Never Can Say Goodbye: 'New York City is like the house from Poltergeist'

A group of writers met to discuss a new anthology about their collective love for the Big Apple … or was it something more ambivalent?

“Thank you for coming out on this cold night that makes you want to leave New York.” These were the words with which Sari Botton kicked off a reading of an anthology she edited hosted at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. With the book titled Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakeable Love for New York, one of the first truly freezing days of this season, writers gathered to share why they love the city.

Never Can Say Goodbye is the follow up to last year’s Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, another anthology inspired by Joan Didion’s classic essay. In the introduction for Never Can Say Goodbye, Botton said that editing the first collection had inspired some confusion in readers: did she hate New York? In fact, she said, she indisputably loves it, so much that when she returns for visits from her upstate home, she can’t see straight. Most of the writers who performed on Tuesday night would agree.

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