Pages:
224
Original
date of publication: 1940s-1990s
My
edition: 2010 (NYRB Classics)
Why
I decided to read:
How
I acquired my copy: The Strand, NYC, July 2011
The
New York Stories is a collection of stories that Elizabeth Hardwick published
between 1946 and 1993—years that spanned nearly her entire career as a writer.
Hardwick grew up in Kentucky and lived for many years in New York City, working
as an essayist for the New York Review of Books. She was married briefly to the
poet Robert Lowell, who after their divorce married Caroline Blackwood, leading
Hardwick to quip, “he never married a bad writer.” She was also friends for
many years with the writer Mary McCarthy and lampooned her 1963 novel The Group.
There
is a theme to these stories; all of them deal to some extent with the idea of
escape, whether a character escapes from New York back to her Kentucky
childhood home or escapes a sour relationship. Although Hardwick claimed that
she couldn’t write much about what she knew, this is a theme from her life that
appears over and over again in these stories. Hardwick herself did a fair
amount of escaping—escape from small-town life in Kentucky to go to New York.
The
stories are arranged in order of publication date, and they show Hardwick’s
evolution as a writer. That’s why a story about (somewhat pretentious) young
intellectual women coincide with a story about an antique shop worker who
disappoints his desperate girlfriend. I like the eclectic combination; there is
always something new in every story. The essence of New York is very strong in
these stories; and, because these stories were written over a period of nearly
50 years, it’s interesting to watch the city develop.
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