The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Title: The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Author: Alice Hoffman

Paperback edition published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

372 pages

The first Alice Hoffman's book that I read and I guess I simply fall in love with her works. The author delivers a wonderful mix of magic v. science, history and tragedy and of course a love and romance. A kind of a fairy tale combined with history. My things definitely.

Let's explore New York City in 1911. There is a museum of extraordinary things which is managed by Professor Sardie, a mad scientist and part magician. You will find various kinds of living wonders or some people will call it freak show here,  the Wolf Man,  the Butterfly Girl, the Siamese Twins, and Coralie, Sardie's daughter, who has from the age of 10, spent hours suspended in a tank of water playing the Human Mermaid. 

The protagonists, Coralie and a photographer named Eddy Cohen who likes to take nocturnal walks with his dog in the woods of Northern Manhattan, will take turn narrating the story from old days and back again to 1911. We'll get a rich narration on rights of children, women, workers in a historic tone and ambience and also the  melancholic love story of Coralie and Eddy. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is an extraordinary thing itself. A must read.