Book: Gone to New York

Author: Ian Frazier
Publisher:

Acclaimed author Ian Frazier, 54, comes out with Gone to New York: Adventures in the City, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on November 3, 2005. The book, his eighth, is a collection of his previously published essays about life in the city. With his trademark humor and clear voice, Frazier paints a vivid picture of the big city as seen through the eyes of a new arrival. As his familiarity with his new home increases, so does his understanding and love of it as witnessed in pieces such as the disturbing ‘On the Floor’ - where two groups of kids face off in front of his building before the cops break it up and he watches them trail off into the distance, the adrenaline wearing off and allowing them to become children again - or the haunting ‘To Mr. Winslow’ - where he visits the site of a senseless murder over a period of time and records the changes he sees - and his famous ‘Bags in Trees’ stories. Gone to New York tackles issues of race, of migrant communities, of the salad bowl churning into the melting pot, of death, of hope, and ultimately of Frazier himself as he slowly becomes a part of the very fabric he’s observing.

An excellent collection.