I recently spoke glowingly to a friend about Amor Towles’ story collection, Table for Two (2024). She acknowledged, without enthusiasm, having read his A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), a novel about a charming man leading a charmed life in a hotel
Speech Therapy
In this short recollection, I am attending a school in London at the age of eight or nine. I’d had a cleft palate surgically repaired when I was too young to remember, and now I was required to undergo speech therapy. Looking back, I marvel at the
Belonging: A Story
One morning years ago, a number of decades I could count on the fingers of one hand, I was waiting on the platform of my local subway station. A train arrived and opened its doors right in front of a woman with long, dark brown hair. A yard or two to
A Perfect Love
In September, here in Brooklyn, there will be a summer-warm afternoon, heavy with moisture, when an autumn front approaches. Above me is that sky that made May and June beautiful, fragrant with flower scents and optimism, but that by now has become
The Elizabeth Street Garden: Is New York City Really Going to Demolish It?
Do we want a place of scenic beauty or, in its place, affordable housing for homeless people? That’s the seeming choice facing New Yorkers who love Manhattan’s Elizabeth Street Garden. For people in this extremely built-up stretch, Elizabeth
The Return of Trumplodyte
It is astonishing to watch how events during the past three weeks have conspired to make Donald Trump’s victory in November seem certain. But they say the darkest hour is just before dawn. On June 27, there was President Biden’s catastrophically