Powells.com Interview

Ghost Map is currently the #1 book on Powells.com, in large part because they're running a very long interview with me that manages to cover pretty much my entire career and most of my obsessions. Some of it will be repetitive if you've been following the blog, but it's a great overview of where my head has been at (if that doesn't scare you off)including some material about the novel and cultural change that I haven't written much about:

Flaubert and Dickens take two very different approaches. Dickens invokes a magical side: "And then it turned out that this person was that person's long-lost cousin, who was the heir to..." You can see how the strain of trying to connect all these lives breaks down in the realism.

Flaubert's approach... You get a feeling when you read A Sentimental Education that it's kind of random. The plot is built out of chance encounters on the street that lead you in a not particularly clear direction. In Dickens those chance encounters reveal a secret heritage or a long-lost connection; Sentimental Education is more like a billiard table where you throw the balls out and they go off in different directions. They're both powerful ways of seeing the city in narrative form, just different strategies.

Comments

[Gerald Althoff]

I just read your book "The Ghost Map" and enjoyed it but what evolution has to do with this doesn't mean a thing to me. It's a therory and has not been proven nor can it be. Inteligent design makes more sense to me but it doesn't go far enough. The Word of God, the Bible, tells us how the world began in six days. Here is a very good web site: www.answersingenesis.org. They will have a museum that will open up this coming spring in order to dispute the theory of evolution as a proven fact. Intellegent design doesn't cut it. A dedicated evolutionist is a complete atheist. Evolution is a religion that teaches everything developed by itself the other is a belief in a God who created the universe. Our universities news media etc are jamming their religion down our throats.

[chris Larry]

Could this post be the work of a "Sock Mob"

[marya warshaw]

I've been reading the blog on rushkoff park slope mugging, yours and other responses. wanted to share that there's an opportunity to discuss some of these things IN PERSON:As part of its BAX Platform series, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange presents
I AM PARK SLOPE
Will diversity be part of our future?
Sunday, January 21 at 6 PM | Suggested Donation: $5
Reservations: (718) 832-0018 or www.bax.org

THE BAX Platform is a hybrid conversation series combining the best of your front stoop and kitchen table with the unique perspective of the newsmakers – making sure all things are considered. This installment, I AM PARK SLOPE: Will diversity be part of our future? explores this “fast-changing, perpetually gentrifying (NY Times)” neighborhood. Over the last two decades, the tsunami of money has fed the neighborhood’s big bang of real estate offices, luxury condos, high-end sushi bars and children’s designer clothing shops – which have replaced much of the ethnic and racial diversity that once defined Park Slope.

I AM PARK SLOPE panelists include: Chris Owens - Founder and Chairman of the Paul Robeson Independent Democrats (PRIDE), and an ardent advocate against the Atlantic Yards development; CB 6 Chair Craig Hammerman; Brooklyn Pride’s Doreen De Jesus; longtime Park Slope residents and mother and son Marianna Gaston & Javier Gaston Greenberg (Marianna helped found Brooklyn New School); Pauline Toole & Gene Russianoff - Park Slope parents and (Gene) staff attorney for New York Public Interest Research Group; Susan Fox of Park Slope Parents; Nancy McDermott, a founding member of NY Salon; and Emily Millay Haddad (recently featured in a New York Times story on Park Slope) in conversation with BAX Executive Director Marya Warshaw.

Park Slope, a “once-edgy” (NY Times) neighborhood, has been known as “hippie slope” and “dyke slope.” By the 80s, Wall Street companies were giving prospective employees bus tours of the neighborhood. I AM PARK SLOPE looks to explore, through a moderated conversation, the similarities and differences that exist between people who dug their heels in decades ago and its recent settlers. Who’s in Park Slope now and what values do we/can we/should we hold as neighbors? In a neighborhood with economic and racial parity, whose ideals get protected and upheld?

One of the communities that has been affected by Park Slope’s skyrocketing real estate is the lesbian community. A report by the Brooklyn Historical Society shows that many lesbians, mostly Latinas and younger women, were being priced out of Park Slope in the early 90s and settling in neighborhoods like Sunset Park. Park Slope is often referred to as “New York’s premier lesbian neighborhood” but its reputation has outlived its moniker, especially for younger lesbians. This repeats itself when examining communities of color and working class families.

“BAX is an important community resource to Park Slope,” says Executive Director Marya Warshaw, “a thriving community arts center that is an artistic home to students, artists & audiences. An essential component of our mission is to promote dialogue among diverse constituencies.” The BAX Platform series is a great example of how BAX does that.

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange is a multi-faceted performing arts center offering an annual presenting season, artist services, and educational programs for youth and adults. For more info, call (718) 832-0018 or visit www.bax.org. BAX is located at 421 5th Ave. at 8th St. in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Take the F train to Fourth Avenue or the R train to 9th Street.

-END-

[Anthony]

I finished reading Ghost Map last evening and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Congratulations of the success of the book!

-Anthony

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[genesis song lyric]

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