“This beautifully written memoir describes the author’s ten-year stint as a security guard at New York’s world-renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art. We get a behind-the-scenes look as he interacts with co-workers and visitors, and—best of all—spends long, meditative stretches of time in front of the museum’s many masterpieces.”

- Grove / Sales Associate

 

A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard.

 

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother died of cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew. Hardcover, 288 pages.