Published in 2016 (first published 1986)
293 pages
Tama Janowitz vaulted to literary stardom with the bestselling Slaves of New York, becoming “the Most Talked About Writer of the Year” (Women’s Wear Daily). Her stories have appeared in such diverse magazines as The New Yorker, Paris Review, Spin, Bomb, and Interview. She is also the author of the outrageous novels A Cannibal in Manhattan and The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group, available from Washington Square Press, and an earlier novel, American Dad. She lives in New York City.
What is this book about?
“I consider every moment of my life spent unaware of the existence of novelist Tama Janowitz a complete and utter waste of consciousness…I would build a city of pearl and onyx for Tama Janowitz with my own raw and useless hands.” — Mallory Ortberg, The Toast
Tama Janowitz’s bold and sophisticated modern classic of Manhattan life includes three never-before-collected stories in this first ever ebook edition.
Slaves of New York spoke for a new generation of Americans when it was released in 1986. Acclaimed for her novel American Dad (published when she was just twenty-four) and for her stories in The New Yorker, Interview and Paris Review, Tama Janowitz gave a name to a stylish and highly peculiar new breed of young urbanite.
Some of the slaves of New York are bewildered, opinionated young women like Eleanor, a jewelry designer new to the city. She lives in one room with her artist boyfriend Stash, who paints heroic canvases of Donald Duck and Quick Draw McGraw. She’d like to leave him but they have a dog. And it’s his apartment. What’s a slave to do? Join the ranks of the others: eerie East Village performance artists, a harried art dealer and his mistress, and a prostitute who happens to be from one of the best Southern Jewish families.
In Tama Janowitz’s keenly observed world, these urbanites share cramped apartments, endure cramped love affairs and waft half-cheerful, half-lost through the city. Their lives are fiercely funny – and ultimately moving.
