Area Code 212: New York Days, New York Nights

Sarah Churchwell

… the essays she does punctuate with meaning -- not just typography -- are superb.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

While Janowitz is famous for her 1986 bestseller Slaves of New York, she's published widely since then-in everything from Vogue to Modern Ferret-and has revised many pieces for this anthology. Apart from the first selection, a horrifying description of having a miscarriage in a toilet at the Museum of Modern Art, most are in the E.B. White mode: witty vignettes on life in New York. Since adopting Chinese babies isn't uncommon in the world of modern Manhattanites, it's not surprising when Janowitz describes the trip she and her husband took to Heifei to adopt. Janowitz's description of her incompetence as a new mom has an almost Marx Brothers quality, as she details their baby fighting a diaper change "like a wounded fox in a leg-hold trap." Her essays on animals and pets are characteristically contrarian. She prefers "timid, feeble, neurotic, snappish, picky, babyish" dogs, but finds the Prospect Park Zoo's kangaroo no more interesting than a "gigantic rabbit." Apart from crotchety lapdogs, Janowitz loves food (oozing pizza, pounds of chocolate, doughnuts, steaks, etc.), although she doesn't enjoy elegant hors d'oeuvres at lavish receptions-after all, isn't eating "basically a solitary pleasure"? "The '80s died in Manhattan in 1987, along with Andy Warhol," she writes. But Janowitz herself, older and more self-critical, is still going strong. Agent, Betsy Lerner at the Gernert Company. (Dec.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This first work of nonfiction from novelist Janowitz (Peyton Amberg; A Certain Age) is a collection of essays about life-specifically her life-in New York City. The brief essays, many previously published in an eclectic array of periodicals, from Modern Ferret to New York Press, are arranged in broad categories such as "Family Life," "City Life," and "Food." Topics range from Janowitz's friendship with Andy Warhol to her experiences as an extra in a ZZ Top video, her take on 9/11, and her penchant for wearing unsuitable attire. The number of essays is impressive-77-but the collection as a whole is somewhat disjointed and often repetitive; several essays, for instance, recount the same anecdotes about Janowitz's daughter and her dogs. Fans of Janowitz's writing will likely be interested in this collection, and New York libraries will surely experience demand, but most libraries can consider this an optional purchase.-Rita Simmons, Sterling Heights P.L., MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

From novelist Janowitz (Peyton Amberg, 2003, etc.): an uneven but not unappealing collection of short nonfiction written primarily for magazines. The 78 pieces included here are all over the map-mostly the map of New York City, though the author takes a couple of side excursions, such as her trip to China to pick up her adopted daughter. Janowitz is ready to tackle almost any topic in her trademark prickly, deadpan manner; strangely, that very flatness gives these articles their life. Chronicling everyday travails is her strong suit. She can grouse with the best of them, noting indignantly that despite being tempted at every corner by a fabulous restaurant, "the modern New York woman is expected to have the same shape as that of a really tough villager who lives in a primitive place and spends the day hunting and gathering." She can explain what it's like to live with a dog that gets depressed after losing a fight, and she can make her ferret-fixation scarily palpable: "I thought I had to smell a ferret or I would go mad. It was even worse than the six months or so that I obsessed with eating sand." Some of the pieces are too short, most notably a narrative about being "raped" by butterflies, intertwined with the story of a horrible traffic accident she's involved in. That's a piece that cries out for more detail. A surfeit of material bemoans Janowitz's failures in dress, hairstyle, and comportment, and she works the jaded angle awfully hard. (On her mothering abilities: "It wasn't that I didn't love being with her-I did, for up to fifteen minutes at a time.") The highlight here is an overarching portrait of her home borough, Brooklyn, so sensitive that it's hard to believe she everlived in Manhattan. How to find pleasure and fault here and there about the city, delineated with a pleasingly naked candor. Agent: Betsy Lerner/Gernert Agency