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The Gargoyle Hunters
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
15 posts | 7 read | 50 to read
Hilarious and poignant, The Gargoyle Hunters is a love letter to a vanishing city, and a deeply emotional story of fathers and sons. Intimately portraying New York's elbow-jostling relationship with time, the novel solves the mystery of a brazen and seemingly impossible architectural heist--the theft of an entire historic Manhattan building--that stunned the city and made the front page of The New York Times in 1974. With both his family and his city fracturing, thirteen-year-old Griffin Watts is recruited into his estranged father's illicit and dangerous architectural salvage business. Small and nimble, Griffin is charged with stealing exuberantly expressive nineteenth-century architectural sculptures--gargoyles--right off the faces of unsung tenements and iconic skyscrapers all over town. As his father explains it, these gargoyles, carved and cast by immigrant artisans during the city's architectural glory days, are an endangered species in this era of sweeping urban renewal. Desperate both to connect with his father and to raise cash to pay the mortgage on the brownstone where he lives with his mother and sister, Griffin is slow to recognize that his father's deepening obsession with preserving the architectural treasures of Beaux Arts New York is also a destructive force, imperiling Griffin's friendships, his relationship with his very first girlfriend, and even his life. As his father grows increasingly possessive of both Griffin's mother and his scavenged touchstones of the lost city, Griffin must learn how to build himself into the person he wants to become and discover which parts of his life can be salvaged--and which parts must be let go. Maybe loss, he reflects, is the only thing no one can ever take away from you. Tender, funny, and achingly sad, The Gargoyle Hunters introduces an extraordinary new novelist.
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review
Well-ReadNeck
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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Pickpick

I enjoyed reading this novel set in NYC during my trip there last week. I adore books where the setting becomes a character and that is very true of this one.

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Soubhiville
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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Pickpick

The Gargoyle Hunters is rich with the feeling of NYC. I don‘t know how much of it is true, but the descriptions of the architecture and all of the small decorative touches on the buildings is perfect.
This is a family drama, a coming of age story, and a bittersweet love letter to New York-that-was. Cities change and grow, and in growth sometimes historically important sites suffer. The same can be said of families.
I see why this was a staff pick.

elkeOriginal LOVE your gargoyle!! 5y
Well-ReadNeck Just grabbed this on kindle for $4.99! Thanks for the recommendation 5y
TrishB Great pic 👍🏻 5y
See All 6 Comments
BarbaraTheBibliophage I loved this one, and I‘m so glad you enjoyed it too! 5y
Soubhiville I used this for #BBRC for Uggghhhhh, for the part that terrified me due to my fear of heights. I think this is the first time a book ever gave me vertigo! @LibrarianRyan 5y
Becker I want that Gargoyle. It‘s gorgeous. 5y
71 likes3 stack adds6 comments
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Soubhiville
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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“She looked like the orange-haired girl-monster from Where the Wild Things Are, the one with the pointy teeth and pigtails whose guilty smirk suggested a certain embarrassment about the outsize pleasure she took in monstering.”

Don‘t you love when the book you‘re reading references one of your favorites?

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Soubhiville
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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This is a pretty great way to start a holiday morning! Froedrick agrees🐱. Don‘t trust that innocent look!

I see I made the last post on this book too, when I bought it a year ago! For some reason I thought it was a memoir, but it‘s fiction. It even says “a novel” on the cover (bottom corner under the blanket here.). Don‘t know how I got confused. But anyway, enjoying it so far!

#CatsOfLitsy #PetsOfLitsy #Froedrick

Bookwormjillk Sounds like something I would do. 5y
AmyG Froedrick is such a beauty. 5y
ladym30 What a beautiful face!😍 5y
Hufflepuffle Froedrick is gorgeous 😍 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage Know what I love? Froedrick‘s wrinkles! The book‘s pretty good too. (edited) 5y
82 likes5 comments
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Soubhiville
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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I managed finally to make it to Knoxville‘s #indiebookstore, Union Avenue Books, where I picked up The Gargoyle Hunters. It sounds pretty good. Anyone read it yet?

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Danbo99
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
Pickpick

I won't give anything away,I was so excited about this book.I've always loved old buildings, their history.Being at a show & thinking about all the previous performers that stood on that stage always amazes.This story seemed to change course.When I finished I was thinking so-so because it wasn't what I wanted.But the story stayed with me even days later.Not what I expected,but because it got me to think I have come to realize I still enjoyed it.

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BarbaraTheBibliophage
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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#humpdaypost @MinDea

1. Geese who congregate at a nearby wildlife refuge as they migrate.
2. The Gargoyle Hunters by John Freeman Gill
3. 70s and lovely. Starting to feel like fall.
4. Too many books!
5. Celebrating two family birthdays

TK421 I really like that picture! 7y
Izai.Amorim Are they already moving south this early? 7y
BarbaraTheBibliophage @Izai.Amorim Don't worry - I picked the 4th from the back of my photos. It's from another season! 7y
90 likes4 comments
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MrBook
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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#TBRtemptation post 6! Released a couple months ago. If Ann Proulx gives this #YA book high praise, then it's an automatic TBR add 👌🏻. Tender, funny, & poignant, this book solves the heist of an entire Manhattan building, making the 1974 NYTs' front page. 13-year-old Griffin is recruited by his father to steal gargoyle sculptures from all over NYC for his architectural salvage business from destroyed by urban renewal. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

LitsyGoesPostal 😊👍🏻 7y
76 likes12 stack adds1 comment
review
BarbaraTheBibliophage
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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Pickpick

This book is a paean to New York City architecture and bad parenting. It's a tender, hilarious coming of age story. Griffin discovers himself, his city, and a lot about his father along the way. Gill writes him without sentimentality, as a giggling crude kid with his friends and an awkward neophyte with his first crush. I loved this story of a completely abnormal childhood, alternately bizarre and magical.

Full review at www.TheBibliophage.com

77 likes4 stack adds
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BarbaraTheBibliophage
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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At least twice on any given page, the language pulls me in and makes me smile or say "yes!" I want to do a photo walk through my own town and then head to Manhattan. But this isn't just a book about architecture, the father-son relationship is equally charming and odd.

Leftcoastzen Very true! 7y
86 likes4 stack adds1 comment
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BarbaraTheBibliophage
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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I found a few moments of #Litsypartyofone before we head off to the littlest's dance recital and then family lunch. Eating a leftover baked potato to tide me over. And learning about caryatids along with the MC in this novel.

92 likes1 stack add
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BarbaraTheBibliophage
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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This isn't fantasy, it's description. And I love this kind of wry writing. 👏🏻👏🏻🤣🤣

mcipher This is lovely! And the book sounds fantastic. 7y
BarbaraTheBibliophage @mcipher I'm only about 50 pages in, and I quite like the story and the author's writing style. 7y
82 likes4 stack adds2 comments
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BarbaraTheBibliophage
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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I pulled this off the library #newbooks shelf with glee. Now that I've finished my recent #netgalley read, I can dig in!

#currentread #riotgrams

85 likes2 stack adds
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SubwayBookReview
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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John: “The Gargoyle Hunters is the story of a boy who is recruited into his father's salvage business. He is sent to steal gargoyles right off the facade of buildings. The father is furious that his son doesn't see the world around him and how it's changing. Stopping the passage of time – it's a tempting fantasy, but it's an impossibility." Read the full interview on https://www.instagram.com/subwaybookreview/

71 likes8 stack adds
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nofutureparttwo
The Gargoyle Hunters | John Freeman Gill
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look what came in the mail! the conceit of John Freeman Gill's debut novel sounds remarkably clever and compelling, and i'm so excited to start it. i think i'll subtly slide it closer to the top of my #TBR stack... #newreleases