The Parking Lot Attendant (2019) is Nafkofte Tamirat‘s debut novel. Book-ended by more fantastical sections set on an unnamed island, the majority of the novel is set in Boston, focused on the relationship between a young Ethiopian woman in her late teens and a mysterious older man, the parking lot attendant of the title.
The book is decidedly, and deliciously, Ethiopian (who do in fact dominate the parking lot industry in many East coast cities), but it is clearly also making a larger statement about immigrant communities in general.
The protagonist is estranged from her mother, and coexists with her father in a largely silent relationship. Almost accidentally, she begins spending time after school at a parking lot, doing homework and falling under the thrall of the man who both runs the business and a highly informal community network.
The novel is at its best in the narrator’s voice, in the small details that grab her interest, and in the lens of not-quite-belonging through which she sees the world. There is a larger plot of political intrigue which is most successful when it mirrors the confusion and lack of agency that often accompany being dislocated.
A quick read, and an entertaining one as well.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
I admire Tamirat’s book-ending the novel with a more surreal, fantastical setting: there is a clear effort here to take the bulk of the book–which is deeply steeped in reality–and expand it to a larger statement. Readers may decide for themselves how effective it is, but I love the attempt.