Maybe the People Would Be the Times

by Lucy Sante

In his new essay collection, Luc Sante pays homage to Patti Smith, Rene Ricard, Joe Brainard, David Wojnarowicz, and Georges Simenon; traces the history of tabloids; surveys the musical landscape that gave birth to the Beastie Boys; explores the back alleys of vernacular photography; sounds a threnody for the forgotten dead of New York City.

The glue holding the collection together is autobiography. Every item carries deep personal significance, and most are rooted in lived experience, in particular Sante’s youth on the Lower East Side of New York in the fertile 1970s and ’80s. He traces his deep engagement with music, his experience of the city, his progression as an artist and observer, his love life and ambitions.

Maybe the People Would Be the Times is organized as a series of sequences, in which one piece leads into the next. Memoir flows into essay, fiction into critical writing, humor into poetry, the pieces answering and echoing one another, examining their subjects from multiple vantages. The collection shows Sante at his most lyrical, impassioned, and imaginative, a writer for whom every assignment brings the challenge of inventing a new form.

“Luc Sante is a superb writer who can give astonishing form to floating moods and thoughts that no one noticed before.—JOHN ASHBERY

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Music, History, New York, Art

328 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2020

About the author

Lucy Sante was born in Verviers Belgium and emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. Since 1984, she has been a teacher and writer, and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. Her publications include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, and The Factory of Facts and Folk Photography. She currently teaches creative writing and the history of photography at Bard College in New York State.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I identify with Luc Sante's writings because we seem to share an interest in urban street history and its culture and music, films, French crime books & literature. He's a superb essayist with very sharp intelligence, and I love how he approaches his subject matters by making it personal. Born in 1954, he was born in Belgium and moved to the United States. His sensitivity is that he's very much aware that he lives in a duo-cultural existence. He's both an American and a European. Through his writing, I get the impression that he feels like an alien in a different world. Sante approaches to culture as buying a nice winter coat in the cold. The very essence of music, art, and literature is deadly important to him.

"Maybe The People Would Be The Times" is a compilation of Luc's writings from the 21st-century. It includes essays on music, cultural history, writers (great article on Richard Stark), Punk Rock & Reggae, and life in Manhattan during the 1970s. The book's title came from an Arthur Lee song, "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale," a classic tune from Love's "Forever Changes" album. I can tell that Sante wrote poetry due to his dense but straight forward prose, but not a wasted word in these essays. Reading some of the chapters in this book is like a physical presence in one's conscious. I can feel Georges Simenon, Patti Smith, Ricard Stark, and others in this volume as if they are sitting across from me.

Kimley and I discuss Luc's book on Book Musik. You can hear it here: Book Musik podcast

[Kimley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tosh and I discuss this on our Book Musik podcast.

This collection of Sante’s essays, mostly from the last 15-20 years, covers a wide spectrum of his obsessive interests which include a heavy dose of music, photography, writers, filmmakers, New York City life and an assortment of oddities. While it’s a seemingly divergent field of topics, there is an aesthetic thread that connects them all. His writing pulses with life and pulls the reader into his world — dreamy, romantic, personal and always compelling.

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a reading of his then new memoir the Factory of Facts, I stood in line to ask Luc Sante to sign my copy of the book. I surely said something banal about how much I enjoyed his work. He looked at me with what I took as distain. Maybe he’s just humorless. His writing is rich yet lacks jokes, which is the currency of my vocabulary. Regardless, what he misses in punchlines he more than makes up with insight.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m obsessed with this man

[Mike Polizzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was called to New York in 2002, I placated some of my anxiety with the vague ideas of the art that’s produced by the city’s unique struggles. The particular struggles I’d envisioned were done by the time I arrived and though an updated version had been established in Brooklyn, it took me too long to wake up. That my idea grew from offhand comments made by musicians on MTV or artist interviews I’d read, I still imagined the cultural cache bred out of those who’d survived or referenced the cauldron of NY in the 70’s and 80’s somehow extended to me - if for no other reason than the image was still one that clung to the city for those who lived outside. I still subscribe to the idea that a dying urbanism can be revived by art- and that this may be a myth, a means of commodifying real estate, is a challenge to that belief that art can be authentic and meaningful. Sante’s eye for detail, his ability to recall the lived in reality of the time, and the artifacts of his fascination, do much to excavate the city of his youth and the portions of our culture it’s lamps light. There’s a lot here and inspiration to spare. His memoir and music writing were my favorites- though his eye for photographic detail, knowledge of parts of photographic history we’d rather forget and ability to read an image all make his photo writing essential.

[Megan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning and ending sections of this book I really loved. This was strongest for me when Sante was talking about his own life, or New York itself. I got a bit tired of his essays on authors and photography in particular. Much of the greater significance of these essays, beyond the collection of historical fact, was missing for me. The biographical essays, on the other hand, were beautiful, profound, and impactful. This book reignited a desire in me to move to New York. The essays I enjoyed had an absurd, playful, and nostalgic energy, bursting with grim reverence for life in the city. I only wish there was more of that in the book — when parts of it were so good, I was bored by and itching to get through the parts of the book where that energy collapsed. Still, the book is clearly competently written and worth the read.

[Mason Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any collection, some of the pieces here spoke to me more strongly than others. Luc Sante is always a joy to read, and these essays are about people, places, times, and works. A number of them describe his early days living in New York City, from various perspectives: the apartments he lived in, the bands he saw, the zines he read. Other pieces are about people, bands, music, books: art and the artists that created it. His piece about Patti Smith is particularly nice, as well as the one about David Wojnarowicz. In some cases I discovered that a piece just didn't keep my interest, but there was always the next one. On balance I enjoyed far more than I didn't. And while the disparate subject matter makes it scattershot in some ways, there are themes to be found. Thoughtful, sometimes educational, always erudite.

[Antonio Depietro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 3rd Luc Sante book that i've read and this is his latest and i think it's my favorite. In this new book , a collection of articles written for a variety of magazines or from his blog. His references are all incredibly cool and also a lot of things that are super new to me - Richard Stark's Parker novels, photographer Vivian Meier and her personal story and torment. and great personal perspectives on Rene Ricard, Joe Brainard and David Wojnarowicz.
I think you also see the writing evolve - it's really unpredictable and surprising and is all over the place! a whole chapter dedicated to photography could have been a stand alone book.

[Art Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luc Sante sure knows how to write an addicting book. It's a unique anthology, with sections that are somehow both related and unrelated. The first part is an immersive personal account of 1970s New York, followed by some quirky fictional stories behind found records, and finally a series a short biographies of important members of the New York fabric. Several of these people were new to me.

I'll be seeking out more books by Sante soon, hoping they can live up to this excellent sampling of his work.

[Andy Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It's a collection of Luc Sante's essay from about the past fifteen years, especially focusing on his time in the downtown punk and club scene of the 70s and 80s but also touching on detective literature, photography, and the history of New York tabloids. He should write a memoir. He basically has.

[Patrick King · Rating 4 out of 5]

I moved to New York a few decades too late to experience any of what is written about, but with a lot of these pieces I felt present. I enjoyed the more first-person essays/fictions the most, such a strong sense of place, such evocative and rhythmic language. Really made me want to listen to all the music he talked about!!

[Jessie Mccarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yall, (yawn). Gave it three because I didn;t finish. SO many things to say about why i didnt love this book. It just felt like a white straight man looking back at 1970s new york city with an, "Aw, yes. It was a wild time." and that's it. writing about Patti Smith in terms of her music is "orgasmic" felt really trite to me. Call me a hater

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 5 out of 5]

as with the other paris loved this from the get go, sante has soaked up the tastie tasties of arts high and low, cultural marginalia, obscure factual knowledge myths etc and with the poet's ear for language filmmaker's eye for detail etc etc weaves this astounding potpourri of essays, remembrances, critical descriptions, scene snapshots, all backboned by a deliriously effulgent memory.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection of work! The title essay is worth the price - and it manages to encapsulate everything (now) Lucy Sante excels in - capturing the times, the sense of history, the sound, smell, excitement and tragedy of NYC. That’s who this book is really for - those who have lived in NY as young people and were forever changed by it. Fantastic stuff.

[linds836 · Rating 4 out of 5]

feel like this is going to be a book i return to often — such a breadth of variety, so many delicate vignettes. I so deeply appreciate Luc(y)‘s frankness, the ability to see beyond and convey culture through different means of receiving context

[guille]

colección variadísima de ensayos: algunos demasiado cortos para llegar a interesar, otros no pueden dejar de ser lo que son (artículos para revistas y periódicos) pero hay varios que en su interés por mezclar lo autobiográfico con lo cultural son especialmente interesantes.

[Katie Pruden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kath gave me this book for my 23rd bday. Reminded me to collect more and keep more. I glazed over some sections in here, but for the most part I enjoyed it. Wasn’t just the same old “back in my day at CBGBs” that is overrated. Best essay was “Bass Culture”

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

may the future always care about the crumbling ceilings, dusty discount stores and drug slots of our new york.

[Robt. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started reading it in the car on the way down US 101 to see UCSB, and finished it weeks later at the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica. Nowhere near New York.

[Patrick DiJusto · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of tail-end baby boomer reminiscences of how, in the "Taxi Driver" Lower East Side of the mid 1970s, to be young was very heaven. Yeah, we know.

[Mikki Janower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorely tempted to subscribe to the NYRB for more Luc Sante

[Dan Wever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dying breed, not because of the people but because of the times.

[Kate Wyant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found her to be extremely pretentious and at times appropriative. Extremely difficult to finish.

[Zach Werbalowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The review Dylan Kiewel wrote is better than what I could say. Lucy Sante is a gift to those interested in the alternative(true?) history.

[J. Pineiro]

Beguiling, tart, smart, and purposeful, typical Sante with his usual questioning and forthright voice. Highly recommend it.

[Sam Szabo · Rating 5 out of 5]

delectable

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great vignettes of New York, essays with unique prompts and perspectives, thoughtful profiles of filmmakers, musicians, and artists.

[Cleo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag

[Mark Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epic collection of expertly crafted essays.

[Dani Austria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a nice walk down memory lane—one that I never actually lived in but felt familiar somehow. This is a good read for those who love both the consumption and study of pop culture. I imagine it's even better if you actually lived through the anecdoted times.