Metropolis: New York As Myth, Marketplace, and Magical Land

By Jerome Charyn

Book Overview

Using himself as the persona, the author interviews the police commissioner concerning racism and a SoHo dealer on art, invades Brooklyn Mafia dens and a Times Square sex palace, and explores a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399131337
• ISBN13: 9780399131332
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

probably the best book about any town I read so far

...of the benefits of, once in a while, picking a book randomly on a shelf and go for it. One of the numerous books written by Charyn about (his life in) New York, focusing on the political/social/architectural changes that happened during the lates 70s, 80s and beginning of the 90s (Giuliani's shadow appears at the end of it). Too bad Charyn is born in the USA and cannot be politically persecuted and therefore will never (?) be shortlisted for the Nobel, otherwise this work deserves, in my eyes, as much praises as Mr Pamuk's Istanbul when it comes to inventivity, metaphors, reflexion on how the (THE) city grows, breathes, changes through time, etc. 4 stars only because it lacks....the other volumes he wrote about the big apple (I wish they were all available in one volume) which I'm not gonna read before I see the town with my own eyes (someday hopefully)