Home at the asylum
In the nineteenth century Roosevelt Island, then known as Blackwell’s Island, was crowded with more than a dozen prisons, a smallpox hospital, workhouses, and even a home for “wayward girls.” Municipal leaders in the growing metropolis across the river decided that Blackwell’s Island would be the perfect place to lock away the criminal, the indigent,...
Lewis and Ernest and Hadley
Lewis scooped a handful of mail from the pile on his desk and riffled through it, his eyes scanning the senders’ names on the envelopes. He recognized some as American bankers, undoubtedly asking him to impress on the French that their war loans must be repaid. And some as French officials, reminding him that the...
Teenage heaven
In 2003, the big haze lingered. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome had broken out in Guangdong the year before and coughed and hacked its way around the region. People had died from it. Everyone was afraid of getting infected. Some wore stupid-looking hospital masks but Szu and I would rather have been caught dead than join...
The life of art
My friend and I went walking the dog in the cemetery. It was a Melbourne autumn: mild breezes, soft air, gentle sun. The dog trotted in front of us between the graves. I had a pair of scissors in my pocket in case we came across a rose bush on a forgotten tomb. “I don’t...
Freedom suite
February 1st marks National Freedom Day in the United States. Initiated in the 1940s, the holiday commemorates Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, which banned slavery. Its intent is to “promote good feelings, harmony, and equal opportunity among all citizens and to remember that the United States is a nation dedicated to...
Hanya Yanagihara: Among friends
Only a day or two after I meet with Hanya Yanagihara to interview her about her Man Booker shortlisted novel A Little Life, the best new book I’ve read this year, I go to the cinema to see Crystal Moselle’s documentary The Wolfpack. The film tells the story of the six Angulo brothers who, despite...
Claudine
On a warm night in May I went out to do karaoke at a tiny bar downtown. Because it was a weeknight I left early, just past midnight. It was too early and too nice out to justify taking a cab. A limo sprouting bachelorettes from its roof passed me, trailing squeals that echoed in...
