Volume 48, Number 14 · September 20, 2001
Out of Step with the World
By Russell Baker
McSorley's Wonderful Saloon
by Joseph Mitchell
Pantheon, 370 pp., $25.00
My Ears Are Bent
by Joseph Mitchell
Pantheon, 299 pp., $23.00
Up in the Old Hotel
by Joseph Mitchell
Vintage, 716 pp., $16.00 (paper)
Joseph Mitchell's New York is long vanished. We can only argue about whose New York has succeeded it, but Tom Wolfe's, painted in his broad, gaudy burlesque strokes, would have to be considered. With its lunatic obsession with money, New York from Reagan through Giuliani has become too grotesque to be captured by mere satire. Satire is subtle; turn-of-the-millennium New York runs irresistibly to grossness.
Review, 4123 words
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