different out of this work based on the way it's being marketed. While this work could have easily run with either the dark, murderous academia of The Secret History or the secretive occultism of Ninth House, I feel that it touched on these aesthetics without truly delving into them fully, and this lukewarm nature caused the narrative to drag on very slowly for me.
I felt, while reading, as if I were eternally waiting for the true action to begin. Scenes that were clearly meant to be climactic didn't have enough build-up to really create an emotional attachment or reaction, and the reveals near the end of the book felt as if they were simply pigeonholed into the plot, rather than existing as a good twist or even a convincing product of the narrative. I wanted to love the characterizations, too, but again, I felt that they had a good foundation and yet did were not pushed to their full potential. I wanted the narrative, described as it was ("sinister and "atmospheric") to lean far more deeply into the unhinged and insane nature of the some of these decisions being made, but it never did.
My other big issue with this work is that, though the description and comparisons to other titles I enjoy suggested otherwise, I don't feel that I was the intended audience for this book. The emphasis on the mysterious nature of tarot throughout, especially as the driving force for the plot, fell flat for me, as I am someone who regularly interacts with tarot and occultism on a daily basis. Much of the plot was propelled by the question of "can these cards really tell the future?" and while I could see this being an interesting consideration for more mainstream readers, I don't feel that the audiences of something like Ninth House and other similar encompassing novels will enjoy seeing it here.
Overall, again, I really wanted to like this book, and I certainly didn't hate it, but I found it falling flat in many areas. The pacing was slow, and there was not enough climactic build-up to justify the important reveals. The magical realism aspects were rather dull in comparison to the titles this work is being equaled to, and though I know there is a good audience out there for this work, I don't believe that I am it.
Still, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to read this ARC, and glad for the chance to form my own opinions about this work. I did enjoy some of the artistic aspects of the novel, including the setting itself, which drew very vivid and atmospheric energy. A huge thank you to Atria Books for sending a copy for review! show less
In "The Cloisters," by Katy Hays, Ann Stilwell is a summer intern at a unique museum in Washington Heights that is devoted to European medieval art and architecture. Ann is enchanted by this magical place of haunting beauty. She spends much of her time in the library, conducting research with a colleague, Yale graduate Rachel Mondray, under the supervision of the Cloisters' curator, Patrick Roland. Their boss asks Rachel and Ann to dig through thousands of pages to ferret out information on show more occult practices in Early Renaissance Italy. There is a great deal going on beneath the surface here. Ann lusts after Leo, the Cloisters' virile and charismatic gardener; Rachel, who befriends Ann, has a mercurial and manipulative personality; Patrick, an avid collector of artifacts and documents, is fixated on the power of the tarot, and he enlists Ann in a quest to achieve extra insight by means of these exotic cards.
The premise of the book is intriguing, and Katy Hays' description of the Cloisters and the sights and sounds of New York City are colorful and evocative. In addition, the author effectively fleshes out her characters. At first, Ann is a timid and solitary woman who grieves for her late father. Her dad was a janitor who taught his only child to love languages. Thanks to his training and encouragement, Ann reads Latin and Greek and is fluent in German and Italian. Alas, only a favored few achieve recognition in academia. Rachel has already secured her place in Harvard, but Ann has yet to find a PhD program that will accept her.
Hays ratchets up the suspense with hints of dark secrets, some of which involve the tarot cards' mystical power. Alas, as the story proceeds, the central characters become increasingly unlikeable and, to some extent, delusional. When Ann behaves badly, she has a ready-made excuse: "What if our whole life—how we live and die—has already been decided for us?" If we accept this premise, then we all have a free pass to do whatever we want, regardless of the consequences. "The Cloisters" starts out promisingly, but as the novel progresses, Hays downplays its literary aspects and throws in bizarre twists that would normally be found in a conventional thriller. Ultimately, this is a sad and strange tale about tormented people who create their own versions of reality. show less
The premise of the book is intriguing, and Katy Hays' description of the Cloisters and the sights and sounds of New York City are colorful and evocative. In addition, the author effectively fleshes out her characters. At first, Ann is a timid and solitary woman who grieves for her late father. Her dad was a janitor who taught his only child to love languages. Thanks to his training and encouragement, Ann reads Latin and Greek and is fluent in German and Italian. Alas, only a favored few achieve recognition in academia. Rachel has already secured her place in Harvard, but Ann has yet to find a PhD program that will accept her.
Hays ratchets up the suspense with hints of dark secrets, some of which involve the tarot cards' mystical power. Alas, as the story proceeds, the central characters become increasingly unlikeable and, to some extent, delusional. When Ann behaves badly, she has a ready-made excuse: "What if our whole life—how we live and die—has already been decided for us?" If we accept this premise, then we all have a free pass to do whatever we want, regardless of the consequences. "The Cloisters" starts out promisingly, but as the novel progresses, Hays downplays its literary aspects and throws in bizarre twists that would normally be found in a conventional thriller. Ultimately, this is a sad and strange tale about tormented people who create their own versions of reality. show less
Imagine an executive at the Hallmark Channel deciding that they want to make a movie version of a "dark academia" thriller, one sanitised enough to fit with their family-friendly fare, but on a budget so they can't afford to hire writers, just use ChatGPT.
That's the experience of reading The Cloisters.
Everything about this is lazy and hacky, a rote retread of a million other half-baked "thrillers" that fails to include any real characterisation, believable motivation, or suspense. Katy show more Hays' prose is often bad (sample chosen at random: "There were clusters of women in chic black pencil skirts, statement necklaces and bow ties, and various levels of studied deshabille." All at once?) and dialogue risible.
I kept going with this solely as a hate-read because I wanted to see how far someone who clearly knew better would go in conjuring up a fun-house mirror world version of academia/(art) history/palaeography/textual analysis/etc. The answer is: pretty far! I full on belly-laughed when the POV character, Ann, a working-class first-gen college kid, tells us about how her dead father learned a dozen ancient languages, like ancient Greek and medieval Ligurian, and then passed them on to her, in a manner like this:
What in the Good Will Hunting fuck? I'm not saying no one in a blue-collar job would be interested in learning ancient languages, but I am asking why they wouldn't just go to a library.
I'm also asking what humanities professors are just throwing out their research notes.
This is The Cloisters in a nutshell: people acting nonsensically in the service of an Aesthetic. Pfft.
I will grant that Hays' description of the Met Cloisters is accurate in terms of floor layout—I will grant her that! (Even though, in one of the most unfortunate editing slips I've seen in a while, she does state that the Cuxa Cloister was originally built in the 9th century BCE, which is a heck of a feat for a Christian monastery.) But despite the continual references she makes to various medieval artefacts that truly are in the galleries there, Hays shows no real grasp of the Middle Ages. (She describes the medieval Duchy of Ferrara as "libidinous and mystical"—what does that mean? It sounds vivid, I grant you, but what does it mean to describe a city state as lustful and spiritual?) I was unsurprised, when I dug around some to try to verify whether she really is a medievalist, that what academic work she's had published appears to be on modern France, not medieval Italy.
I was surprised, though, to pick up on something else.
While her author bio on the book jacket says that she "pursued her PhD" at UC Berkeley, and while in more than one past interview Hays has said she holds a PhD in Art History, there's no doctoral dissertation that I can find on record for her in the UC system under either her maiden or married name—but there is a CV available online which makes it clear that she left Berkeley in 2011 while ABD. In other words, Katy Hays has no doctorate.
Playing fast and loose with your educational record in order to boost your credibility and thus presumably your book sales? Now that is dark academia at its finest. show less
That's the experience of reading The Cloisters.
Everything about this is lazy and hacky, a rote retread of a million other half-baked "thrillers" that fails to include any real characterisation, believable motivation, or suspense. Katy show more Hays' prose is often bad (sample chosen at random: "There were clusters of women in chic black pencil skirts, statement necklaces and bow ties, and various levels of studied deshabille." All at once?) and dialogue risible.
I kept going with this solely as a hate-read because I wanted to see how far someone who clearly knew better would go in conjuring up a fun-house mirror world version of academia/(art) history/palaeography/textual analysis/etc. The answer is: pretty far! I full on belly-laughed when the POV character, Ann, a working-class first-gen college kid, tells us about how her dead father learned a dozen ancient languages, like ancient Greek and medieval Ligurian, and then passed them on to her, in a manner like this:
“As a janitor, it had been my father’s job to go into the offices on campus in the evening and empty the trash cans. He always kept an eye out in the humanities and languages buildings for passages he could bring home and translate. Often, he would be late coming home from work because he had spent too long going through the paper waste of the tenured professors who thought nothing of throwing out material they had already incorporated into their research. But to my father, those discarded pages were his textbooks.”
What in the Good Will Hunting fuck? I'm not saying no one in a blue-collar job would be interested in learning ancient languages, but I am asking why they wouldn't just go to a library.
I'm also asking what humanities professors are just throwing out their research notes.
This is The Cloisters in a nutshell: people acting nonsensically in the service of an Aesthetic. Pfft.
I will grant that Hays' description of the Met Cloisters is accurate in terms of floor layout—I will grant her that! (Even though, in one of the most unfortunate editing slips I've seen in a while, she does state that the Cuxa Cloister was originally built in the 9th century BCE, which is a heck of a feat for a Christian monastery.) But despite the continual references she makes to various medieval artefacts that truly are in the galleries there, Hays shows no real grasp of the Middle Ages. (She describes the medieval Duchy of Ferrara as "libidinous and mystical"—what does that mean? It sounds vivid, I grant you, but what does it mean to describe a city state as lustful and spiritual?) I was unsurprised, when I dug around some to try to verify whether she really is a medievalist, that what academic work she's had published appears to be on modern France, not medieval Italy.
I was surprised, though, to pick up on something else.
While her author bio on the book jacket says that she "pursued her PhD" at UC Berkeley, and while in more than one past interview Hays has said she holds a PhD in Art History, there's no doctoral dissertation that I can find on record for her in the UC system under either her maiden or married name—but there is a CV available online which makes it clear that she left Berkeley in 2011 while ABD. In other words, Katy Hays has no doctorate.
Playing fast and loose with your educational record in order to boost your credibility and thus presumably your book sales? Now that is dark academia at its finest. show less
The Cloisters by Katy Hays is an excellent read for fans of dark academia and magical realism. Ann Stillwell, desperate to leave the town she grew up in and move on from the death of her father, moves to New York to work for the Met for the summer. When a mix-up happens, she instead finds herself working on a research project at the Cloisters, a museum dedicated to European Medieval art and architecture. She and her colleague, Rachel, are helping the curator research tarot cards from the show more early Renaissance era. But Ann learns that there’s more than just visual art that makes the cards intriguing.
I really enjoyed the Cloisters, even though it was a slow build up. The main question put the reader is whether our fates are sealed or things happen by chance. The author (or main character, at least) seems to lean toward an unalterable future, with tarot cards and astrology being an insight into what it will be. I differ on this opinion, but the book was enjoyable nonetheless.
The main characters were complex and interesting, each one with positive and negative characteristics. In fact, I wasn’t very fond of the main character, Ann, by the end of the book, even though I felt empathy toward her situation. But despite not being the most likeable characters, their motivations and the conflicts they faced were believable. Ann’s relationships to each of the people in her life is intricate and meaningful to the story.
The whole atmosphere of the book is eerie. Hays uses the claustrophobic heat of summer in New York City to her advantage for this, giving Ann a reason to spend even more time in the coolness of the Cloisters. The surrounding of historical artifacts, manuscripts, and architecture adds to the overall dark academia feel. Add to that the occult theme of the characters’ work and the unhurried plot, and you’re overwhelmed with the expectation that something very dark is about to happen at any minute. The foreshadowing alone in the story was enough the keep me reading, but the author also kept just enough details from you to make you feel the need to get to the end and discover the full picture. I was genuinely surprised by the twists at the end. show less
I really enjoyed the Cloisters, even though it was a slow build up. The main question put the reader is whether our fates are sealed or things happen by chance. The author (or main character, at least) seems to lean toward an unalterable future, with tarot cards and astrology being an insight into what it will be. I differ on this opinion, but the book was enjoyable nonetheless.
The main characters were complex and interesting, each one with positive and negative characteristics. In fact, I wasn’t very fond of the main character, Ann, by the end of the book, even though I felt empathy toward her situation. But despite not being the most likeable characters, their motivations and the conflicts they faced were believable. Ann’s relationships to each of the people in her life is intricate and meaningful to the story.
The whole atmosphere of the book is eerie. Hays uses the claustrophobic heat of summer in New York City to her advantage for this, giving Ann a reason to spend even more time in the coolness of the Cloisters. The surrounding of historical artifacts, manuscripts, and architecture adds to the overall dark academia feel. Add to that the occult theme of the characters’ work and the unhurried plot, and you’re overwhelmed with the expectation that something very dark is about to happen at any minute. The foreshadowing alone in the story was enough the keep me reading, but the author also kept just enough details from you to make you feel the need to get to the end and discover the full picture. I was genuinely surprised by the twists at the end. show less
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