September 8, 2014
A fine pendant piece to 2013’s Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, this new collection brings together an impressive roster of 28 writers to share their love for a city that’s as much a way of being as a geographic coordinate. As Phillip Lopate, a native New Yorker, explains, “I was ruined in the crib for life elsewhere. The milk I drank from my mother’s breast probably contained window soot or was diluted with traces of Rheingold beer and egg creams.” The book, a playful and tender collection of love letters for an anthropomorphized city, offers up a generous dose of nostalgia and shared experiences. There are some memorable exceptions to the otherwise predictably chosen subject matter: Jon-Jon Goulian’s profile of a resistant Floridian convert and Susan Orlean’s essay on her preoccupation with papayas, to name two. Despite an air of homogeneity, the book represents a far wider range of voices than its precursor, and each writer offers a deeply personal perspective on a city shared by over 8 million. Agent: Rayhane Sanders, WSK Management LLC.
August 15, 2014
Recollections of life, love and subway rides. In Goodbye to All That (2013), all the contributors were women. In this sequel, along with women-e.g., Rosanne Cash, Elizabeth Gilbert and Whoopi Goldberg-Botton has invited men, including novelist Alexander Chee, journalist Jason Diamond, founding editor of The Rumpus Stephen Elliott, and Elliott Kalan, head writer for the Daily Show. The essays feature memoirs of assorted New York experiences: growing up, arriving, moving from apartment to apartment, working, finding love, breaking up and occasionally getting mugged. Many writers born elsewhere saw Manhattan as a bright beacon of liberation and reinvention. "I discovered this was the best thing about New York," writes novelist Patricia Engel, a New Jersey native, "you could run away every day if you wanted to and still find yourself in a newly incarnated version of the city. You never had to be the same person." New York Times technology reporter Jenna Wortham came and left New York, with sometimes a decade between residencies. She had to learn, she writes, "the calculus and physics of knowing where to walk and at which exact moment to avoid clipping strangers." Movie references recur in these essays, particularly Woody Allen's, whose romantic evocations represented an alluring, glamorous dream of life in Manhattan. New York Times Magazine culture editor Adam Sternbergh writes that the idea of New York can become, for a new arrival, "as elusive as a great party you were thrilled to be invited to, yet for which you now realize you lost the address." As can be expected, the collection is uneven, with a few long, self-indulgent pieces; a few haphazard musings; but several fresh, thoughtful pieces, such as novelist Kathleen Hale's "Quit Everything," advice given to her by a psychic; and historian Rachel Syme's paean to "ESB" (that is, the Empire State Building). A pleasantly diverting love letter to the iconic city.
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November 1, 2014
The sequel to Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York (2013), this essay collection draws two kinds of audiences: aspirational New Yorkers, especially artists, who are hungry for vicarious NYC experiences, and those like Rachel Syme, one of the book's contributors, who already consider the city their "boyfriend," and, who, because of their intense infatuation, delight even in seeing their beloved described through someone else's loving eyes. Contributors include mostly novelists, journalists, or bloggers--Alexander Chee, Kathleen Hale, Anna Holmes--but a few others also dabble in music (Roseanne Cash), comedy (Elliott Kalan), film (Stephen Elliott), and acting (Whoopi Goldberg). Essays are short, sometimes too short, and are mostly focused on the writers' coming of age in the city. Although the writing quality varies and is occasionally uneven, the tradeoff of so many voices is a richly textured sketch of the city: one that at once describes its past, present, and future. VERDICT Extremely addictive, this anthology is the perfect subway read--or the perfect book to read while imagining reading on the subway.--Meagan Lacy, Guttman Community Coll., CUNY
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