After publishing her first novel when she was 21, Brittany Newell started working as a dominatrix. The job gave her time to write — and plenty of material to draw from. "I always like to say that what makes a good writer is also what makes a good dominatrix, which is empathy and curiosity and bravery," she says. Newell's new novel is Soft Core. Also, David Bianculli reviews the comedy TV series Clean Slate starring Laverne Cox. And Maureen Corrigan reviews two quintessential New York books.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And my guest today is author Brittany Newell, who loves to write about the secret worlds of others, the things people do, she says, that make their lives more bearable. Her newest novel, Softcore, takes the reader into San Francisco's underworld of dive bars, strip clubs, and BDSM dungeons, where tech bros, executives, and outcasts live out their fantasies.
Ruth, the protagonist, is a stripper who unravels when her ex-boyfriend, a ketamine dealer, disappears. Ruth, known by her stripper name, Baby Blue, starts working as a professional dominatrix where she tries to fulfill the deepest desires of her clients, who mostly want to talk to her about how lonely they are and the grief they carry. Brittany Newell draws from personal experience.
In addition to being a writer, she is also a professional dominatrix. A graduate of Stanford University, she studied comparative literature and gender studies and wrote her debut novel, Ula, in 2017 when she was 21 years old. It's been described as the millennial Lolita. Newell has written for the New York Times, Joyland, and Playgirl.
She and her wife run a monthly drag and dance party called Angels at Aunt Charlie's Lounge, which is one of San Francisco's oldest queer bars. Now, before Brittany and I get into our conversation, I want to warn you that this is an adult conversation, not appropriate for children.
We won't be discussing sex in an explicit way, but this is an adult conversation with adult themes and topics, including sex work. With that, Brittany Newell, welcome to Fresh Air.
Hi, thank you for having me.
I'm over the moon. Yes, well, thank you for being here. I really enjoyed your book. It was such a good read. And I want to know, first off, how much of soft core is fiction and how much of it is based on real life?
Oh, yeah, that's the million dollar question. I have seen some early reviewers saying that it's a memoir, which it is definitely not. I want that to be clear, but I think it's a completely valid question. And I catch myself doing it as a reader, too, like the conflation of the main character with the author. And so, of course, I've thought about this a lot and been asked this a lot.
And I think the ways that it is non-fictional are sort of subtler than one might realize. Like, I think the sensory details of my life and the characteristics of the people that I'm close to and that I've spent a lot of time noticing and observing, I think those are always the things that end up making their way into a book, which is sort of like, I always say, like the tax of time.
dating or loving or befriending a writer is that all of these sort of like very specific, intimate, sometimes seemingly insignificant details are the things that end up being like woven into the book and making it have like the texture of real life.
Like and in a way that it's like probably only like that person would see themselves in it when they read it and be like, oh, like that's that's the brand of perfume that I use. Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, like that's my like turmeric colored bedspread. Right.
I mean, I could see why, knowing that your main character, Ruth, she has a master's degree. She's working in these underworlds. And like you, you are a Stanford graduate. And you have a really interesting story into your foray into these worlds, which we're going to get to in just a moment. But Ruth, the protagonist in the book, she's also known as her stripper name, Baby.
And one of the more powerful elements of your writing is is that you not only explore what's in it for the guys that she services, you also explore outside of money what's in it for her to be a stripper and a dominatrix. How would you describe Ruth?
Oh, that's a great question. I think Ruth is lonely and it actually has made me reflect a lot on my writing in general. And I think I'm always writing about characters who are defined by their longing and motivated by like trying to fill the God-shaped hole inside of them to use like 12-step language. And so I think Ruth is a great, is a holy person, like H-O-L-E-Y, as perhaps we all are.
Yeah, and I think she has a lot of reservations about her own lovability and also her own desirability, which maybe is one of the many reasons why she enjoys her work as a stripper and later as a dominatrix. And I think she's a very curious person, which probably would be the main ways that I think I'm like Ruth.
I actually think I'm very different from Ruth, but we do share that fundamental curiosity and an attraction to underworlds or shadows, maybe. I feel like she's very unafraid of things that other people might deem seedy or grubby. I think she feels at ease in those environments or with those types of people.
Well, one of the things that Ruth does throughout the book is kind of make clear that she sees herself as average. And she does this like in her description of her physicality, what she looks like. She's like the girl next door. I think that she said that she made men's mangy dreams come true. Why was it important for Ruth to be kind of an average girl with an average body in this world?
Yeah. Well, I think I wanted it to be real and I wanted it to be empathetic and relatable and realistic and all of these things. And it makes Ruth, I think, a more like a character that we would see everywhere and a person who...
yeah, isn't this like flashing billboard image of a woman, even though in the sex work world, that's always, you know, what you're portraying or the role that you're stepping into. But even for the most, you know, like gorgeous woman working as a stripper or whatever, like that would always be a fantasy or a role that one is inhabiting.
And I think all women, like regardless of what they look like, are actually like really good at that. and really learn to play the role and to understand what someone wants before they understand it themselves. That's probably what makes an excellent sex worker, I think, is that almost mind-reading empathy and the ability to shapeshift.
And actually, I think that that's another big part of Ruth's averageness kind of being a benefit to her in these worlds is it allows her to shapeshift. And in general, she's a shapeshifter, like outside the club as well.
How did you go from being a Stanford graduate to a dominatrix?
Well, I guess probably the useless gender studies degree. No, I'm just kidding.
Right, because you did study queer periods and contemporary fiction.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think when I... You know, I had the bizarre and, like, gorgeous but also very weird experience of publishing my book. So I wrote it when I was, I guess, like, 20, and then it came out right when I graduated. So, you know, that was amazing. And I think for me, and still actually, like, the most important thing to me upon graduating was wanting to have...
freedom and control of my time. And once my advance from the first book rather quickly ran out, I did the usual food service jobs, bartender, waitress, and anyone who's worked in food service knows how, you know, taxing that can be like mentally and psychically.
And so I think like many artists and many people, I started to despair because I felt like I was losing this control of my time and my space. And so I think like all of the decisions I made around the types of work that I would originally driven by this desire for freedom and control of my time.
And, you know, like if you can work one day of the week for $800 an hour and then have the rest of the week to write, that's the dream, you know, that's what has. And then I think once I got into it, In addition to the freedom and control of my time, you know, then I started to fall in love with it for the curiosities that... Like, how it satisfied my own curiosities and the excitement of it.
And just, you know, like, I'm a writer, so I'm always interested in stories. And I kind of, like, randomly found this job or this type of work where people... are always telling you not just their stories, but they want to tell you their secrets, you know, and I love to listen.
So I kind of felt almost like called to the job, you know, like as someone who wants nothing more than to be like a keeper of these masculine secrets or to be a witness to people's longings and a witness to their grief. Like it felt, you know, not to say that I didn't have like...
weird sessions or rude clients, like, of course, like, I never want to give off this impression that, you know, everything is always, like, rosy.
Sitting down and talking, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is so fascinating to me because one of the things in reading this book that I kept thinking about is that you also have to sit in this seat of non-judgment for all of the requests that come to you.
Is there ever a moment where you do judge or where do you put yourself as far as your mental space to come to the table so that you can accept whatever as long as you're safe of course whatever is being requested of you or brought to you as a fantasy?
Yeah. Well, I mean, of course, like as a dominatrix and a provider, I have, you know, my own limits and I have the things that I really enjoy. Like I love cross-dresser sessions. I feel like I'm the perfect person for that because I have lots of cross-dressers in my regular life, too. And, you know, there's things that I don't do either because I...
Mainly more just because I feel like I'm not good at it. But to answer your question more specifically, you know, like if someone's presenting me with a fantasy, like this disembodied fantasy, I think in general, I would like to think I'm a very open-minded person.
And I don't think it's particularly hard to feel into their fantasy when, you know, the central longing or the central appetite behind the fantasy is clear to me or is laid bare, you know, like, So much of the time it's, you know, like it might seem inaccessible or insane, like a certain fantasy, but the heart of it is more relatable or familiar than maybe people would like to admit.
So, yeah, I think I guess it's I guess it's about empathy, which, you know, I always like to say that what makes a good writer is also what makes a good dominatrix, which is empathy and curiosity and bravery. So I guess those things like all coming together. Make it not easy, but make it make me feel able to receive these fantasies.
And I guess I think of myself, I said it earlier, but like to be a witness, you know, like to witness something and and hold space for it. You know, even if it's not my particular cup of tea. Yeah. Not my flavor. Yeah. Right. But to witness it feels important.
Has there ever been an instance where you've seen these men in real life, in day-to-day life, at the grocery store, at the post office? And if that's the case, like, you just pretend you just walk on by.
Right, right. Like a therapist, right? Like, I guess when your therapist sees you out in the world, they're not supposed to acknowledge you. Only once, actually, which is kind of interesting that it would only be once. And it was, I was late and walking to the dungeon to have a session with this person who was like killing time on the corner.
And I remember he was wearing, you know, like the green M&M. He was wearing like a green M&M t-shirt and eating a piece of pizza.
No, I was eating a piece of pizza and I remember thinking like, oh, no, this is like so like ruining his fantasy because I'm wearing like street clothes and like wearing like my like ratty like faux fur jacket and eating pizza really hurriedly because I'm late to my session. And I remember we just like locked eyes and then I just like kept walking.
And then, you know, 10 minutes later, he's at the dungeon and we didn't acknowledge it.
Right, because that's part of the fantasy is it stays what's in the dungeon stays in the dungeon.
Exactly. And, you know, his fantasy of a dominatrix would probably be someone who, like, lives and sleeps and eats in, like, a full latex suit, you know. So I didn't want—I felt kind of bad. I was like, oh, no, I, like, disrupted that fantasy for him with my pizza. Yeah.
You know something that, and I'm not going to give away, like there are so many parts of the book that if we go too deep into it, like it gives away the story. But something else that's really important is scent. Yeah. Your character Baby wears a unique fragrance that her ex-boyfriend has gifted her.
And there's a moment where she talks about the sense of all the girls who work at this strip club with her and what they signify, what they bring to the experience, what When and how did you learn how important scent is in this experience and in the fantasy?
That's interesting. I remember when I was shopping the book around, someone that I had sent it to rejected it, but... wrote a really beautiful review of it and said, you know, all the things that they liked about it. And I remember they said, I've never read so many different descriptions for how men smell. And that was the first time that I became aware of how, I guess, like,
how fixated and like entranced, enchanted I am by smells, I guess, as a writer, first and foremost, and secondarily as a embodied person out in the world. And then, you know, now like doing interviews and stuff with Softcore, like so many people mentioned that. So it's, yeah, it's been, it's like educational for me, like learning about
my own self as like a writer and a, you know, sex worker, whatever, like that I have this like attention to scent and to smell. And I think, I think, you know, in, I think that smell, how you smell and how you dress, you know, wherever you're going out in the world, wherever going to work,
going to a party, going on a date or whatever, I think those two things, smell and style, are the closest things we have to like casting spells, if you know what I mean. It's like a way to, you know, depending on what you wear, like how femme it is, like how sexy it is and how you smell.
It's also the essence of who you are.
Yeah, and it's an essence of who you are, but it's also something that can always change and can shapeshift, you know, depending on your mood or depending on the environment or depending on the person who's going to smell you, you know, and I guess that's one of the things that I love about smell. Yeah, is how it creates like a mood or an atmosphere.
Yeah, and I'm very, very particular and attuned to different smells. Like the mood that comes with an amber smell is very different than the mood that would come with like a more like animalistic or leathery smell. Yeah, so I guess honestly in the same way that a name kind of casts a spell, I guess scents and smells do too. They just like, yeah, they set the setting or...
start to build the atmosphere of the person that you want to be that day okay this is a very probably naive question but every time i hear the word dungeon i'm literally thinking about a dungeon like i'm literally let's let's go down to the basement open like a bolted door but in the book like the dungeons are like rooms in a victorian for instance yeah yeah
Yeah, I mean, I will say every dungeon that I've ever worked in has always been an above ground, very nice, very clean, big, beautiful house. And yeah, they're not literally underground. I mean, dungeon is a word with a lot of like semiotic baggage, which is why I think on the website of the...
dungeon that Dreamhouse, and Dreamhouse is the dungeon in the book, which is based on the very first dungeon that I ever worked at. I think they call it a BDSM playhouse, which is maybe more expansive and allows for, you know, like images of the different types of fetishes or fantasies that, you know, are played out there.
Our guest today is writer Brittany Newell. We're talking about her new novel, Softcore. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.
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My guest today is author and professional dominatrix Brittany Newell. And if you're just tuning in, I want to give a warning. We won't be discussing sex in an explicit way, but this is an adult conversation with adult themes and topics, including sex work.
Brittany Newell's new novel, Softcore, takes the reader into San Francisco's underworld of dive bars, strip clubs, and BDSM dungeons where tech bros and outcasts live out their fantasies. Ruth, the protagonist, is a stripper and a part-time dominatrix who tries to fulfill the deepest desires of her clients, who mostly want to talk about their loneliness, desire, and loss.
Brittany Newell is a graduate of Stanford University and wrote her debut novel, Ula, described as the millennial Lolita in 2017 when she was 21 years old. She's written for The New York Times, Joyland, and Playgirl. Brittany, in Softcore, Ruth, she is very introspective, as you described, and she reflects somewhat tenderly about these guys that she services.
I want to read this passage in particular that was pretty powerful. She says, quote, Did I feel simpatico with the clients whose names and birthdays I can still recite to this day, Pledge of Allegiance style? Tim, 10-10-75. Pascal, 6-9-69. The oldest client I can remember was born in 1939. All I know, in fact, is this. Men are dying to be let in on the secret pleasures of girlhood.
They feel cheated out of ease and glamour. Friend kisses and hushed gossip. Heterosexuality is defined by a longing for wholeness. Terror undergirds desire. Brittany, is that true?
From your experience? Yeah, yeah. In my experience, yes. And I remember someone asking me once, like, has doing sex work and being a pro-dom, like, how has it changed your opinion or your relationship to men? Like, has it made you like a lot more like impatient or, you know, like fed up because you have to deal with them so often?
And the answer is that actually more than anything, it's made me have so much empathy for men that I certainly never would have had otherwise. Perhaps because, you know, because of the specific power structure of a BDSM session, you know, where I'm always...
in charge and they're coming to me in this state of vulnerability and openness, you know, in a way that is almost never replicated in the real world. I have this very rare and rarefied opportunity to witness all of the like pent up emotions and all of the anxieties and grief and desires that men carry around.
And I think a stereotype that is pretty true is that not all the time, but a lot of the time, the types of men who book sessions with a pro dominatrix are like high powered men who have demanding jobs and make a lot of decisions in their real life.
and are generally in positions of power or, you know, at least have to be dominant and in charge a lot of the time, which, you know, maybe is also true for all, you know, normative men to some degree, this like... expectation of always being in charge and not showing your weakness or whatever. Yeah, and maybe it's surprising to hear that, but it has definitely made me have a
you know, burdened all of these men are by the demands of toxic masculinity, you know, because I'm deeply and highly aware of how toxic masculinity hurts and burdens and alters women and non-binary people. But, you know, in a dungeon session, I'm getting a front row seat to how toxic masculinity has affected
harmed them even you know even if they're like spelling it out or just in the nature of the scene where it just feels exactly and it just feels so good for them to just like let go in a way that they don't feel like they're able to in their actual lives or with their actual partners you grew up in Belvedere in Marin County that's known as a pretty wealthy area right yeah totally how would you describe your childhood
describe it as Grey Gardens directed by John Waters. What does that mean? It was very dysfunctional and loving, but a lot of chaos and a lot of feeling different from the the families around us and also like the other kids.
Like, yeah, I guess maybe I would define it by a feeling of difference or otherness, which actually to bring it back to one of your earlier questions, like maybe that's one of the things that has made it like easier
easy for me to be receptive to people's strange fantasies or things that are different or things that are weird because yeah there's just always been this attraction to other worlds and underworlds and edges like ever since I was little like I remember like getting in trouble with my Not in trouble, but I remember the family, like, being like, oh, my God.
Like, do you remember Netflix queues when, like, there was, like, the family would have, like, a queue and you would, like, queue it up for the DVDs to get mailed. And everyone would be like, oh, my God. Like, Britney, like, commandeered the queue and it's, like, full of, like, movies about crossdressers from other countries. And she put, like, the Rocky Horror Picture Show in there again.
And, yeah, there was just always this obsession with, like, things that were queer and things that were other things.
I think I asked you earlier, how important is it for you not to show judgment? And I'm also thinking about, like, what does the kink say, if anything, about the person? Do you put any of that on that? Like, you know, I'm sure you come across certain kinks that are just like you talked about the foot fetish. Like that is one that I think, you know, all of us kind of know about.
But like, is there a specific like thing that a kink says about a person?
Yeah, I think it says a lot about, as I said at the very beginning, you know, I do believe that all characters, but also all people, are driven by this God-shaped hole inside of them. And I think that that can feed into, yeah, like what type of fetish or fantasy is. Someone has more generally the level to which the person wants to surrender and like how much they want to let go.
You know, that I think says a lot about a person and the intensity with which they pursue this desire.
How much responsibility do you hold in making certain that the person feels safe enough to let go? Because, you know, that's part of it.
Yeah, I feel so much responsibility. And, you know, of course, I feel a responsibility, you know, to keep them safe. But yeah, the emotional safety is a huge part of it and wanting them to feel, well, it's funny, right? Because you want them to feel safe, but you also want them to feel scared and demeaned and shivering. Right, because that's what they're coming to you for. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. Finding that balance.
You know, you're young. We kind of bask in the glow of Ruth's youth in this book. Even though she does encounter OGs, like the woman who runs this home, this house, you know, BDSM house. Is there a life cycle for this kind of work? You know, I think it's obvious like for stripping, for instance, but like in particular to be a dominatrix, is there an end date?
I don't think there's a particular age, but I do think that sex work in general is not something that you should plan to do forever. Which, again, you know, is true of many jobs. But I feel that it is so...
exhausting and there is like a certain amount of like emotional drainage that happens that and you know inevitably it's you know it's also like the same thing with like you shouldn't model forever well i guess you can't model forever but you know there there is like a a Or like athletes. Yeah.
But, you know, it does sort of change how you view yourself if you're not so careful with your boundaries. And the reality is that like most people start doing sex work when they're really, really young and don't have those boundaries in place. So actually, I would say it's better to start when you're a bit older, like at least 25, when your prefrontal cortex has developed.
I mean, not that I did that, but now that I'm 30 and looking back, I'm like, actually, I think it's better to start when you're a bit older and to have a plan for your future self. I mean, there are, of course, dominatrixes of all ages, but I just think how...
Taxing it can be on your, like, psychic state is something that, yeah, you should take care of yourself in that way, you know, like, because you're really absorbing so many people's energies and so much vulnerability. And, yeah, you know, we are therapists, but we're maybe not trained therapists. So I think sometimes those boundaries can be slipperier than we realize until later.
It's too late. Do you know other careers that other doms have gone to once they leave this kind of work?
Well, literally like therapists. Like I know so many doms and sex workers of all stripes who then become so interested in therapy because they realize that that's what they've been doing.
Brittany Newell, thank you so much for this book.
Thank you.
It was such a fun read and this was such a delightful conversation. Thank you.
Thank you. I had so much fun and thank you so much for reading. Thank you.
Brittany Newell's new book is titled Softcore. After a short break, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new prime video comedy series Clean Slate, and book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two quintessential New York books. This is Fresh Air. A new TV comedy series called Clean Slate premieres today on Prime Video.
It's about a widower in Alabama whose long-estranged son returns home, but as his daughter. Veteran comedian George Wallace plays the dad, and actress Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black plays the trans daughter. The show is one of the last TV series from pioneering sitcom producer Norman Lear, who died in 2023. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.
Clean Slate won't be the last we'll hear from Norman Lear. The man behind All in the Family and The Jeffersons and Maude and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, had several other TV projects in development at the time of his death. His death, by the way, came when he was 101 years old.
Among those projects still in development is a remake of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Lear's somewhat twisted parody of a soap opera. And in a way, Clean Slate, the new comedy series on Prime Video, is a remake too. Or at least, a variation on a familiar theme. but it's very well cast and has a lot more laughs and tenderness than I expected.
To picture the basic framework of Clean Slate, start with All in the Family, Lear's most famous creation, and imagine that Archie Bunker was still living in the same house in which his wife had died decades earlier. Then, imagine that Archie's longtime former household nemesis, the son-in-law he called Meathead, was not his son-in-law, but his son.
And finally, imagine that after a very long estranged absence, the son was returning home. As a daughter. This premise allows for a lot of intergenerational arguing under one roof, just as all in the family did. But with some significant changes. The father, Harry Slate, is black, played by the veteran comic George Wallace.
The trans woman who moves back in with him is played by Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black. And while Norman Lear began developing Clean Slate back when he was 96 years old, the credit for creating the series and writing the pilot goes to three people. Dan Ewan, who wrote Dear Santa, George Wallace, and Laverne Cox. The show isn't shot in front of an audience and there's no laugh track.
But there are laughs, mostly because Clean Slate is so well cast from top to bottom. Wallace as Harry Slate, just like Carol O'Connor as Archie Bunker, manages to be likable, even lovable, even when he's being gruff and loud and way too opinionated.
And Cox brings a lot of heart, as well as a lot of combative playfulness, to her role as well, which you can tell from their very first scene together. He's at home, watching TV, awaiting the first visit from his son Desmond, whom he hasn't seen or talked to in 23 years, when the doorbell rings.
Hello. Hey, Miss Manselini. I don't know what you're trying to sell me, but you can just go ahead and leave your little watchtower magazine, because this really ain't a good time right now. My son's coming in a minute now. Harry. Harry? How do you know my first name? What's the suitcase for?
Dad, I'm your daughter, Desiree. No, no, no, no. It's Desiree. I've always been Desiree. Wow. Clearly, we have a lot of catching up to do. May I come in? Yes, come on in.
In lesser hands, Clean Slate could be a one-joke show, or at best, a one-act play. After all, if Harry doesn't accept Desiree into his home, the show's over. And if Harry does share his household, where does the show go from there? Well, Clean Slate does have places to go, in part because the small Alabama town in which Harry runs his car wash is well-populated.
There's the formerly incarcerated man with a young daughter, both of whom work at the car wash. the local pastor who was a childhood friend of Desmond's, the next-door neighbor who's not exactly neighborly, and even a town busybody played by another veteran performer, Thelma Hopkins.
But the spine of Clean Slate, and what makes it work, is the relationship and the comic timing between Wallace's Harry and Cox's Desiree. Instead of a swear jar, they have a pronoun jar. And every time he slips, he has to pay a dollar. And just like Archie and Meathead, Harry and Desiree have clashing opinions about just about everything.
Including, from episode two, a vintage velvet painting on Harry's wall called The Last Supper of Soul.
So it's time to declutter. We can start by replacing that eyesore on the wall.
Eyesore? That's a tasteful, enduring masterwork created on the finest velvet and sold to me on one of the finest off-ramps in Birmingham.
It's hideous. Not to mention you can't have a last supper of soul without Beyonce. It's Jesus, of course.
Well, hell, Ray Charles is clearly Jesus, and you can't have no alive Jesus. Beyoncé is still roaming the Earth.
Beyoncé is roaming the Earth? She is not a T-Rex. She is an icon. She is a legend, and she is forever the moment.
And this is my prized possession, and it ain't going nowhere, son, daughter, damn it, jar.
The feel of the show is a little old-fashioned, like comfort food. But the very point of Clean Slate, which is to be open to other viewpoints and embrace diversity, couldn't be more timely or more potentially controversial. Even from beyond the grave, Norman Lear is stirring up some good trouble. And a pretty good TV sitcom.
David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed Clean Slate, which begins streaming today on Prime Video. Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two quintessential New York books. This is Fresh Air. The new Bob Dylan movie has put our book critic Maureen Corrigan in a New York state of mind. Here's her review of two quintessential New York books.
I've always loved coming to New York stories, and judging from the acclaim that's greeted the new Bob Dylan movie, America does too. Dylan, played by Timothee Chalamet, arrives in the Greenwich Village of 1961. In no time, this complete unknown is embraced by the burgeoning folk scene of Greenwich Village, thanks in part to the city's gift of proximity.
But I wonder about the longevity of the coming-to-New York genre. These stories of arrival and promise fulfilled are almost always nostalgic, predating the New York of obscenely high rents. And does a dreamer even need to come to New York, or any city for that matter, in the age of the internet? In a New York minute, Kay Sohini vanquished my doubts.
Her debut book, a graphic memoir called This Beautiful Ridiculous City, affirms the enduring power of New York and the power of literature to give people the courage to cross all manner of borders. Sohini is a South Asian graphic artist who grew up in the suburbs of Calcutta, living, as she says, in a sprawling ancestral house with four generations and far too many territorial people.
From a young age, she was a loner and a reader, a reader peculiarly drawn to New York stories. Everybody writes about New York with so much tenderness, even when they are sick of it, Sohini says. And so from afar, she began to read her way into New York. Years later, Sohini broke away from a long, abusive relationship with a man who she says made a room smaller just by walking into it.
Staking her escape on little more than her years of reading and a modest fellowship to grad school, the wounded Sohini flew to New York. Through understated language and jolting comic-style images, Sohini tells a vivid, multidimensional New York story of her own. There's her odyssey, a capsule history of modern India, and always references to books, books, books.
This beautiful, ridiculous city engages with a good slice of the essential New York City literary canon— From Anne Petrie to Fran Lebowitz, E.B. White to Dylan Thomas, Colson Whitehead, Nora Ephron, and fellow graphic memoirist Alison Bechdel. Like all these chroniclers of the city, Sohini sometimes questions her illogical attachment to such a difficult place.
wondering if I am forever doomed to love things and people whose reciprocation is fraught with contradictions. But New York, in image and reality, saved her, and her love for the city remains hardy. One New York City writer Sohini doesn't mention is Gay Talese, who's hailed, along with Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, as a pioneer of new journalism.
Talese, now in his early 90s, has written a lot of great pieces about New York – many of which are gathered together in a new book called A Town Without Time. The very first piece Talese published in Esquire in 1960 leads off this collection. It's called New York is a City of Things Unnoticed.
Among the thousands of things Talese notices are the night workers, truck drivers, cops, hacks, cleaning ladies who line up for movies in Times Square at 8 a.m. Other essays here ruminate on the oft-overlooked Verrazano Narrows Bridge and mobster Joe Bonanno. Worth the price of this collection alone is Talese's masterpiece, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.
This 1966 profile of old blue eyes packs the sparkle, fizz, and complexity of genuine New York seltzer. Here's Talese reading from the opening of that profile as originally heard on This American Life.
Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel, only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence, and it affects not only his own psyche, but also seems to cause a kind of psychosomatic nasal drip within dozens of people who work for him, drink with him, depend on him for their own welfare and stability.
Just as Sohini assures us that New York still draws in dreamers, Talese reminds us that New York is already riddled with ghosts, many of them tough-talking and hard-drinking. Eight million stories and counting about the city, but still room for more.
Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed This Beautiful Ridiculous City by Kay Sahini and A Town Without Time, Gay Talisa's New York. If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with singer and actor Ariana Grande about her role in the new film Wicked, or with New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins on the U.S.
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