What is a summary of the story of Georges Seurat’s famous painting titled Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte? A lot is happening in the canvas, but does it really have a narrative that can be followed. The Sunken Cathedral is kind of like that; it is an Impressionist painting in book form. Summarizing the story—by which is usually meant what happens along some sort of linear progression from the first page through to the last—is tricky for two reasons that would seem to be diametrically opposed: not a whole lot actually happens but there is a lot of stuff going on.
At its simplest level, The Sunken Cathedral tells the story of several intersecting lives in the New York City in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks, though it should not be confused with actually being a 9/11 novel. A major historical disaster is at the center of the events, but it is not the work of terrorists, but rather Mother Nature. The natural disaster is a devastating superstorm not unlike that which actually did arrive in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks: Hurricane Sandy.
The lives which eventually cross paths in significant ways are those of two women who managed to survive the affront to human decency known as the ravages of fascism across Europe culminating in World War II: Marie and Simone. While these widows share a friendship that crosses not just distance, but time, their stories approach the natural conclusion with the introduction of aging artist Sid Morris and young mom and tenancy neighbor Elizabeth, along with her husband and their teenage son. Marie and Simon are studying painting at the studio currently occupied by Sid which is targeted for being converted into more profitable condominium space. And then there is seeming psychic Helen, another aging occupant of the city—a retired art historian—who is busy at Sid’s studio creating vivid works straight from her imagination: New York City submerged in water. What seems an impossibly nightmarish scenario forever to be limited to canvas takes on a whole new sense of reality with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy and its viciously prolonged assault on the region.
However, this is, as indicated, an Impressionistic novel. What does that mean and how does it apply to a summary? Notably, the name Sandy does not occur; while a major storm does bear down upon the city, it is clearly not intended to be taken for granted as that particularly infamous storm. In fact, certain details hint quite strongly that the time frame of the storm in the story could not possibly be coincident with Sandy despite the fact that Sandy is quite clearly the inspiration.
More significant than the issue of the storm, however, is the inclusion of a literary tool that is not commonly found in fiction: footnotes. The novel is as heavily footnoted as a biography and the footnotes offer background information about the characters—as well as a huge number of seemingly superfluous tangential details—manage to add depth to the storyline without placing undo weight upon the length of the novel. As mentioned, there really is no plot to the story; there is barely even what might be called rising action, climax and denouement.
As with Seurat’s legendary painting, the attentive person will come to realize that there is a lot of “stuff” going on and that some of the stuff serves to make a connection between otherwise barely related figures, but summarizing the “stuff” is not the same as summarizing the storyline because so much of that stuff requires flipping to the footnote section which, of course, has the effect of impairing the natural forward motion of fictional narrative. The story of The Sunken Cathedral can effectively be defined as the story of what constitutes history. The figures who occupy time and place within that history are—in another example of the novel’s paradoxical nature—both essential and dispensable.
