My friend, Shisa, linked me to a very cool project ( nytimes but you may have to register ) to map the residences of literary fictional characters who live in Manhattan. I checked it out right away and...well, gosh, they already got the first one I thought of --Nero Wolfe, America's largest detective, of West 35th Street. I think I've read all of Rex Stout's books about him. I don't care if he's fat, I love him. I am also enamored by another author whose characters are almost all from New York's Upper East Side--Louis Auchincloss. And he gives hints like "the lovely red brick Federal House in Washington Square." Also, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities thrilled me with its depiction of the multi-million dollar New York townhouses even though I knew they were part of the "vanity" that was about to explode in "flames." Trouble is, I can't go back to the books to track down addresses because, because, because I do not own them. They were library books. Oh, no, it's true. There it is. The disadvantage of borrowing a book instead of buying one. (But seriously, you can't possibly own all the books you have read, can you? You would be walking through narrow passageways created by the stacked books in your living room, dining room, and halls.) The authors of the project named many writers to get us started and I started to list the ones I'd read* but gave up because there were too many--SO many writers place their characters in New York.
*Isaac Bashevis Singer, John Cheever, Jay McInerney, Truman Capote, Philip Roth, Ed McBain, Ira Levin, Hart Crane, Faith Ringgold, E. B. White, Tom Wolfe, Mario Puzo, Kay Thompson, Bernard Waber, Woody Allen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Wouk....
Such great writers and they're just a drop in the proverbial bucket. Never mind, I'm rambling. I may not submit anyone but I'll read the finished product with delight.
Yessss! 5th June---and me and my friends on the William Gibson Board have submitted Cayce in "Pattern Recognition", near the SoHo Hotel, and on Spring Street, on Sept 11th no less.
It'll be a crowded map.
Speaking of crowded, I know a family like that: all the stairs lined with piles of books, only a narrow passage left!
Posted by: Shisa | Saturday, May 07, 2005 at 05:09 PM
PS. I knwe you would love it, being a New Yorker and a reader.
Posted by: Shisa | Saturday, May 07, 2005 at 05:11 PM
Many of them are there! I went and looked -- very nice, even if Cayce doesnt seem to have made it..
Posted by: Shisa | Sunday, June 05, 2005 at 06:58 PM