Michael McGirr

essays

SHE'LL TAKE MANHATTAN

Michael McGirr

Lily Brett
New York
Picador, $21.00pb, 156pp, 0 330 36245 3

Everyone has been to New York. Even if, like me, you haven't actually set foot on the Big Apple, so to speak, it has become as much our virtual home as Dickens' London was to several generations of people who were born in Australia, stayed in Australia and never left Australia. When you think of such prime-time fare as Sex in the City and Spin City, you don't need to ask which city is being referred to. It's hard to imagine Australians watching a sit com or a soap set in Mexico City or Dakar or Lagos although, with populations over twenty million, there must surely be one or two good stories worth telling about those places and their people.
For all its much touted endless variety, the Big Apple has become a bit stewed. It gets harder and harder to take Manhattan. Lily Brett seems to acknowledge this problem. The first piece in this collection of fifty-two essays begins with the observation that 'no one is frightened of New York anymore' and goes on to reflect that the place has become a bit boring since 'drug dealers and other criminals have been replaced by tourists.' She is nostalgic for a city that will set her nerves on edge. She finds a trip to the countryside, two hours away, a bit difficult. But it's interesting that she says 'nobody is frightened of New York' and not 'nobody is frightened in New York.' In other words, there's a concession that whatever its residents have to contend with, maybe the place is not as enthralling to outsiders as it once was.
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