Life Stories: Profiles from the New Yorker

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

To long-time readers of the New Yorker, one of the reasons to welcome this excellent collection of 43 stories written over the past seven decades will be the recollection of their first encounters with some of the writers who were fresh new voices when their stories set in Manhattan first appeared. Such then-newcomers as Lorrie Moore, Jeffrey Eugenides, Deborah Eisenberg, Anne Beattie and Laurie Colwin portray New York in their distinctive voices. The literary Old Guard is here in solid phalanx too: stories by John Updike, Bernard Malamud, John O'Hara, Elizabeth Hardwick, John Cheever, Peter Taylor and William Maxwell define aspects of their decades with timeless clarity. Holden Morrisey Caulfield makes his debut in J. P. Salinger's "A Slight Rebellion Off Madison"(1946); Philip Roth's millionaire author Zuckerman is accosted on Second Avenue in "Smart Money"(1981); one of Isaac Bashevis Singer's innumerable group of displaced Jews and ardent lovers holds forth in "The Cafeteria" (1968) on the Lower East Side. At opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, two entries, Woody Allen's "The Whore of Mensa," (1974) and "Mid-Air" (1984), by Frank Conroy, have become classics. Published this year, Jonathan Franzen's "The Failure" defines the `90s in the city, yet Maeve Brennan's 1966 "I See You, Bianca," a quiet narrative about loss highlighted by "the struggle for space in Manhattan," could have been written today. If Dorothy Parker's wit now seems shrill ("Arrangement in Black and White," 1927 ), and Irwin Shaw's "Sailor Off the Bremen," from the same year, seems mannered, Jean Stafford's "Children Are Bored on Sunday"(1948), still resonates with a peculiarly New York atmosphere. Of course, there are tales from such New Yorker stalwarts as John McNulty, S. J. Perelman, E. B. White and James Thurber. Manhattan as geographical area and emotional landscape takes visible shape as haven and hell, locus of opportunity and of dead end lives. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of The New Yorker, one of America's most popular and enduring magazines, Random House is bringing out these complementary anthologies that reprint the work of prominent New Yorker contributors. Selected by Remnick, the magazine's current editor, the pieces provide a retrospective of the magazine's journalistic history. Life Stories includes biographical sketches of such notables as Ernest Hemingway, Isadora Duncan, Johnny Carson, and Floyd Patterson. Well known for profiling famous people of the day, The New Yorker has created an intriguing record of those individuals considered important to the 20th century. Organized around the same theme of life in New York City, Wonderful Town contains works by some of the true masters of the short story genre, among them John Updike, Dorothy Parker, Vladimir Nabokov, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. With so many talented writers aboard, the venerable New Yorker should enjoy at least another 75 years of success. Both titles are recommended for public library collections.-Ellen Sullivan, Ferguson Lib., Stamford, CT

Falk

Whether scrutinizing the famous or infamous, this collection offers readers the opportunity to reak a selection of the writing that has made The New Yorker a literary institution.
— Brill's Content