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Showing posts from September 13, 2006

Comment: Brooklyn & Its Discontents

Amidst the post-primary news in the New York Region section of the Times today, there's a witty and bitter little article by Sara Gran about the downside of the Brooklyn literary scene. I live most of the year in the South now. But I come back to Brooklyn often, and when I do, I stay with my parents in Park Slope because I can’t afford to stay elsewhere. I love Mother and Dad, but I would prefer to stay anywhere else. Park Slope is a neighborhood almost exclusively populated by writers; to be specific, writers who are better than I am, are more well known than I am and sell more books than I do. I sympathize. Her description of being a writer born in Brooklyn reminds me of the church I grew up in. Even though I'd been going there literally since before I was born, I wasn't one of the cool kids in the youth group, and no one ever seemed to notice or remember me. People were always kindly introducing themselves, when I'd been seeing them in the same room for years. Gran m