Gone to New York, by Ian Frazier

Just finished Ian Fraizier's Gone to New York. Great book. I got the first edition hard back cuz I'm such a book geek but I just love the cover to the paperback version. It is instantly recognizable to any reader of the New Yorker as his bag snatcher story.

I love books with lots of different stuff in it, particularly books that feature stuff from the New Yorker or other magazines. Books from Steve Martin and David Rakoff come to mind. What I love most about this book is how it holds together so well. It builds up short bits (from his Talk of the Town column) and other things into a large narrative about his life growing up in Ohio, moving to New York city, then to Brooklyn, and finally moving to Montclair, New Jersey.

His mind seems to work very much like my own, becoming obsessed with historical details and the unexplored underbelly of all the places he lives. His stories of living in a loft above an Army surplus store on Canal Street is like shooting fish in a barrel, but who would have though that New Jersey could be so interesting.

As someone who was born in Queens and lived many years in lower Manhattan, this book really satisfies a craving I'd had recently. As some might suggest it doesn't make me long to visit any time soon. In many ways it makes me even happier to be living in Portland right now.

While Ian Frazier is able to bring a rare sense of sanity to New York, Portland is the kind of place where it isn't a struggle to find the sanity. It's right there where you live, surrounded by your friends and community. It's when you leave Portland that you discover the insanity, which only makes life here even more satisfying.