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Leaving New York
A collection of essays and poems explores the attitudes of writers over the years toward the New York they left--or thought of leaving--behind, including Frank Conroy, Mona Simpson, Truman Capote, A. J. Liebling, and Toni Morrison. IP.
Hardcover
First published September 1, 1995
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52 people want to read
About the author
Kathleen Norris
128 books453 followersKathleen Norris was born on July 27, 1947 in Washington, D.C. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, as well as on her maternal grandparents’ farm in Lemmon, South Dakota.
Her sheltered upbringing left her unprepared for the world she encountered when she began attending Bennington College in Vermont. At first shocked by the unconventionality surrounding her, Norris took refuge in poetry.
After she graduated in 1969, she moved to New York City where she joined the arts scene, associated with members of the avant-garde movement including Andy Warhol, and worked for the American Academy of Poets.
In 1974, her grandmother died leaving Norris the family farm in South Dakota, and she and her future husband, the poet David Dwyer, decided to temporarily relocate there until arrangements to rent or sell the property could be made. Instead, they ended up remaining in South Dakota for the next 25 years.
Soon after moving to the rural prairie, Norris developed a relationship with the nearby Benedictine abbey, which led to her eventually becoming an oblate.
In 2000, Norris and her husband traded their farmhouse on the Great Plains for a condo in Honolulu, Hawaii, so that Norris could help care for her aging parents after her husband’s own failing health no longer permitted him to travel. Her father died in 2002, and her husband died the following year in 2003.
Her sheltered upbringing left her unprepared for the world she encountered when she began attending Bennington College in Vermont. At first shocked by the unconventionality surrounding her, Norris took refuge in poetry.
After she graduated in 1969, she moved to New York City where she joined the arts scene, associated with members of the avant-garde movement including Andy Warhol, and worked for the American Academy of Poets.
In 1974, her grandmother died leaving Norris the family farm in South Dakota, and she and her future husband, the poet David Dwyer, decided to temporarily relocate there until arrangements to rent or sell the property could be made. Instead, they ended up remaining in South Dakota for the next 25 years.
Soon after moving to the rural prairie, Norris developed a relationship with the nearby Benedictine abbey, which led to her eventually becoming an oblate.
In 2000, Norris and her husband traded their farmhouse on the Great Plains for a condo in Honolulu, Hawaii, so that Norris could help care for her aging parents after her husband’s own failing health no longer permitted him to travel. Her father died in 2002, and her husband died the following year in 2003.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 31, 2020
I really need to figure out a way to properly read essay collections. Either I charge forward full speed ahead and finish them all at a gallop, sick to death of the theme or author, or i decide to savor them and instead end up leaving the book forgotten on the bedside table for years on end. This book fell in the latter category. I probably wouldn't have even finished the last two essays tonight if I hadn't been annoyingly close to my 30 books in 2020 goal. Which kind of depresses me. Does even reading need to be another metric in our modern life?
Anyway, this collection was gifted to me a couple years ago when I was staying at a friend's house in the Black Forest- she had never lived in New York but been gifted this book and kindly thought of me. And in fact I was really excited to read it. My four years in NYC in my twenties had been formative and exciting and stupid and full of cocktails and all those other things the millenials flocking to the city in the early twenty-first century (and long, long before) had ever hoped for. And of course, I had read Didion's "Goodbye to All That," which is like the rallying cry for disillusionment with youth. As it turns out, though, Didion may have been way too high expectations. There were some interesting essays for sure (although the early ones have long since disappeared into the fogs of time), but I think it is less the NYC element than saying goodbye to that electric excitement of your twenties that really spoke to me about Didion's iconic essay. Her line: "I began to cherish the loneliness of it, the sense that at any given time no one need know where I was or what I was doing" captures the entire mood of my twenties like nothing else ever has. I remember Mondays after work where I just couldn't face a quiet night at home, calling a friend and three bars later ballroom dancing with strangers after our scalped music tickets turned out to be counterfeit. I remember going out for Sunday brunch and ending up face painted at a rooftop bar at 5am Monday morning. I remember being so exuberant that I would stay out dancing until 4am and then wake up at 7am to bike to Coney Island. NYC was that place for me. It was for a lot of people.
Part of me wants to say cynically that this whole obsession with NYC is overdone, but the more honest part of me knows that there is a reason this city has beguiled so many imaginations. It is a place I am glad to have lived, a city that made me feel alive, a city that allowed me to try on many lives and decide which I wanted for keeps. This collection was a lovely walk in nostalgia, regardless of how long it took me to finish.
Anyway, this collection was gifted to me a couple years ago when I was staying at a friend's house in the Black Forest- she had never lived in New York but been gifted this book and kindly thought of me. And in fact I was really excited to read it. My four years in NYC in my twenties had been formative and exciting and stupid and full of cocktails and all those other things the millenials flocking to the city in the early twenty-first century (and long, long before) had ever hoped for. And of course, I had read Didion's "Goodbye to All That," which is like the rallying cry for disillusionment with youth. As it turns out, though, Didion may have been way too high expectations. There were some interesting essays for sure (although the early ones have long since disappeared into the fogs of time), but I think it is less the NYC element than saying goodbye to that electric excitement of your twenties that really spoke to me about Didion's iconic essay. Her line: "I began to cherish the loneliness of it, the sense that at any given time no one need know where I was or what I was doing" captures the entire mood of my twenties like nothing else ever has. I remember Mondays after work where I just couldn't face a quiet night at home, calling a friend and three bars later ballroom dancing with strangers after our scalped music tickets turned out to be counterfeit. I remember going out for Sunday brunch and ending up face painted at a rooftop bar at 5am Monday morning. I remember being so exuberant that I would stay out dancing until 4am and then wake up at 7am to bike to Coney Island. NYC was that place for me. It was for a lot of people.
Part of me wants to say cynically that this whole obsession with NYC is overdone, but the more honest part of me knows that there is a reason this city has beguiled so many imaginations. It is a place I am glad to have lived, a city that made me feel alive, a city that allowed me to try on many lives and decide which I wanted for keeps. This collection was a lovely walk in nostalgia, regardless of how long it took me to finish.
September 3, 2018
This is a anthology of essays and poems about writers who have left New York, going all the way back to Henry James, but ending in the early 90's (the book was published in 1995). I was drawn to it as part of my interest in Joan Didion, whose piece, "Goodbye to All That" was included.
Some of the material is excellent, some didn't really send me... and some seems somewhat dated (no, not Henry James's, surprisingly - there is a reason why some writing falls into the realm of the classic). I particularly enjoyed Didion's piece, also Frank Conroy's, Truman Capote's and the lyrics to "Autumn in New York", the evocative song by Vernon Duke.
I ended up skipping the parts that failed to interest or disappointed me, but there was certainly enough for 3 stars.
Some of the material is excellent, some didn't really send me... and some seems somewhat dated (no, not Henry James's, surprisingly - there is a reason why some writing falls into the realm of the classic). I particularly enjoyed Didion's piece, also Frank Conroy's, Truman Capote's and the lyrics to "Autumn in New York", the evocative song by Vernon Duke.
I ended up skipping the parts that failed to interest or disappointed me, but there was certainly enough for 3 stars.
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March 22, 2025favorite essays were
- the things we do for love by mona simpson
- sometimes you talk about idaho by pam houston
- goodbye to all that by joan didion (ofc)
- the things we do for love by mona simpson
- sometimes you talk about idaho by pam houston
- goodbye to all that by joan didion (ofc)
June 20, 2015
Many terrific stories; some, so-so; eclectic and somewhat peculiar assortment. I liked Tom Wolfe's piece enormously, and I don't usually care for his "voice."
Feeling lazy, so I cut and pasted the following, which says all that I would say.
From Library Journal
Celebrated writers past and present reflect on the theme "New York is a state of mind" in this fine collection. Although ostensibly about "leaving" New York, the thrust of these essays and poems is that leaving is not really possible; the experience of having once lived in New York is indelibly impressed on the creative spirit. Five essays were written expressly for this collection, including a piece by editor Norris (Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, LJ 12/92). The rest have been published previously. Many, such as those by Toni Morrison, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Henry James, are masterpieces. (One can only speculate about who might have been excluded.) Norris has loosely grouped the pieces into seven thematic clusters such as "Lyrics of the City" and "The City-Affectionate Shadows." Regardless of the book's external structure, a single thread runs through all of the authors' works: that New York and artistic endeavor are inextricably linked. Highly recommended.
Diane G. Premo, SILS, SUNY at Buffalo
Grabbed this off of the used book shelf at library.
From Booklist
New York has long been a mecca for aspiring writers, but it has exhausted and alienated as many literary pilgrims as it has lured and inspired. This unusual anthology, the inaugural title for the Hungry Mind Press, presents a quirky but nonetheless involving selection of essays, poems, song lyrics, and slices of fiction describing writers' experiences in that most challenging of cities. Norris, poet and author of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (1992), herself a writer with conflicting feelings about New York, has chosen works that span several generations of writers wise to New York's inherent give-and-take. There's Henry James, Truman Capote, and Joan Didion, all a pleasure to encounter under any circumstances, as well as Mona Simpson, Frank Conroy, Bill McKibben, and Jamaica Kincaid. Some of Norris' choices are puzzling, especially in the poetry section, the book's weakest component, but in spite of its flaws, this is an anthology that will intrigue readers with a passion for American literature. Donna Seaman
Feeling lazy, so I cut and pasted the following, which says all that I would say.
From Library Journal
Celebrated writers past and present reflect on the theme "New York is a state of mind" in this fine collection. Although ostensibly about "leaving" New York, the thrust of these essays and poems is that leaving is not really possible; the experience of having once lived in New York is indelibly impressed on the creative spirit. Five essays were written expressly for this collection, including a piece by editor Norris (Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, LJ 12/92). The rest have been published previously. Many, such as those by Toni Morrison, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Henry James, are masterpieces. (One can only speculate about who might have been excluded.) Norris has loosely grouped the pieces into seven thematic clusters such as "Lyrics of the City" and "The City-Affectionate Shadows." Regardless of the book's external structure, a single thread runs through all of the authors' works: that New York and artistic endeavor are inextricably linked. Highly recommended.
Diane G. Premo, SILS, SUNY at Buffalo
Grabbed this off of the used book shelf at library.
From Booklist
New York has long been a mecca for aspiring writers, but it has exhausted and alienated as many literary pilgrims as it has lured and inspired. This unusual anthology, the inaugural title for the Hungry Mind Press, presents a quirky but nonetheless involving selection of essays, poems, song lyrics, and slices of fiction describing writers' experiences in that most challenging of cities. Norris, poet and author of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (1992), herself a writer with conflicting feelings about New York, has chosen works that span several generations of writers wise to New York's inherent give-and-take. There's Henry James, Truman Capote, and Joan Didion, all a pleasure to encounter under any circumstances, as well as Mona Simpson, Frank Conroy, Bill McKibben, and Jamaica Kincaid. Some of Norris' choices are puzzling, especially in the poetry section, the book's weakest component, but in spite of its flaws, this is an anthology that will intrigue readers with a passion for American literature. Donna Seaman
July 27, 2008
This collection of writings eased the immense sadness I felt when I moved away from New York. Both times.
May 17, 2012
Loved this book of short essays
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews