Leif Kurth’s Reviews > Up in the Old Hotel > Status Update

A book such as this should be read slowly, over months or years, or a decade even. Joseph Mitchell was the quintessential raconteur. He took delight in giving voice to New York's over-looked, under-valued, and largely forgotten classes. It's impossible to decipher truth from half-truth from fabrication and that is what makes the stories so wonderful. Perception becomes the reader's reality.