Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Lost in the City

4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 · rating details · 1,173 ratings · 161 reviews

"Original and arresting....[Jones's] stories will touch chords of empathy and recognition in all readers."--Washington Post

"These 14 stories of African-American life...affirm humanity as only good literature can." --Los Angeles Times

A magnificent collection of short fiction focusing on the lives of African-American men and women in Washington, D.C., Lost in the City is the...more

Paperback, 268 pages

Published November 30th 2004 by Amistad (first published 1992)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Collections of Short Stories

140th out of 1,185 books — 878 voters

Lost African American Treasures

6th out of 32 books — 29 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,175)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Dec 05, 2012 Terryn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Pulitzer-and-numerous-other-literary-prize winner Edward P. Jones’ “Lost in the City” was one of the books that had been chilling on my bookcase for a while before I cracked it open, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to grow a bit before digging into it. I got the first nudge from Junot Diaz at the National Book Festival, when he listed Jones as one of his influences. I’d read “The Known World” back when it came out, but I don’t think I’d developed the teeth necessary to really chew on and dige...more Pulitzer-and-numerous-other-literary-prize winner Edward P. Jones’ “Lost in the City” was one of the books that had been chilling on my bookcase for a while before I cracked it open, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to grow a bit before digging into it. I got the first nudge from Junot Diaz at the National Book Festival, when he listed Jones as one of his influences. I’d read “The Known World” back when it came out, but I don’t think I’d developed the teeth necessary to really chew on and digest that book; as a result “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” and “Lost in the City” languished in unread-book-land for years. It was totally worth it, though, because now that I live in the DC metro area the stories resonated with more depth for me. Books be knowing, y’all.

Synopsis: It’s a book of short stories, and it’s easy to see where Junot Diaz got his inspiration for “Drown” and “This Is How You Lose Her” – Lost’s characters are connected to characters in All Aunt Hagar’s children, and are sometimes connected with stories in the same collection as well. Jones skillfully examines mid-century DC when it was still a ‘chocolate city’. The streets, locations, and descriptions of people are spot on. He captures the voice of old-school black DC in a quiet, unassuming, non-judgmental way. He’s just telling it how it is. I appreciate Jones’ narrative straightforwardness – Jones builds stories bit by bit, each piece appearing to just be matter of fact, and before you know it you’re at the end, pondering the bigger issues the story has quietly laid out. It’s great when good storytelling sneaks up on you.

Favorite characters: Marie, an elderly woman who fends off a potential thief with her homemade serrated shank; Joyce, who acts like it’s all good that her son buys her a house using dope money and fakes like she can have kids with her man even though her tubes are tied; a store-keep who watches the rise and fall of a neighborhood corner store from his perch behind the counter.

Read this if you: like DC, want to understand what the city was like for black folks before 2000, like Toni Morrison, like books with depth. Also, I was super pumped that my edition, published by Amistad, had “A Rich Man,” which I posted here as required cuffing reading not too long ago, included as a bonus to introduce readers to All Aunt Hagar’s Children. Gotta read that next!(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Apr 12, 2012 VaLinda Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars

As someone who was born and raised in Washington, DC, I could not get enough of this book. It reminded me so much of my life living on East Capital street in N.E., DC. The DC Stadium, Anacostia, H.D. Woodson, and Spingard high schools. The DGS grocery store where I would walk to and buy every day items for my grandmother and me. My first bus trip with my grandmother, who got up real early, took a long bath, sprayed “Secret” deodorant and baby power all over her then get me ready by making me scr...more

3 likes · like · see review

Dec 29, 2011 Milly rated it 5 of 5 stars

I remember buying this book thinking, great, something new because I had never heard of this author before. The first story was just simply good that I closed the book and savored the story for a minute. I'm not all about the story when I read a book, I'm all about the way that story is told, what feelings it invokes in me if any. And this book made me feel all kinds of good!! I immediately did my homework to find out what else this man had written and when I read his other two works, I was not...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 07, 2011 Clara rated it 1 of 5 stars

UGH! Is there some rule that says that all sort stories must: 1) have some kind of plot twist or surprise, and 2) the surprise must be depressing?

I mean, really? This collection opens with a story about a girl who raises pigeons. It ends with all the pigeons except two being killed by rats (sort of poetically ironic, considering that pigeons are flying rats). The two remaining pigeons escape and stare at the girl from across the way, refusing to come home since they are their compatriots were b...more

1 like · like · see review

May 01, 2012 Moyo Myers rated it 5 of 5 stars

No polished review, just really enjoying this book of short stories by Edward P. Jones. This is the first book by him that I have read, so this is my introduction to his style of writing. Apparently he writes his stories completely in his head before ever putting them on paper. This is reflected in his writing style, I think. His short stories present themselves as complete mental images. I am really looking forward to reading the rest! The story "The First Day" is my favorite so far.

1 like · like · see review

Mar 13, 2010 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

If Edward P. Jones were asked to suggest an epigraph for Lost in the City, I imagine he would give serious thought to the inscription over the door to Plato’s Academy: “Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry.” Much is made of the streets of Washington D.C. both within these stories and within the province of conspiracy theorists. The original street layout of our national capital was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a Freemason like many of the founding fathers, and the briefest g...more If Edward P. Jones were asked to suggest an epigraph for Lost in the City, I imagine he would give serious thought to the inscription over the door to Plato’s Academy: “Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry.” Much is made of the streets of Washington D.C. both within these stories and within the province of conspiracy theorists. The original street layout of our national capital was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a Freemason like many of the founding fathers, and the briefest glance at a city map reveals a number of possibly cultic symbolic interpretations, but such a reductive stance is not the intent of these stories; the author never makes mention of the more mysterious aspects of Washington’s urban design outside of its impact on the lives of his characters—the ways these streets provide the larger framework for tangential interaction. In fact, the first set of streets Mr. Jones locates us in—3rd and L Streets NW—have literally been lost in the city during the construction of Interstate 395.

Rather, these stories are thematically tied together by a sense of place created whole clothe from the vicissitudes of survival on the streets—a sense of place that ultimately threatens to displace the inherent value of a strictly survivalist worldview. I am thinking of how, in many of these stories, the streets come to define themselves both within the characters and upon the characters. It is, at times, a matter of subtle word choice. By way of example in “The Girl who Raised Pigeons” we get “…she smelled what seemed a mixture of dirt and rainy air and heard a heart that seemed to be hurling itself against the wall of the bird’s breast,” in which the body of the bird is described as having a wall. In contrast with this, we are told, “She sang on into the night for herself alone, her voice pushing back everything she did not yet understand,” in the final sentence of “The Night Rhonda Ferguson was Killed”—I think thematically this “pushing back” is walling the boundaries between the known and the unknowable.

Other times this interaction happens in a more radical and overt fashion, tied closer to plot and story structure. For instance, characters in “The Store,” “Lost in the City,” and “Marie” use the streets to retrace the pathways of their lives and memories of the city. In “The Sunday Before Mother’s Day,” Samuel “Pookie” Williams II uses streets to define what he can and cannot accept from life, frequently lapsing into the first person plural “we” as he talks of himself—almost as if he cannot know himself outside of how he is known by others. By example, here is a passage from his longest speaking part: “…I been all over the damn world, …so when I came back I knew what I wanted to put in my own world, and he’ll never be in it…. We have our wife and child, and you and Maddie and Hazel’s family.”

By further extension of this when the action of a story becomes violent or unpredictable, the details given often take on a geometrical quality. In the aforementioned story, we are told in a description of a pool of blood that: “The floor tilted, and so the blood had flowed through the night in several thin lines from the dead woman, and one line had been heading directly toward where Maddie was standing in the doorway.” After the climactic violence of “Young Lions” Caesar and Carol exit each other’s lives along diagonal lines—she walking away on Massachusetts and he heading north on 17th, looking over his shoulder “expecting something or someone.” Perhaps one of the more interesting examples comes in “Marie” when the title character slaps a Social Security secretary and the action immediately follows not the impact of the slap but the smaller incidence of a dropped fingernail file striking the floor.

Of course, there is more at play than the significance of streets and geometry in Lost in the City. Stormy weather plays a major role as does music. There is also a specific dialect to which the author tunes the stories, but even these qualities feel subordinate to the streets. For a collection of stories about city life, more than half of the action takes place outside on the streets and, by extension, is under the influence of the city environment more so than some sort of controlled indoor atmosphere.

There are the bigger questions of the city’s changing racial identity and familiar ties to the south, which often underscore the characters’ various perspectives, but even these play out into the streets as we find the advent of MLK and Malcolm X on streets and place names. The book ends paradoxically insofar as—when taken in conjunction with the title—the last sentence hints that part of the peoples’ voice isn’t so much leant to the streets as lost in the maze. Still, tonally this final note is pitch-perfect for the bittersweet nostalgia that threads through these stories.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Nov 01, 2009 Bap rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

This was Edward P. Jones first book. It is an amazing collection of stories centered around ordinary black people in DC. showing that ordinary people can be the stuff of extraordinary writing. These are not stories with a suprise ending or a message. Rather they are a slice of life with people who you might be sitting next to on the bus. Jones is not judgmental. They are all gods creatures, they are in one way or another lost in the city.

I know Edward if only slightly and he is an unassuming guy...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jun 22, 2009 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lost in the city is an apt and appropriate title for these 14 short stories. All take place in the African-American sections of Washington DC and all of the characters are black.

The first story, The Girl Who Raised Pigeons, demonstrates that the characters are real and that they have the same feelings of love and self that whites have. Betsy Ann is eight when she first sees pigeons being raised by a barber friend of her father. It is love at first sight. Over the years she bothers her father for...more Lost in the city is an apt and appropriate title for these 14 short stories. All take place in the African-American sections of Washington DC and all of the characters are black.

The first story, The Girl Who Raised Pigeons, demonstrates that the characters are real and that they have the same feelings of love and self that whites have. Betsy Ann is eight when she first sees pigeons being raised by a barber friend of her father. It is love at first sight. Over the years she bothers her father for pigeons of her own. He relents and they construct a coop on their apartment roof. The flock grows. But the telling part, the indication of great paternal love, is that her taxicab-driving father gets up every morning before Betsy Ann wakes up and inspects the coop to spare her the sight of any dead birds.

The Store and Young Lions demonstrate the characters provincialism, lack of education, victims of their environment and their being generally helpless. The Store is told in the first person and the protagonist is unnamed. In his late teens he looks and finds a job in a small grocery store owned and managed by Mrs. Jenkins. She is a strict taskmaster and at first mistrusts him. As years go by she gives him more and more responsibility. She finally physically leaves and he becomes the store manager. He and Mrs. Jenkins meet infrequently away from the store. All is well until he receives a letter from Mrs. Jenkins telling him that the store is sold. The letter contains $4,000 in “Severin pay.” His whole experience is based on the store. He does not know where to turn. He is lost in the city.

Caesar in Young Lions tries and eventually convinces his girlfriend, Carol, to participate in a scam. Together they talk an older woman to remove her savings from a bank in cash. They rob her and in the process Carol ends up with the cash. Caesar pushes Carol into a park and, in an attempt to get the cash beats her. But Carol is tough and strong, holds onto the cash and walks away. The story ends with,

“There was something in the air, but he (Caesar) could not make out what it was. He walked out of the park. He kept looking behind him, expecting something or someone, be he was alone in the street and he saw nothing but the swirling of dead leaves. He continued looking behind him as he made his way up 17th Street. He took out the address book, but found that he could not read the name or the numbers under the feeble streetlights. He hurried, hoping for a telephone booth where the light would be brighter. He began to run, and as he ran, he kept trying to read the numbers, but the rain was now turning them to blurs. He did not know what was in the air. He only knew that tonight would not be a night without shelter.”

He was lost in the city.
(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 27, 2012 Roger DeBlanck rated it 4 of 5 stars

Edward P. Jones’ first book Lost in the City is a collection of short stories that take place in settings around the Washington D.C. area, Jones’ hometown. The depth to which he explores his characters is the force of the collection. Through the use of simple language, Jones’ captivating style holds readers attention as he explores topics that are disturbing, sad, and raw, but also compassionate. The stories note loss, crime, and wrongdoing, but they do not judge. A dominating theme comes throug...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 11, 2012 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

I first encountered Edward P. Jones' fiction in a class. His short stories have a way of feeling like novels in terms of how the information and backstory of each of his characters is carefully eked out, not always in ways that seem immediately relevant to the primary plot of each story.

It quickly becomes apparent after reading a few of these stories in one sitting that Edward P. Jones is kind of a master of tragedy. He is selective with the details but each detail is so carefully chosen in orde...more

like · see review

Aug 13, 2012 Leslie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction, short-stories

This is an excellent book of short stories centered on life in Washington, DC in the second half of the 20th century. Jones' diverse range of characters is his biggest strength - his stories center on men and women; children, teenagers, adults and the very old; educated government workers, drug dealers, auto mechanics; folks from the rural South and city folks who look down on them; rich people and poor people. The characters are often morally ambiguous, and are written with humanity, sensitivit...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 25, 2012 Alison rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book. I've read snippets of the stories before in class, but I really loved reading the entire book. The setting is so vivid and really grabs you, but in different ways in each story. I really liked that. It depends on the relationship that each character has with the setting. For example, in The First Day, the setting is dependent on how the mother and the daughter feel about the setting; the mother wants her daughter to go to one school because it fits her comfort level, it's famil...more

like · see review

Apr 03, 2011 Mikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

"On an otherwise unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother, she takes my hand and we set off down New Jersey Avenue to begin my very first day of school."

So begins The First Day, one of the fourteen character driven short stories drawn from Edward P. Jones' award winning book, "Lost in the City." It is the story of an illiterate mother who sacrifices pride and seeks help from a stranger in order to get her young daughter enrolled in school and it is also...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 02, 2011 ABookVacation rated it 1 of 5 stars

I had to read this compilation of short stories for a course I took in order to teach AP classes. Quite honestly, I’m not really one to enjoy compilations of short stories—I tend to avoid them in the classroom and I rarely read them for fun because I don’t care for them. Needless to say, I really didn’t care for this book. The short stories weren’t interesting to me, and I personally found a majority of them inappropriate. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I don’t think that every story needs refer...more

like · see review

Mar 14, 2011 meeners rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

A few people came and went about her, but the snow now covered the windows of her car and all she could make out were shadows moving about. She could hear voices, but she could not understand any of what people said, as if all sound were being filtered by the snow and turned into garble. She could not anymore read her watch, but she continued to tell herself that in the next minute she would start up the car and go home to Ralph. In the end, it grew cold in the car, and colder still, and at firs...more

like · see review

Feb 09, 2010 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm not generally a short stories reader, but this is a fantastic collection, especially if you're a native or resident of DC. All 14 stories take place in historically African American neighborhoods of the District in the second half of the 20th century. They are all stories of struggle, told through patient and poignant vignettes of a whole cast of characters and the communities they are a part of.

While all worth reading, my favorites are:
The Girl Who Raised Pigeons
The Night Rhonda Ferguson W...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 26, 2012 Jenna rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of the most realistic books I think I've ever read. I think some people might find it disappointing because we, as readers, have certain expectations when we pick up a book. If two people meet on a subway, such as the story "An Orange Line Train to Ballston," we really want them to talk to each other. If a woman meets her father for the first time after he is released from jail after killing her mother, such as the story "The Sunday Following Mother's Day," we want her to ask why he...more

like · see review

Nov 19, 2009 The Awdude rated it 5 of 5 stars

These stories are just about as good as contemporary short fiction gets. Jones loves and explores his displaced tragic characters with an unparalleled depth of feeling. It's a breath of fresh air to read a narrative that doesn't completely detach itself from its characters like much of today's postmodern literature. His plots keep you thoroughly engaged because he never interrupts them with thematic heavy-handedness. His stories by themselves speak about the human condition in ways that, if you...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 22, 2009 Kathy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

I loved these stories. They were beautiful, little slices of life. Each sliver was richly described with characters you could really feel for. There is no pretty little bow at the end of these stories, but I liked that too -- the story ended, but you knew that wasn't the end (though it doesn't leave you unsatisfied in any way). In a couple of cases, you see recurring characters and it's a sweet surprise to know how those lives turned out. There's a lot of heartbreak and a lot of strength. But su...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 23, 2007 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

While many American cultural treasures rest on walls, under glass, or in archives in stodgy institutions in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. is rarely thought of as a place that inspires and brings life to original works of art that speak of the District as a "real" city where "real" people live. It is certainly not, for instance, New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, as a beacon of American culture.

When a work comes along, however, that brings something uniquely "of the District" to li...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jul 05, 2007 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Her mother dies from a brain tumor, and, years later, rats infiltrate the rooftop coop, in which the girl keeps her pigeons, and maim and kill them. A woman tells the story of a family's instant death by lightning. A teenage girl runs away; her father spends the rest of his years going door-to-door, looking for her. A young crook, Caesar, convinces his girlfriend, Carol, to help him swindle the savings of a retarded woman. A lawyer hires a cab driver to "get us lost in the city" (148) a few hour...more

like · see review

Feb 26, 2011 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This man is a genius! While reading "The Known World" I grew rather impressed with his style and development of each character but reading this novel has shown me how far his genius goes. If a reader does not pay close attention they will miss the connections that he makes during the short stories and now I understand why a previous reader did not like this book. You really should not put it down once reading unless you can remember the smallest detail which become important. *On page 180 of 249...more

like · see review

Oct 29, 2012 Brittany Elaine rated it 3 of 5 stars

The stories were very well written and touching, to say the least. The only reason I couldn't give it 4/5 stars is because the stories were consistently sad ending. Not that I'm only in the fairy tales and happy endings. But in a book of short stories, after about 7 stories, all ending with no positive outlook, I find myself not so excited to read the book again. But Mr Jones is a beautiful writer and I am excited to move on to The Known World very soon.

like · see review

Aug 19, 2009 Anne Sanow rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is Jones's first book, and in it you can glimpse the careful, direct manner of character development and fully realized world (in this case, Washington D.C.) that were put to such masterful use in "The Known World." These are all wonderful stories; some of them surprise you with their shifts (Jones deftly avoids any judgement), while others don't gain as much traction. Nothing negative to say--I just think that his later stories are more hard-hitting, and I'm so blown away by the novel (see...more

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 09, 2008 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-short-stories

Jones, Edward P. LOST IN THE CITY. (1992). *****. This author burst on the scene with this, his first collection of short stories. The book won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was nominated for the National Book Award. Jones, a native of Washington, D.C. and a current resident of Arlington, VA, writes his stories set in D.C. that explore the lives of a variety of black residents. These are some of the best stories you will ever read – full of compassion and wit – but as down-to-earth as you can get....more

like · see review

Jan 27, 2013 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-finish

Let me say, first of all, that I didn't finish this book. This is a collection of short stories set in Washington, D.C., which is what drew me to the book in the beginning (I live in the suburbs and like to play in D.C.) The writing is very good, however, every story left me wanting more. I think each one could have been the start of a great novel. Obviously, I get frustrated with the short story format so it's best I stick to novels when reading fiction. I have read his novel, The Known World,...more

like · see review

Mar 16, 2010 Jack Bullion rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: listened-to, 2010

I resisted this collection for a long time, partly because I didn't particularly enjoy The Known World and its plodding, deliberate prose style, which I mistook for something much more simplistic than it actually was. Since then I've become a much more patient reader, more capable of giving a writer like Jones my full attention. Which is good, considering that beneath Jones' rather plainspoken approach are narrative structures every bit as knotty as Alice Munro's. Jones' sentences span lifetimes...more

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 04, 2013 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars

Many wonderful stories in this short story collection. I picked this book up after being so impressed by the author's novel The Unknown World (which I also highly recommend). I was not disappointed. Though many of the stories are dark, the writing is terrific. All stories occur in Washington DC; most of the characters have difficult lives and find themselves in difficult circumstances. A number of them are unforgettable. Good read for sure.

like · see review

Jul 03, 2010 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: moyo

WOW! This is a selection of stories voiced by members of D.C.'s black population, sprawling across the last 50 years. Mr. Jones is ferociously talented. Unusually for me, I actually LOVED when he used a female voice. I think anyone who read Sapphire's PUSH should try this out to get that little piece of their heart back.

(Not that they are telling the same story, because they aren't)

Thanks to Moyo and Goodreads for the heads up.

like · see review

Oct 01, 2007 Greg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A surprisingly uneven collection, with stunning stories like "A New Man," "The Store," and "Gospel" counterpoised against others that feel oddly jumbled, somehow malformed.

Perhaps this perception of misshapen-ness on my part comes from the careful emotional restraint with which Jones delivers these stories. At his best, Jones can be Chekhovian, writing with a balanced, almost judicial empathy for each and every character in a piece, a kind of cool broad-heartedness that lends its own pathos to...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 72 73 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Lost In the City	1	8	Sep 16, 2009 06:19pm

combine
Other Editions (8)

More editions...

Genres

Short Stories

64 users

Cultural > African American

8 users

Book Club

6 users

Literature

5 users

American > African American Literature

3 users

Literary Fiction

3 users

Literature > American

2 users

Contemporary

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Edward P. Jones

Edward P. Jones has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Lannan Literary Award for The Known World. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004, and his first collection of short stories, Lost in the City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was short-listed for the National Book Award. His most recent collection, All Aun...more

More about Edward P. Jones...

Books by Edward P. Jones

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2007

The New Granta Book of the American Short Story

The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Lost in the City:...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Lost in the City
avg rating	preview: Lost in the City Goodreads rating: 4.05 (1173 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11752.Lost_in_the_City?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348324919l/11752.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11752.Lost_in_the_City?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones[/url]

Lost in the City

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website