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Overview
From The New York Times best-selling author of Paris to the Moon and beloved New Yorker writer, a memoir that captures the romance of New York City in the 1980s. When Adam Gopnik and his soon-to-be-wife, Martha, first arrived in 1980, New York City was a pilgrimage site for the young, the arty, and the ambitious. But it was also becoming a place where both life's consolations and its necessities were increasingly going to the highest bidder. At the Strangers' Gate is a vivid portrait of this time, told through the story of one couple's journey--from their excited arrival as aspiring artists to their eventual growth into a New York family. Through a series of comic mini-anthropologies that capture the fashion, publishing, and art worlds of the era, Adam Gopnik transports us from his tiny basement room on the Upper East Side to a SoHo loft, from his time as a graduate student-cum-library-clerk to the galleries of MoMA. Filled with tender and humorous reminiscences--including affectionate reflections on Richard Avedon, Robert Hughes, and Jeff Koons, among many others--At the Strangers' Gate is an ode to New York striving.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781400075744
- ISBN-10: 1400075742
- Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Publish Date: July 2018
- Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.6 pounds
- Page Count: 272
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Book clubs: New in paperback
Adam Gopnik, bestselling author of Paris to the Moon (2000) and a staff writer at The New Yorker, looks back on his years as an up-and-comer in the lively memoir At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York. In 1980, 23-year-old Gopnik lands in the Big Apple accompanied by Martha Parker, who will soon become his wife. The couple lives in a tiny apartment as Gopnik holds down various jobs and embarks on a publishing career, with stints at GQ and Knopf. Gopnik’s account of these ambition-fueled days provides a window into a bygone time, as he shares anecdotes involving the era’s great movers and shakers (Jeff Koons, Richard Avedon and art critic Robert Hughes, among others) and brings the art scene to vivid life. The narrative also becomes a tribute to home and family as the Gopniks settle into the rhythms of the city. Gopnik’s prose is, as ever, a pleasure to experience. This is a vibrant memoir from one of America’s most versatile and insightful writers.
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In Dunbar—another impressive entry in Hogarth Press’ series of updated takes on Shakespeare’s plays—acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has a go at King Lear. His update includes characters with contemporary names, but he retains the play’s chief themes and plotlines. In the grip of old age, Henry Dunbar passes control of his powerful media company to his greedy daughters, Abby and Megan. His beloved youngest daughter, Florence, lives in Wyoming, out of range of any domestic drama. Confined to a sanitarium in England, Dunbar hatches a plan to break out. He escapes into the surrounding countryside, but he’s soon pursued by his elder daughters, who fear he’ll derail an important meeting concerning the family’s fortunes. St. Aubyn, author of the Patrick Melrose novels, is a perceptive chronicler of family dynamics. His timely interpretation of Shakespeare is at once an addicting story of wealth and ambition and a sharply realized study of human nature. The Bard himself would applaud St. Aubyn’s achievement.
TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
Chosen as a top book of 2017 by the New York Times and Time, New People by Danzy Senna is a penetrating novel about race and relationships. Khalil and Maria—both biracial, well-educated and successful—are living the good life in Brooklyn. They’re the focus of a documentary about mixed-race couples, and they’re planning a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard. But as the big day approaches, Maria finds herself infatuated with someone new—an African-American poet whom she scarcely knows. Maria’s growing preoccupation leads to an incident with the poet’s white neighbor who mistakes Maria for a Spanish-speaking babysitter, an error that jeopardizes Maria’s future even as it forces her to come to grips with her past. This is Senna’s third novel, and she skillfully explores the nature of identity while probing the foibles of the human heart.
This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
Book clubs: New in paperback
Adam Gopnik, bestselling author of Paris to the Moon (2000) and a staff writer at The New Yorker, looks back on his years as an up-and-comer in the lively memoir At the Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York. In 1980, 23-year-old Gopnik lands in the Big Apple accompanied by Martha Parker, who will soon become his wife. The couple lives in a tiny apartment as Gopnik holds down various jobs and embarks on a publishing career, with stints at GQ and Knopf. Gopnik’s account of these ambition-fueled days provides a window into a bygone time, as he shares anecdotes involving the era’s great movers and shakers (Jeff Koons, Richard Avedon and art critic Robert Hughes, among others) and brings the art scene to vivid life. The narrative also becomes a tribute to home and family as the Gopniks settle into the rhythms of the city. Gopnik’s prose is, as ever, a pleasure to experience. This is a vibrant memoir from one of America’s most versatile and insightful writers.
FALL OF A MEDIA EMPIRE
In Dunbar—another impressive entry in Hogarth Press’ series of updated takes on Shakespeare’s plays—acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has a go at King Lear. His update includes characters with contemporary names, but he retains the play’s chief themes and plotlines. In the grip of old age, Henry Dunbar passes control of his powerful media company to his greedy daughters, Abby and Megan. His beloved youngest daughter, Florence, lives in Wyoming, out of range of any domestic drama. Confined to a sanitarium in England, Dunbar hatches a plan to break out. He escapes into the surrounding countryside, but he’s soon pursued by his elder daughters, who fear he’ll derail an important meeting concerning the family’s fortunes. St. Aubyn, author of the Patrick Melrose novels, is a perceptive chronicler of family dynamics. His timely interpretation of Shakespeare is at once an addicting story of wealth and ambition and a sharply realized study of human nature. The Bard himself would applaud St. Aubyn’s achievement.
TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
Chosen as a top book of 2017 by the New York Times and Time, New People by Danzy Senna is a penetrating novel about race and relationships. Khalil and Maria—both biracial, well-educated and successful—are living the good life in Brooklyn. They’re the focus of a documentary about mixed-race couples, and they’re planning a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard. But as the big day approaches, Maria finds herself infatuated with someone new—an African-American poet whom she scarcely knows. Maria’s growing preoccupation leads to an incident with the poet’s white neighbor who mistakes Maria for a Spanish-speaking babysitter, an error that jeopardizes Maria’s future even as it forces her to come to grips with her past. This is Senna’s third novel, and she skillfully explores the nature of identity while probing the foibles of the human heart.
This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.