Review: Goodbye to All That edited by Sari Botton

This is my first stab at a book review. I consume New York City-specific historical non-fiction like water (not often enough, and I find myself constantly thirsting for more), and though most of what I read is neighborhood-oriented, I occasionally like to step outside of that norm and read stories written by others who have experienced this city more recently and from an array of varying perspectives. A few years ago, I read Never Can Say Goodbye, also edited by Sari Botton, a collection of essays by twenty-seven men and women who came to New York City and found, through every trial and tribulation, every set-back and triumph, they just could not imagine leaving. I was still green at that time, still a transplant from New England trying to find my footing, and I was enthralled and inspired reading tales of others who persevered in the face of so much failure.

Now, nearly four and a half years in, I can confidently say that I’ve found my place here. I, myself, cannot imagine leaving New York City in the foreseeable future, so, for a change of pace (after reading an in-depth history of the Bowery dating from the early Dutch settlement to the present), I read Goodbye to All That, stories by twenty-eight women writing their own versions of Joan Didion’s eponymous 1968 essay about loving and leaving New York. Some of these writers simply fell out of love with the city and moved on, others ran, nearly screaming, from the concrete jungle, and a select few were pulled away only to claw their way back.

I felt a joyful smile creep across my mouth each time one of these women mentioned one of my own East Village haunts, a bookshop I frequent, or the Upper West Side Jewish deli where I buy my half-sour pickles. I felt myself relating to some of their frustrations and delighting in their successes – it’s not often I have the opportunity to cheer on an author. Fellow transplants came impassioned with romantic ideas of what the city should be like, with big dreams and big hearts. The city became not only their home, but also this kind of living organism, constantly changing, always there and available until it wasn’t, and even then, they stayed.

“That’s the thing about New York: no one ever wants to leave. Throngs of hopeful protagonists arrive with their dreams and diminutive bank accounts. It’s only in disaster movies that you see anyone wanting to get out, and it’s because a meteor is coming or aliens are attacking.” – Liza Monroy, A War Zone for Anyone Looking for Love

I found that the natives had a radically different take on the city than the ardent transplants, often reflecting on the city with contempt. In Rebecca Wolff’s essay entitled So Long, Suckers, she details, with absolutely no attempt at affection for her birthplace (she calls it a giant sinking pile of crap), the observations she made of what happens to people, native and otherwise, who try to stay in the city:

“In New York City these days I see loads and loads of formerly brilliant people … who have “stayed too long at the Fair,” to use Joan’s wistful archaic turn of phrase, who are baffled and internally conflicted as to why they can’t admit that New York sucks so hard. Why they can’t draw the proper conclusion. That if they are to work all the time in order to pay super-high rents that make it impossible for them to do their art, if they never have a chance to see the people they came here to see, who are less brilliant now that they are muffled by the smog of wrongness that hangs over New York … if they are living somewhere that is giving them less than they are giving to it, then they should leave.”

Natives and transplants alike, no one was immune to eventual disillusionment. Their rents were too high, they couldn’t find their footing, the (in most cases) literary world kept smacking them down, personal relationships began or went up in flames, and, in some cases, it just made more sense to leave than it did to stay. Reading these varied experiences of the city I’m living in have made me question what it will look like one day if or when I decide to leave this city. I’m not ready yet, I don’t feel that I’ve stayed too long at the Fair, and I can honestly say I have no idea where I would go. I’ve been saying for a few years now that if I moved back to the woods of New Hampshire I would die of boredom – to leave a place where I can have anything at any hour to a place with absolutely nothing? I think not.

I recommend this collection of essays to anyone yearning for a different perspective of New York City. I’d fathom a guess it may be hard to relate to for a reader that has not experienced the city, but the stories have enough broad strokes to make them accessible to any audience. The diverse viewpoints make for a fun and interesting read, and since most stories are only ten pages or so, the collection moves at a very comfortable pace.

- Chelsea

More But I'd Rather Be Reading! here.