Brooklyn Legacies

Erica Donato, PhD, a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, is thrilled to meet Louisa Gibbs, a preservation icon, now an octogenarian. Louisa’s home abuts against the property of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ homebase, nicknamed ‘The Watchtower.’

As one of the biggest property holders in Brooklyn Heights, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been developing the neighbourhood, slowly taking it over, one house at a time. Louisa is concerned that she’s been receiving threats from this organization…but they claim that she’s imagining things.

Erica isn’t sure she agrees with the developers, and is determined to uncover the truth.

‘Stein gives an economical but vivid sense of Erica’s Brooklyn neighborhood, and the characterization is wonderful-especially the wryly self-aware narrator’s recognition of how much her own confusion is mirrored in her daughter’s behavior.’ - Publishers Weekly