Jonathan Keates
Noo Yoik, Noo Yoik
Occasional Prose
By Mary McCarthy
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 341pp £14.95
New York: An Anthology
By Mike Marquesee & Bill Harris
Cadogan Books 462pp £15.95
A favourite pastime with a certain species of cultivated New Yorker – ‘obsession’ is probably a more correct word – is that of referring to well-known figures by their first names so as to ensure that a little of their glamour will rub off on you through the implied intimacy. ‘Have you seen David’s show?’, ‘Luciano just butchered the cabaletta’, ‘Vidhya isn’t speaking to Ved these days but Susan told Saul that Norman’ etc etc.
Such harmless vulgarity grows more rampant in inverse proportion to the number of occasions on which you and the famous have actually met. Resistant as I am to the lure of celebrity, I have not yet started referring to the author of The Group as Mary, though I may as well admit that my one meeting with her, a twenty minutes’ worth of Christmas cocktail chat in a Florentine villa, made an indelible impression.
It was her feet that clinched it for me. She wasn’t especially coruscating in her conversation, choosing instead to radiate the sort of relaxed self-assurance which derives from knowing that prosperity and adulation will always protect you from having to beg or starve. Her husband sat silently in the middle
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk