false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172962832m/233504.jpg 233504 9 In Tama Janowitz's story collection of mid-1980s manners, it's all about real estate. Her coterie of New York artists and grad students, junkies and collectors dwells in walk-ups and covets lofts. The occasional socialite wafts through, characterized tersely by statements of fact; for example, "Millie owned her own co-op." But, for the most part, these are the also-rans of Manhattan life, literally looking for a toehold in the city. The main character who emerges is shabby Eleanor, an appealing heroine who appears in several linked stories. A jewelry maker, she lives with an artist named Stash and a treasure-trove of insecurities. Much is made of the squalor of their apartment. In Eleanor, Janowitz finds a channel for her vulnerability--a nice counterpoint to her affectless prose, which attempts and occasionally achieves a deadpan humor.<p> Intertwined with the Eleanor stories are the unreliable first-person narratives of Marley Mantello. Marley, too, has serious real estate issues: "My apartment, the sublet from which I was being evicted, looked just as terrible as when I had gone out earlier--worse, even, for there was a foul reek of something fecund and feline, like the stench of old lion spoor upon the veldt."<p> The rest of the stories are brief thumbnails, which Janowitz calls "modern saints" and "case histories." Stabbing at experimentalism, they showcase her shortcomings--the lazy satire, the easy laugh. This author's prose seemed of-the-moment when it came out, and time has not been altogether kind. "I was startled to find him so far uptown, knowing how he usually refused to travel above Fourteenth Street, claiming it led to mental decay," says the narrator of "In and Out of the Cat Bag." This kind of observation may have seemed edgy in 1985, but has little staying power. At its best, <I>Slaves</I> effervesces a bittersweet nostalgia for a time when artists could still afford to live in Manhattan. <I>--Claire Dederer</I> 1327151 1986 Slaves of New York total:317|5:50|4:90|3:116|2:55|1:6| 317 1074 432 28 3 1 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 05:42:30 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 17:16:48 -0700 2009
R...more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Jan 03 09:49:11 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 09:55:42 -0800 2008 3 1 false false Mon Nov 03 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Oct 24 16:11:07 -0700 2008 Mon Nov 03 11:05:00 -0800 2008 Not as brilliant, I think, as the blurbs on the wrappers make it out to be. But mostly good. ]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 21:39:39 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 21:49:12 -0700 2008
Well, I liked it...but I'm sure that's at least partly a by-product of being old enough to remember New York in the 80s when artists (and junkies and drifters...sometimes combined in one body) could be found all over New York. I...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 20 15:38:04 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 16:09:31 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 1993 Tue Nov 10 23:09:46 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 23:09:46 -0800 2009 1 Another epitome-of-my-20's book and she is just such a wonderfully descriptive, detailed writer! A bunch of pink feather-boas of materialism.

Alas, the lifestyle described within this book is no more.

Aging really, really beyond blows.]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jul 11 20:15:10 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 20:16:20 -0700 2009 5 2 false false Fri Dec 28 12:05:13 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 28 12:07:57 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun May 20 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 31 17:12:37 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 17:12:37 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Feb 25 04:04:45 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 18:19:14 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Jan 14 06:45:26 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 06:47:57 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Sep 11 00:41:08 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 11 00:46:37 -0700 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Jul 10 09:02:47 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 05 08:03:53 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 09:02:47 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Mar 05 01:01:20 -0800 2008 Wed Mar 12 03:24:59 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Dec 30 05:16:54 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 30 05:18:47 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Fri Jun 27 08:55:20 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 27 08:57:13 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Sat Aug 18 09:32:09 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 18 09:37:56 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Oct 09 11:39:30 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 09 11:39:30 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1990 Mon Apr 21 12:07:06 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 21 12:11:00 -0700 2008
]]> 3 0 false false Sat Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 1992 Mon Nov 26 08:15:40 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 26 08:17:01 -0800 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=233504