Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times In Todays New York by John Freeman

Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times In Todays New York Reviews

• 
  Kevin Lawrence

  Wow, John Freeman is an incredibly loathsome creep -- he and his family withheld an inheritance from his mentally ill brother and he never opened up his door to his brother when he wound up homeless in NYC. But rest assured, he has the good grace to "...often like his photographs on Facebook." Such brotherly love just warms the heart, doesn't it?
  
  You can read about his hand-wringing over his homeless brother while he looked down at the homeless from the comfort of his posh duplex in Manhattan
  here. :
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• 
  Sub_zero

  30 visiones tan lúcidas como esclarecedoras que desenmascaran el rostro más desfavorable de una ciudad delimitada por sus contradicciones y contrastes. Nueva York sigue siendo, a pesar de los oscuros testimonios que revelan lo contrario, ese destino idílico, casi utópico, en el que cientos de miles de personas depositan sus proyectos, metas y ambiciones personales. Es cierto que la parte paradisíaca, el lujo, la estimulante escena cultural y artística que nos venden en los folletos turísticos existe y no puede ser obviada, pero esta antología repleta de celebrities literarias (sorprendente, variada y rica en reflexiones que hacen hincapié en sus muchos desbarajustes económicos y sociales), arroja una luz muy oportuna sobre esos rincones malolientes e incómodos que también forman parte de la identidad neoyorquina. Para que luego, al menos, nadie se sienta estafado por sus resplandecientes brillos.
• 
  Thomas

  this book has some of the best short story writing i've ever read and also made me realize i probably can never live in nyc because it would tear me to shreds
• 
  York

  Damn. Este libro ha sido un hallazgo brutal y hermoso. Una colección de textos indispensables que tiran a patadas todos los mitos sobre Nueva York. Todo el discurso hipster buena onda sobre la gentrificación. Todo el glamour sobre una ciudad que está podrida en muchas aristas.
  
  Es imposible enumerar mis pasajes favoritos. En realidad el 80% de las intervenciones me parecieron extraordinarias. Pero me quedo en el corazón con las aportaciones de Zadie Smith, la de Jonathan Safran Foer, y todas las voces femeninas que le dan un volumen necesario a las injusticias de esta ciudad.
  
  Sí se topan este libro no deben dudar en comprarlo. Vale cada centavo.
• 
  Raluca

  Several years ago, I bought an apartment in Manhattan with an inheritance passed to me from my grandmother, who was the daughter of a former attorney for Standard Oil. She outlived three husbands and managed her money well, and in one fell swoop from beyond the grave hoisted me out of one social class and into another. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, my younger brother was living in a homeless shelter.

  
  That's how Freeman starts his introduction to Tales of Two Cities. I am delighted to report that the collection of fiction and non-fiction pieces about New York more than lives up to its provocative, punch-in-the-stomach first phrase. There's a great blend of voices, characters and situations in there, and while not every single essay or novella is a masterpiece, you're guaranteed to find more than a few that resonate with you. They all work better together, but my personal favorites are below:
  - "Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets", Zadie Smith - a painful scene of a transgender woman on the defence from prejudices real and imagined
  - "Partially Vacated", DW Gibson - a lively, infuriating account of what landlords do to kick tenants out
  - "Four More Years", Jonathan Dee - almost a fable on the self-righteousness felt by the rich:
  

  Not only couldn't he instigate it, he couldn't even defend himself, couldn't pop this lowlife in the jaw no matter how legitimately threatened he might feel [...] Because he knew how that could all be made to look. Poor people lived for the opportunity to sue you. It was just one more way they tied your hands.

  
  - "Aliens of Extraordinary Ability", Taiye Selasi - intertwining stories of need and resignation, told with great empathy and suspense
  - "Quid Pro Quo, Just As Easy As That", Jeanne Thornton - almost a meta-essay on prejudice and discrimination, challenging the tendency towards simplifying discourse:
  

  Here is a question for the class. Why am I writing this story and not my friend? Because I was luckier about my illegal money-saving apartment? [...] Is it important that I am white and my friend is black? Is it important to note that he is often kind of a jerk to interact with personally? Is it important to note that I'm a gay trans woman and he's a straight cis male? What facts are salient here and why?

  
  - "The Sixth Borough", Jonathan Safran Foer - JSF at his best, 'nuff said
  - "First Avenue and Second Street", Hannah Tinti - a meditation on the odd, incomplete closeness between neighbors
  - "Home", Tim Freeman - the younger brother announced in the introduction describes being homeless, without self-pity or artifice
  - "Traveling from Brooklyn", Lydia Davis - the contrast between high-minded dreams and petty reactions to everyday incidents.
  Whew, what a list! Yours will be different.
  
  [PopSugar Reading Challenge 2017 - "A book about an immigrant or refugee" - among others]
• 
  Allan

  Being a sucker for books set in NYC, when I saw this anthology reviewed in The Guardian, there wasn't too much of a 'hard sell' required for me to buy it, and it turned out to be a collection that I, for the most part, thoroughly enjoyed.
  
  
  The collection includes both fiction and non fiction from writers I have previously read and enjoyed, like Colum McCann, Bill Cheng, Edmund White and Dinaw Megestu, other 'names' including Teju Cole, Jonathan Dee, Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave Eggers and Zadie Smith, and others I hadn't previously heard of, including one piece by a 15 year old girl from a NYC writing program. The fact that a portion of the proceeds of the book go to 
  http://www.housingworks.org/ , from where I have bought second hand titles previously,  makes it all the more worthwhile.
  
  
  Personal tales of getting ripped off, or of terrible landlords were particularly interesting and entertaining. Like in any collection, some pieces weren't as appealing to me, but all in all, the book was one that is up there with other NYC collections I have read in the past.
• 
  Holly Woodward

  Great to see a book that addresses the homeless and the widening gap between the ultra-rich and the poor.
• 
  Jennifer Ridgway

  This review originally appeared on
  Everyday eBook
  
  The Many Faces of NYC: Tales of Two Cities by John Freeman
  
  New York City: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. The glam, the glitz, the money, the power. This is certainly not how the majority of New Yorkers live. There are multitudes barely scraping by -- living in homeless shelters or on the street, in apartments with sleazy landlords doing their best to get them out to make room for renters who will pay more money. As Mayor deBlasio has said, there are two New York Cities, although I would argue that two is simplifying too much.
  John Freeman might agree with me, as he has brought together thirty essays and short stories by some of today's leading literati in his anthology Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times in Today's New York.
  
  NYC's income inequality has been getting worse over the years. In Manhattan, the top five percent earn eighty-eight times (yes: eighty-eight times) more than the bottom twenty percent; with a poverty rate of twenty-one percent, it has the widest income gap in the country. However, we do not often hear about or from these citizens as they struggle to put food on the table and a roof over their children's heads. In fact, Freeman's brother lived in a homeless shelter while he was living in NYC; Freeman talks about this in his introduction to the collection, and his brother contributes an essay about it.
  
  In addition to helping to expose some of these stories, there are also stories of everyday New Yorkers and everyday lives. For all the references that most of America sees of New York (galas at the Met, movie premieres, hipsters, artsy Bohemians), the majority of us are living regular lives. Meeting up with friends for drinks and dinner, commuting to jobs, raising families. There is no denying that the set-up of the city leads to differences in how we live. We literally live on top of and below our neighbors and get to work on crowded subways; we thus become acquainted with our neighbors in a way that many others don't. As
  Hannah Tinti describes in her essay, we can both know a lot and know nothing about the people we see daily. We also walk more, which can be both aggravating and eye-opening. Garnette Cadogan, who moved to the city as a casualty of Hurricane Katrina, describes how he learned about the city and its people through his walks.
  
  Everyone has a story to tell. Freeman's collection sheds light on what could be argued is the real New York City.
• 
  tartaruga fechada

  "The care that often may mean the difference between a child who can speak and one who cannot is meted out not according to need, or even zip code, but according to which parents have the resources -- money, and perhaps just as important, time ..."
  
  "The best it's possible to do, ethically, is to give to the limits of what we can without causing ourselves so much pain that we disintegrate. Those limits are always inadequate, but they're the only thing that matters, and fuck anyone forever who attempts to withhold even that bare minimum of human connection."
  
  "Suddenly one of the passengers behind me spoke up. 'I'm sorry if this is offensive, but I don't understand that at all,' he said. 'I'd sooner wash dishes than not have a job.' And I sat there and I didn't say anything. But in my heart of hearts I wanted to. I wanted to tell him that not everyone has that choice, or is given choices. I wanted to tell him that not everyone was like him -- white, male, born into means and privilege -- and that there are those out there for whom the whole fucking world isn't pre-configured. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to wring his goddamn neck."
  
  "Silence, a certain form of silence, is like a slow fire. If it is not stopped, it expands and scorches everything around it ...
  But she migrated to the United States in 2005. That was around when the decapitations began -- in Mexico, this time. The Mexican government opened fire against the drug lords, the drug lords answered back with thousands of bodies, and heads, and noise -- so much noise. In the USA, a few years later, the massive deportations began. There have been more than two million deportations since 2008 -- and most have gone by in silence."
  
  "The line is 'the quietude of resolve layered over fear.' Selzer is describing the instance before a surgeon cuts into the body of the person lying beneath his scalpel. But he could be describing the way that illegals cross the border, and the way they wake up every morning to face another day of work: the quietude of resolve layered over fear."
  
  "Malcolm X shared with Zapata the idea that land was the basis of independence. In his 1963 speech, "Message to Grassroots," Malcolm X demanded land for a nation, an independent nation. Zapata, in 1911, had proclaimed the "Plan de Ayala," which demanded that land be seized from landowners and redistributed among Mexican peasants. It has always been about land; it always will be."
  
  
  
  
• 
  Wahyu Novian

  “New York is a tale of two cities—there is the Rich New York and the Poor New York—but it is the tale of the Rich New York that we most often see and hear about.” (page 215)
  
  That quote from Tim Freeman’s story titled Home sums up this whole book. Indeed New York as the greatest city in the world is the common known image. Even TV shows or movies often show that New York also often broke people’s dream, but somehow it was portrayed in such a glorious way (and it’ll be alright in the end.) Reading this book introduced New York on a new light, from the eyes of the common people who actually live/lived there.
  
  The most prominent issue on this book is gentrification. Without even knowing the literal meaning of the word, I understand the negative meaning of it. Reading more about it, it is a problem. And it is somehow happening in my city too without a lot of people realizing it, including me.
  
  Such a nice anthology about New York
• 
  Chik67

  Il voto è complessivo, all'intera trilogia, di cui questo è forse il volume più debole, essendo costretto a riannodare tantissimi fili e anche, a volte, a dover spiegare per forza.
  Un 'operazione complessivamente molto convincente nella creazione di mondi, un messaggio di fondo estremamente complesso in un libro che dovrebbe essere per bambini ma può certo essere per adulti, personaggi vividi e una bella facilità di lettura, una bella capacità di trascinarti dentro l'avventura.
  Mi sono divertito spesso e annoiato quasi mai. Il che non è poco, considerato che ho una xxxxina di anni in più rispetto al lettore tipo di questo libro.
  Quest'ultimo volume l'ho letto per anticipare la mia piccolina, che forte dei suoi dieci anni ha già letto i primi due volumi e ora sta affrontando questo. Volevo vedere se "era adatto". Non lo è. Non lo è nel senso che fa troppe domande, è troppo poco rassicurante nelle risposte, richiede molta maturità, a tratti spaventa, non nasconde le bassezze del mondo. La madre della protagonista è cattiva e a malapena riscattata nel finale, il padre è eroico ma lontano e assente. La morte dietro l'angolo è vera, non immaginaria, non ci sono consolatori rincongiungimenti in un altrove, ma addii dolorosi. Anche l'amore può essere stritolato dalla crudeltà del mondo. Dio è un vecchio stanco e un po' rincoglionito. Gli angeli son fragili ombre. I bambini sanno essere cattivi.
  Non è adatto e lo leggerà. Penso che in alcuni passaggi soffrirà un po', penso che si porrà delle domande difficili. Non penso di doverle risparmiare questa sofferenza e questi interrogativi. Confido nel suo lato di bambina attenta, curiosa, riflessiva e determinata. Dovrà trovare le sue risposte. Mi limiterò a starle vicino chiedendo ogni tanto come va. Cresciamo facendo cose non adatte. Io posso solo tenderle la mano, fino a quando si sentirà ancora rassicurata dal fatto di poterla stringere.
  
• 
  Chris Roberts

  The anti-hero in this New York City telling is a bum.
  
  Indeed, much to the chagrin of liberals, those that choose to live in the gutters and alleyways of our great cities are not "homeless." A homeless person is somebody displaced by fire, flood or some other natural disaster.
  
  A bum is somebody that has consciously opted out of society for whatever reason. So we have for ourselves a wide array of adjectives to use when describing a bum: vagrant, hobo, beggar, derelict, guttersnipe, vagabond and so on. Now that we are on the same page, a true story:
  
  A guttersnipe on the corner of 4th Street in the East Village in NYC was selling soiled magazines. He saw me and held up a copy of the New Yorker and said, "Hey Mac, just a dollar!" Now, these derelicts are like circus animals and love to perform. I replied to grungy by waving a ten-dollar bill and told him it was his if he tap danced on the "New Yorker". This he did, a cop came by and locked him up for disorderly conduct. I was entertained, saved ten bucks and laughed all the way home.
  
  This is New York, Manhattan for short.
  
  Chris Roberts
  
• 
  Nim

  I was drawn to this because of Zadie Smith and Junot Diaz (obviously exactly what the marketing team intended), but was sorely disappointed by both. I expected a collection of short stories and essays set in New York that address some of the issues the city faces, and while there was some of that, this was mainly a hodgepodge of various writers' experiences in the city, many of which seemed a little irrelevant to what I think this collection was supposed to do. There are two or three stories that I really liked, but I skipped many because they were boring. The essays on gentrification and income inequality were important and eye-opening, though, and they shed some realistic light on my dreams of one day having an apartment in the city.
• 
  Silvia

  It is always heartwarming to see how a city brings people together - even a city as big and as diverse as NYC. The tales here are not only about the two cities, but about so many cities, so many experiences, so many things touching us, annoying us, leaving us baffled and so on. For an European, there are stories here that seem exotic - especially since one has only been in NY as a tourist. But the thing is, there is a bit of something that one can relate to, some bits and pieces of feelings and experiences you might have had.
  
  I think this is a must-read for tourist, a way to better understand the greatest city in the world and a way to see that even in the Big Apple sometimes the lights go out.
• 
  Philipp

  Koan: When the underrepresented get represented in every essay and story in a book, do they get to keep the prefix under?
  I hate to criticize a book by what is left out, but when the title says "Two Cities" - shouldn't the bugaboo of wealthy, gentrified New York be given a voice, too?
  That said, it includes interesting and informative pieces, among some that are easily skim-able.
• 
  Rose

  These are several short stories from various authors centered around class, race, and gentrification issues in NYC. If you've lived in NYC for at least a year it's definitely worth a read. You won't gain much reading these without some context of living here. I've been a resident for 2+ years now, so almost all the stories resonated.
• 
  David

  An eclectic and excellent collection of short stories, essays and pieces of reportage covering wealth disparity in New York City. As with all collections, some pieces are better than others but I can't say there was a single piece here that I felt was below average. Well worth picking up, especially for New Yorkers.
• 
  Eleanor Simpson

  A real mixed bag in terms of quality of stories and writing. A worthwhile read overall. It contains some gems and does a good job of exposing the paradox of the simultaneously very Rich and very Poor city of New York. Sadly, the disparities are even greater now than when this book was written.
• 
  Varun Gulati

  In this anthology, writers from all walks of life (but all with affiliations to New York), share stories about New York City's inequality. I especially enjoyed some of the fiction pieces and memoirs, but found a couple of the think pieces to bland and unoriginal.
• 
  Stuart Gordon

  One of the finest collection of short stories and non-fiction essays I believe I've ever read. You'll feel as though you've lived in New York by the time you finish.
• 
  Lindsay

  I really took my time and savored this collection. Some of the stories were excellent and I can't wait to go to Book Riot next month with a deeper understanding of this city!
• 
  VestaClare

  picked the wrong edition for the current reading shelf and can't get this incorrect edition off the list, an odd thing.
• 
  Amanda

  3.5 stars. This broke my reading drought of a month. Some pieces were great and some weren't, but mostly enjoyed this.
• 
  Deyan Ginev

  Slices of slices of life. Diverse and exploring, takes both the beaten and unbeaten paths to the NYC wilderness.
• 
  Astrid Lim

  3.5 stars from me!
  
  Lots of interesting stories here, both fiction and non fiction, but there are several stories that are boring, pretentious, or totally rambling XD
  
  I also pretty disappointed with a few of my fave writers (reason that I bought this book), whose writings are so short it's just a pity.
  
  But true, some -like Zadie Smith or Lydia Davis - gave superb stories here. So it's a hit and miss. But at least this book can capture the real problems in NYC - that I think are pretty similar with Jakarta XD
• 
  Ines Maria

  Distintos cuentos que te llevan a pasear por la ciudad. Quizás en mi caso no ayudo la traducción porque algunos cuentos se me hicieron largos y hasta sin sentido. Pero hay algunas joyitas que valen la pena. Eso sí, en todos hay un dejo de tristeza que te deja pensando si ese es el precio por vivir en la Gran Manzana.