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The Colossus of New York

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 · rating details · 624 ratings · 104 reviews

In a dazzlingly original work of nonfiction, the award-winning novelist Colson Whitehead re-creates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York. Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in—or spent time—in the greatest of American cities.

A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York cap...more

Paperback, 176 pages

Published October 12th 2004 by Anchor (first published January 1st 2003)

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Dec 30, 2011 Gabe rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I read a book, I underline lines I like. Here are all the lines I underlined, mashed together:

You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now. Somewhere in that fantastic, glorious mess was the address on the piece of paper. The only skyscrapers visible from your stroller were the legs of adults but you got to know the ground pretty well and started to wonder why some sidewalks sparkle at certain angles, and others don't. The city knows you bette...more When I read a book, I underline lines I like. Here are all the lines I underlined, mashed together:

You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now. Somewhere in that fantastic, glorious mess was the address on the piece of paper. The only skyscrapers visible from your stroller were the legs of adults but you got to know the ground pretty well and started to wonder why some sidewalks sparkle at certain angles, and others don't. The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone. They are the caretakers of your reinventions. New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy. It contains your neighborhoods. Or doesn't We overlap. Or don't. They're all broken somehow, sagging down the stairs of the bus. Otherwise they would have come here differently. He is unaware that his duffel hits each person on the head as he passes. That is surely a wig two rows up. They try out new positions for their legs. Each new combination of limbs might be the one that unlocks the vault of comfort and then sleep. Instead, parts that don't matter fall asleep before their brains. legs, feet. As they cross state lines, license plates change colors. Thank God for the white detachable headrest slip-covers, an invention that saves us from germs. Fro ten miles of interstate a man inspects his face in the bathroom mirror. Is he actually going to start fresh in a new place with that face of his. If you can endure the verdict of the fluorescent lighting the city will be no problem. She will be stylish there. No one will know the nickname that makes him mad. This is the right decision, they tell themselves. In effect, no matter what time of day it is, everyone arrives at the same time, in the same weather. While you were safe in here the world may have lost its way. Take your eyes off this city and it will play tricks. We could all use a handy computer graphic and earnest newscaster and ominous tagline for this new phase of our lives, yet no technicians scramble to produce it. Check the weather: there's a little cartoon sun over a region you don't inhabit. So nice to wake to your spouse's hip but then remember last night's disagreement and decide you are still angry. We take our places. But for once it is nice to be free of politeness. Button the top button you save for emergencies. The snow is already shamed and grimed: five minutes is all it takes for this city to break you. A motley crew waits for transportation. Leave the house fifteen minutes later or earlier and join a different cast of characters. Seeing the particular awning through the bus window that announces he is almost there. Mornings will kill you with their trapdoors. This wind will mug you of everything, make you look ridiculous as you try to maintain. The same greetings to each customer. His entire shipment of coffee lids is defective, irritating customers one by one. Notice your first wrinkle, it made you late in front of the bathroom sink. After work and before sleep you let your true self out for a few hours and now you must pay for it. If you don't plan ahead, who will you be. All of them have things waiting to come out through their skins. Hide a toy in your pocket. He's not supposed to take it to school, but who can dispute the power of cereal box talismans. One after the other the long days stretch ahead until the day you decide. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Take five seconds to collect yourself starting now. Then back to work everybody and I mean it. Whole possibilities canceled by this first mistake. Every evening walking the same path to the same tree, just to make sure it is still there. A man and woman pose on opposite benches, taking turns catching each other looking. Some ducks. He's definitely wearing the wrong shoes. Smile, everybody, smile. What are you thinking about. Dead men dynamited rock to undo glacial handiwork but holdout boulders remain, unwilling to part with the deeds. Climbing across them children find themselves on the moon. The tree he and his brother used to climb is no longer so tall and kids since have snapped off the branches they made rungs. He climbs up anyway Thirteen stitches. Mistakes have been made in the area of shorts. Years from now she will see her photograph in a gallery and wonder why she was crying. He is the king of the playground thanks to his hormonal problem. Their family looks happier than yours. For whole minutes it is as if you live somewhere else than where you do. And what is that like. Like there are other choices. It never happened. Except her on that bench. She stretches her arms. What a nice day. It is hard to escape the suspicion that your train just left, the last squeal of your train drained away the moment you reach the platform, and if you had acted differently everything would be better. You should have left sooner, primped less. Reconsiderations: taking a cab, grabbing a bus, hoofing it. No, it's too far and the train is coming. It must be coming. Why else would you stand there. From his secret booth the announcer scares and reassures alternately. Look down the tunnel one more time and your behavior will describe a psychiatric disorder. Halfway to the interview she notices two typos in her resume. People examine the scuff marks on their shoes when he walks by with his cup. But sometimes the lights go out and what do you do then with all these monsters beside you. Out on the street they hardly notice the clouds before it starts raining. It finds the nape of your neck easily. The long list of errands shrinks into what people can do in the least amount of water. Now no one will suspect she has been crying. Is this the end of their love. Tonight the bunched balls of his socks will dry and stiffen into dingy fists, and roll under the bureau, where they will hide for months and foment. All our vain gestures. Identical twins wear identical yellow slickers, out of which identical noses poke. What's this in the raincoat pocket. Apparently the last time it rained he saw a romantic comedy. Once the engine is off they can make out the rain's true incantation on the roof of the car. It stops. From the river you can see the clouds haunch over adjacent boroughs. Bleak fathoms. But what kind of equations emerge from such uneven terms. People try to make other people's babies smile as they wait for the light to change. See that the last time he walked this block he was tipsy or in love. From gutters, rats exclaim in gutter chorus; life is an argument with the world over time. If anyone were listening it'd be worth the breath. He receives word of a remarkable new treatment or other indispensable thing. Lacking a pen he tries to memorize the phone number, repeating it to himself in a singsong way until more vulgar ditties shoulder it aside, bassoon of buses rumbling to beat the light, high-heel castanets on cement, and soon all he has is two digits left and his own lost cause. What they will find under their feet will not be pavement but something shiftier. All tomorrow's sunburns gather in wait. Try to remember your personal formula for comfort on a beach, the whole towel thing. Sizzle on the griddle. Can you do my back. The number of house keys lost this day will fall within the daily average of lost house keys. Ripping little shreds of comfort from an afternoon. Here are some places sand gets into: eyes, sandwiches, shoes, under beds, scalps, carpets, car floors. Crotches and brainstems and decision-making places. Kids with pails move this bunch of sand from here to there to undo the secret design of tides. Aeons in the making and now it's all ruined. Rule is, violence on purpose and beauty by accident. Depressing mechanical regularity. Close your eyes. That wasn't so bad now, was it. Events a thousand miles away find their final meaning in these gentle little consequences begging at the shore. Look at this pretty shell. Don't blink or else you'll miss it--that father's annual display of affection toward his son. They keep to themselves the odd feelings brought on by the novelty of a horizon after so many horizonless days. Cherish the fear in loose bolts, statistical inevitabilities. Swayed by their own fictions. If you have no philosophy one will be appointed you. Remembering that disappointed feeling she gets each time she reaches the other side, then feeling that disappointed feeling. People huddle into elevators and ride down into in-betweenness, into the space between work and home that is a kind of dreaming: it's where they go to make sense of what just happened so they can go a little farther. Walk in the shadow of subconscious. And inevitably all who see it extract the wrong morals from the stories. In buildings comprised of other buildings' discarded thirteenth floors, sinister transactions unfold. When discovered, he will offer no excuse for wearing women's underpants. The wind tunnel round this building finally alerts him that his fly has been open for hours. Such curious rituals fill their days. Everyone else's good fortune is food out of your mouth or a hug you never got from someone who should have loved you better. Do public monies actually go to support the conception execution and installation of that hideous public art. The day waters down indignity with frustration to make it last longer. Everyone thinks they are more deserving, everyone thinks their day has been harder than everyone else's, and everyone is correct. Like the best storms, rush hour starts out as a slight drizzle, then becomes unholy deluge. They meet here every day at this time to hold hands and whisper. Did you remember to save enough energy for one last sprint. What are skinned knees compared to what is in store. Sleep the sleep of the successful because somehow you made it through the day without anyone finding out that you are a complete fraud. Twilight is a mask factory. He overhears his words coming out of someone else's mouth and wishes his complaints were not so common. Pace yourself. Things are just getting started. What do you feel like doing. Seething over appetizers, they save it up for home so they don't fight in the restaurant. It's nice to have an activity or hobby you can share with your spouse. These two have decided on spite and it has brought them closer together. They eat here once a month but something about this meal makes them realize things haven't worked out for a while now and they'll never return. By the time you return the party will have aligned in your favor. Planting this rumor is harder than it first looked. For the last half hour she has been trying to gain converts to grudges but no luck. Wow, this crappy performance art is really making me feel not so terrible about my various emotional issues. Hour by hour the customers change, grow humps horns scales. He made too many plans with too many people and things will not turn out okay. People are up to no good in there. She has been following him for twenty blocks and he still hasn't noticed. One by one we are becoming unrecognizable. Not a third of the way to the punchline it's clear the joke is going to bomb. He confesses his love when the room momentarily clears. Suddenly realizing that you're talking awfully close. Everybody else seems to have left and what does that mean. The true enemy is not the world's disdain but its indifference. What they take for her air of mystery is merely a side effect of her medication. None of them have commented on her engagement ring so she knocks everybody's drinks over. Reach inside to muzzle the broken part of you that is now talking. They don't want to go home. What is there to say as you pass the humble places that helped you in ways you cannot understand. That persistent problem of scale. The parts she gets offered nowadays mother the ingenues she used to play. Divert all the energy rushing into this place to power your subconscious. It would probably look like this. The cancan girls are on penicillin. Why should anyone else have it easy.
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Feb 21, 2009 Izetta Autumn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adoration-of-author, general-fiction, shortstory

Colson Whitehead delivers yet another course in strong writing. The Colossus of New York is a love letter to New York city. Whitehead captures the ebb, flow, and character of JFK, rain in the city, and Times Square. The collection - a series of short pieces linked by gymnasticaly clever language and topic, to form a pre-twitter, twitter-styled novella. Though less fluid than the other writing I've read by Whitehead - the clipped sentences, point of view changes, and clever language, all togethe...more

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May 19, 2011 dusty.rhodes rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you have ever lived in NYC, this book will strike chords.
If you have never lived in NYC, this book will hint at the world.

I truly loved reading this. The craft of excellent word-choice is alive and well. The turns that 7-word sentences can take and reverse are brilliantly shown. The shifts in persepctive and perception are constnat without being jarring.

I can't really say enough about this one without going into some sort of swoon or writing an essay. I think I'll just choose to state that th...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Luke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow.

I'd had this sitting on my shelf for five years or so, waiting to be read. I'm glad I finally pulled my finger out and gave it a whirl; Whitehead has managed to bottle the Big Apple in this slim volume.

Other reviewers give him crap for being a peacock - preening and artificial. But I think this misreads his intentions. I thought it more a reflection of the city itself - loud, self-inventing, chopping, changing, never quite staying the same. It feels more Beat-like than some of the Beats (a...more

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Dec 17, 2008 David rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really like Colson Whitehead; I didn't like this book much at all. Every NYC vignette employs the same stylistic tricks, and I found myself practically skimming through the last half. There's some poetic stuff in there, but the jumpy metaphors and too-short sentences keep it from blowing my mind in that heavier/culture-implosion way that Colson usually acheives.

I feel like most of these pieces could've been boiled down to sonnet-length or something. One-page prose poems maybe. Or I'm just not...more

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Jul 14, 2010 Seán rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, book-swap

Ornithologists recognize these corporate cocks by their pinstripe plumage. What goes through their heads, this species of bird. That pair have the same tailor and when they run into each other feel a great relief. Patchwork and held together by slender threads. Rely on camouflage to keep you safe. So full of suit and briefcase envy that only a really good shoeshine is going to set him right again. Here comes Mr. Bespoke--all they have come to fear lies in his miraculous stitches. When discovered

...more

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Feb 13, 2010 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I taught this. It's a fast-paced take on what it feels like to be in New York City. Many of the details and sections are dead-on and wonderful, like the chapter on rain, which includes a sentence about the fastest way to heartbreak being to fall in love with your umbrella, and another sentence about walking out of a movie theater and seeing it rained and feeling like you missed something. In NYC there's always the sense of having missed something. I also loved the subway chapter, which includes...more

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Oct 23, 2010 James Cridland rated it 4 of 5 stars

A hard read, but worth it... This is an odd book. It's written in some kind of peculiar free-form writing style, with different sentences in the same paragraph switching from first person to third person, and just to confuse further switches fluidly from one person ("he") to another ("she") but you are either he or she, depending on whether... you know. Anyway, writing style aside, this is an interesting essay on life in modern-day New York. I read this on holiday in New York, and finished it wh...more

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Jun 12, 2010 Marco rated it 1 of 5 stars

If you've ever been to a poetry reading, you might recognize that tone that most people read in, not the "virtuous indignation" one, but the oen that's more like "deep, suave description of urban details with the last word of every sentence trailing off." This whole book is written in that tone. It's especially bad when you're listening to it on audio cd, because the narrator reads it, and he takes the book very, very seriously. Granted, I didn't listen to the whole thing, of course, but I did e...more

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May 06, 2012 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very specific kind of book for a very specific kind of audience. It's a serious of essays about the soul and magic of New York City. Every sentence is a dense, philosophical musing about New York. It was almost like poetry. There was no skimming or skipping over things--you had to savor each sentence, re-reading many of them.

So if you're not in love with New York, this book would have nothing for you, but I really enjoyed it. I'm visiting there again soon and had heard of this book and...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Lynn Crothers rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, new-york-city

"Talking about New York City is a way of talking about the world."

If I was born/raised/living in NYC, I probably would be giving this a four- or five-star review. It's uniquely written—a book split up into short chapters on different locations and things that make up the city (JFK, Rain, Port Authority, Rush Hour, Brooklyn Bridge, etc.)—and has succinct but beautifully descriptive moments. I thought I could dig into it even though NYC is not technically part of my makeup, but unfortunately I fou...more "Talking about New York City is a way of talking about the world."

If I was born/raised/living in NYC, I probably would be giving this a four- or five-star review. It's uniquely written—a book split up into short chapters on different locations and things that make up the city (JFK, Rain, Port Authority, Rush Hour, Brooklyn Bridge, etc.)—and has succinct but beautifully descriptive moments. I thought I could dig into it even though NYC is not technically part of my makeup, but unfortunately I found myself getting really restless halfway through. I almost never give up on books, but I skimmed like shit through the final third of this one.

The beginning started off with a bang though. Some quotes I love:

"You start building your own private New York the first time you lay eyes on it. Maybe you were in a cab leaving the airport when the skyline first roused itself into view. All your worldly possessions were in the trunk, and in your hand you held an address on a piece of paper. Look: that's the Empire State Building, over there are the Twin Towers. Somewhere in that fantastic, glorious mess was the address on the piece of paper, your first home here. Maybe your parents first dragged you here for a vacation when you were a kid and towed you up and down the gigantic avenues to shop for Christmas gifts. [...] Maybe you came to visit your old buddy, the one who moved here last summer, and there was some mix-up as to where you were supposed to meet. You stepped out of Penn Station into the dizzying hustle of Eighth Avenue and fainted. Freeze it there: that instant is the first brick in your city."

"The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone. It saw you steeling yourself for the job interview, slowly walking home after the late date, tripping over nonexistent impediments on the sidewalk. [...] It saw you half-running up the street after you got the keys to your first apartment. The city saw all that. Remembers, too."

"Consider what all your old apartments would say if they got together to swap stories. They could piece together the starts and finishes of your relationships, complain about your wardrobe and musical tastes, gossip about who you are after midnight. [...] Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers of your reinventions."
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Mar 08, 2012 The Joy of Booking rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you look at the tags, you’ll notice that this is – oddly – tagged as both fiction and non-fiction. I don’t have a poetry tag, but I feel like that could apply, too. This ode to New York City alternates between first, second and third person in a bizarrely sensible way, as if the book itself is your own stream of consciousness with a bit of omnipotence thrown in. For anyone who’s spent a significant amount of time in New York City and enjoyed it, this book is a must-read – it’s like retracing...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Robert Beveridge rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished, best-i-read-2004-edition, cle-pub-lib

Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Parts (Doubleday, 2003)

When one encounters the name "Colson Whitehead," one is apt to think of an old Irish immigrant viewing the city through a jaundiced eye, bleary from another night of stumbling home in rush hour only to find he's locked himself out of his bachelor pad and can't get to the can of beans sitting on the counter seductively calling his name. Instead, what we're given is a young (younger than I am, anyway) born-and-ra...more Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Parts (Doubleday, 2003)

When one encounters the name "Colson Whitehead," one is apt to think of an old Irish immigrant viewing the city through a jaundiced eye, bleary from another night of stumbling home in rush hour only to find he's locked himself out of his bachelor pad and can't get to the can of beans sitting on the counter seductively calling his name. Instead, what we're given is a young (younger than I am, anyway) born-and-raised New Yorker writing about the place he calls home.

But Colson Whitehead's The Colossus of New York is not just another travelogue. Oh, no, my friends. In fact, it is anything but; I seriously doubt the NY tourism board is going to be recommending this one. At times loving and ominous, sweet and sassy, laugh-out-loud funny and painfully depressed, The Colossus of New York is much like New York itself. There are eight million stories in the naked city, Whitehead wryly quotes, and one would think from reading this that every one of them is feeling a completely different emotion from any of the others at any given moment, and that it's all a constantly swirling chaotic mass. Amen.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the book is how Whitehead manages to take this odd, impressionist look at New York and map it onto you, the reader. You're liable to find at least one or two snatches of sentence per page you can identify with, even if you've never set foot within an hundred miles of the place. Thus, even if you care nothing about New York, it's probable he's going to keep you interested in its goings-on. A beautiful thing, that. But the draw of the book, and its continuing majesty throughout, is Whitehead's ability with language. His diction takes us from the language poetry of Charles Olson to the Nuyorican-style street rap that passes for poetry among slammers, but with Whitehead the language never loses its poetic drive. All of it, even the ugliness, is beautiful.

And above all, The Colossus of New York is a love song, the kind that one would write to one's spouse after seventy years of marriage if one could find a way to include all one's spouse's faults and still make it beautiful. This is a powerful little book, and highly deserving of the widest possible audience. A shoo-in for the top ten list this year. **** ½ (less)

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Dec 28, 2011 Carl rated it 4 of 5 stars

I like Whitehead's writing even though it's always a little challenging. How do you attempt to capture the energy of New York? E.B. White did it for the 1950's and now Whitehead does it for the 21st century. Mix the feeling of jazz, poetry, and non-fiction and you begin to come close to what Whitehead has written. These compact visions of New York are little works of art that capture the intricacies of the city from walking down Broadway to riding the subway. Good reading.

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Jun 07, 2012 Seth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Whitehead is one of my favorite authors (Apex Hides the Hurt is one of my favorite ten books) but it would be nearly impossible for me to have enjoyed a book less. Sure, New York is a fine place to live. (I've enjoyed living there myself.) But it's not some magical place that transforms its inhabitants nor should it inspire such drippy rhapsodizing.

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Jan 28, 2013 Hafidha rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-reading-list, places, essays, africa-african-descent, audiobooks

Listened to the audiobook version of this with Whitehead reading it. I enjoyed his Zone One novel very much and own The Intuitionist to read later. I wasn't crazy about Colossus of New York, however. If I had read these as a series of articles spaced out over time I might have liked it more, but it often felt contrived and predictable ... It read like the NYC that one expects literary people to describe, like something that could have been written fifty years ago by any number of other writers....more

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Jan 28, 2011 Charlie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely fantastic. New York is a very fickle place and anyone having lived here can easily attest to that fact. When you talk to a friend from out of town it is difficult to describe the subtleties of such a city. How can a person that talks so poorly of Coney Island hold such an affinity for it? Whitehead in beautiful prose nails it page and page again. As a transplanted New Yorker I cannot recommend this book enough.

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Jul 08, 2012 Peggy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Beautifully written, a real feast of words. Impressionistic description of a visit to New York City. Answered one of the questions I have about living in such a densely populated place: what is it like to be around so many people? The insight found here is that there is competition for the use of space in public places. The exterior of buildings hold memories and there is constant change. Interesting.

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Feb 02, 2011 Dan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Interesting. Better at the beginning than at the end. He runs out of things to say and so says them over and over. Agree with the reviewer who said that he takes it too seriously when he reads it himself for the Audio Book. I did finish this one because it was short. I gave up on John Henry days after 4 of the 15 discs. Does anyone know anything good he has written that I should try?

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Apr 13, 2010 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I saw the description of this book on a friend's goodreads list, I was sure I'd love it, and bought it immediately. The subject has amazing potential - what could be more awesome than a book-length ode to NYC? There are certainly a few gems in here - the part about umbrellas in the city, for example, - but overall it didn't speak to me.

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Feb 21, 2009 Sharon rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book doesn't live up to its good reviews. I found it contrived and pretentious. While it would have been a quick read, I didn't bother to finish it. It would have been too painful. From everything I've heard about Colson, he's supposed to be a great writer. Unfortunately, it doesn't come across in this particular book.

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Jun 03, 2010 SweetPea rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, novella-low-pg-count

Each chapter in this book focused on a different aspect of New York. The writing is poetic prose, and although I am not a fan of poetry I have seen this style done well. This book didn't pull it off - it was too disjointed although there were a few sections that were done well. I like this author but this book was just ok in my view.

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Apr 13, 2013 Natalie marked it as to-read

Shelves: owned-not-read

Got a copy of this from fellow Goodreadian Bryan Castaneda, who procured it from Quarterly.co. My copy has these neat Post-its from the author interspersed throughout detailing his writing and thought process. I really can't wait to read it.

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Jul 13, 2011 Bronwyn Mauldin rated it 3 of 5 stars

A very readable, poetic study of the city, chock full of clever turns of phrase and slightly-askew takes on both the ordinary and the extraordinary. It's a lovely book, but it doesn't live up to the promise of The Intuitionist, which is one my all-time favorite novels. Then again, I don't suppose it has to.

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Jun 11, 2009 Ruby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Someone familiar with New York City would enjoy this small book. The author captures the quirkyness of the New York way of doing things and talks about familiar sights such as the subway, Central Park,the Brooklyn Bridge and the sights and sounds that accompany them.

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Oct 09, 2010 Ray rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I couldn't get through this book. I guess the author's style is considered somewhat poetic, but too much so to suit my taste. I thought of the book as generic ramblings about a big city. It didn't really bring me back to my days in NY. Not to my liking.

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Apr 15, 2012 Greg D'Avis rated it 2 of 5 stars

Has its moments but there's nothing particularly memorable here. It's well-written (of course, Whitehead is great) but lacks substance. If I lived in NY, maybe this would have more resonance, but it didn't do a ton for me.

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Dec 23, 2010 Colin Anton rated it 2 of 5 stars

It felt like one big gigantic blog, and tapered off horribly. Every so often he captivated me with a line or two -- that really captured my love-hate relationship with New York -- but those moments were few and far between.

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Jan 15, 2013 Deborah rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book really is a love letter to New York. I don' t think every essay hit its mark but enough of them do to make a thought provoking journey through a variety of New York neighborhoods.

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Feb 10, 2012 Carrie Shaurette rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, nonfiction

Beautiful writing carries this collection of essays about daily live in New York City. I enjoyed some essays, particularly The Subway, more than others. This will probably only appeal to those who live (or have lived) in the city and appreciate poetic language.

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About Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead was born in 1969, and was raised in Manhattan. After graduating from Harvard College, he started working at the Village Voice, where he wrote reviews of television, books, and music.

His first novel, The Intuitionist, concerned intrigue in the Department of Elevator Inspectors, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Awa...more

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Quotes from The Colossus of New York

“You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, ''It happened overnight.'' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing.” — 16 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16275.The_Colossus_of_New_York?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320408132l/16275.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16275.The_Colossus_of_New_York?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead[/url]

The Colossus of New York

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