[.ca] Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (ISBN 037575752X)

From Amazon.com:
"Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd Manhattan?" marveled the excitable Walt Whitman in 1865. The skinny island and its four sister boroughs have continued to fascinate writers ever since, and it would be hard to find a better record of that fascination than Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. As David Remnick explains in his foreword, the fledgling magazine paid relatively little heed to the nuts and bolts of metropolitan life, and in his original prospectus, Harold Ross didn't even mention fiction. But in the following decades, Ross and his successors published so many classic New York stories that the real challenge, according to Remnick, was whittling down the selection: "As there is barely enough room in this city to contain all of its busy, funny, angry, joyful, carping, and canny inhabitants, there was barely enough room to contain the wide range of stories we agreed upon." So what made the grade? There are treasures from John Cheever ("The Five-Forty-Eight"), James Thurber ("The Catbird Seat"), Maeve Brennan ("I See You, Bianca"), Isaac Bashevis Singer ("The Cafeteria"), Jamaica Kincaid ("Poor Visitor"), and many others. The uptown neighborhoods appear to be more generously represented--a token, perhaps, of the magazine's well-heeled, fur-bearing readership--but from early Updike to middle-period Tama Janowitz, there are plenty of excursions south of Fourteenth Street. It's not, however, a simple matter of geography, but a kind of urban metaphysics at work. There are numerous and overlapping New Yorks represented in this collection: you'll find John Cheever's postwar paradise cheek-by-jowl with Ann Beattie's yuppie stomping ground. Then there's James Stevenson's vision of a flooded Gotham: We are on the roof now. I have no idea what time it is, but it is daylight. The lower buildings have been submerged, the tall office buildings stand like tombstones above the heaving waves. There are whitecaps toward Central Park. An ocean liner stood by the Pan Am building for a while, then moved out to sea.... The water is swirling around the skylights now. The wind shifts. The waves are coming straight in from the Atlantic. Even in this postapocalyptic setting, New York stubbornly remains itself. A wonderful town indeed--and a wonderful collection to celebrate it. --Anita Urquhart

Amending previous review:
I felt the need to amend my previous review. First of all, the Salinger story isn't at all a goldmine. It's four pages long and it details the scene from "Catcher" between Sally and Holden at the ice skating rink. The story is told in 3rd person, and the narration is not that great. After several rewrites, the scene appears in "Catcher" and it is delightful and telling. Stories by Woody Allen, Jamaica Kincaid, Lorrie Moore, Donald Barthelme and many others make this book worth having in your collection. I read a story or two a night and I haven't been disappointed.

A brilliant collection:
This collection of New York stories shows both why writers have been fascinated with the Big Apple for so long and also why The New Yorker has been the hallmark of short fiction. The collection begins with Cheever and ends with Perlman, which pretty much sums up the golden years of the magazine. The pleasures here range from a story of lingering urban dread by William Maxwell to a hilarious tale of an intellectual loser by Jonathan Franzen. Updike's story both paints a true picture of New York in the snow and returns to his favorite theme -- infidelity. Philip Roth has a hilarious entry about a famous writer hounded by a game show contestant -- even funnier if you've seen "Quiz Show." The collection made me homesick for New York. It's one of the best books I read in 2000.

salinger fans, buy it:
This collection contains "Slight Rebellion off Madison." At last, one of the "lost" Salinger stories has been published! "Slight Rebellion" is a story about Holden Caulfield before "Catcher in the Rye." A goldmine for students of Salinger.

nice book - big hole:
new york stories ? good. from the new yorker ? even better ! salinger, singer, bellow, updike and more, nice collection, really... a collection that could do well without baldwin, burroughs and others, no need to bemoan that, as the editor is doing in his introduction. why thomas wolfe's brilliant "only the dead..." "doesn't seem to have it anymore", as stated by mr. remnick, will remain a mistery for me. and " dialect story"? at least there are perelman and bemelmans, john cheever,james thurber, john mcnulty, dorothy parker and e.b.white. thanks. but - no alfred kazin, no philip hamburger, no a.j. liebling, and, worst case, no joseph mitchell. all brilliant writers, all people who created that special "the new yorker" style. as brendan gill stated in his book "here at the new yorker" in 1975: "in the opinion of many (which is a by no means modest way of saying "in my opinion"), the finest writer on "the new yorker" is joseph mitchell." and editor remnick himself: "...e.b. white's and jame's thurber's, a.j. liebling's and joseph mitchell's. this was the new yorker at its best..." if it was for copyright reasons, why don't mention it, instead of don't giving any reason at all? so: ever seen a nice book with a big hole right through the middle ? norbert nowotsch

A must-read for literary fiction fans:
This is not only a good anthology to read for entertainment, but also a necessity for anyone who wants to write literary fiction. The New Yorker is the cornerstone of American contemporary literature, and this book captures a good sampling of the stories which have appeared in its pages the last 50 years or so. I particularly liked DEisenberg's story, and the fact that JCheever's story appears first. I think the book should have had a few more lighter pieces, and wonder why McInerney was skipped over.