The idea of living in New York, one of the greatest cities in the world and the quintessential modern village, has been expounded endlessly in the literary works of Don Delillo, Truman Capote and Paul Auster, and in films by Woody Allen. What grabbed my attention in this little piece of gem, which title instantly announces itself, is Lily Brett’s poignant and humorous depiction of the everyday banalities and trivialities that many New Yorkers face. The book was clearly written and published before 9/11, which helps the everyday reader in appreciating the qualitative aspects of the city without deference to the tragic events of that day, and which pre-occupied its citizens with the threat of terrorism and the intrusive, hypermetropic tendencies for surveillance.

Brett affirms her pre-terroristic sentiment about the city in the opening lines: ‘No one is frightened of New York anymore. The city, which used to intimidate its inhabitants, is, today, inhabited by teenagers, mothers, aunties, uncles, shoppers and strollers. No one looks scared.’ Reading her passages now, more than a decade after 9/11, I wondered at first if her observation still rings true today. The premise made me want to read on, with the view to gaining a clearer insight into New York-living habits to satisfy my own desire of one day living in the city.

An accomplished essayist and writer of fiction and poetry on human affairs and emotions, as exemplified in her award-winning novel, 'Too Many Men', and her funny tome to love, food, ageing, motherhood and sex in 'In Full View', Brett captures in these essays brief moments of illumination and small epiphanies on what it feels like to be an ‘outsider-looking-in’-inhabitant of her adopted city home.

The vignette-style pieces on various subjects (germs, smells, street signs, presents, cars and non-fat yoghurts) are smartly woven into sharp narratives about how New Yorkers discard personal possessions, of the disparity of city-living and escapism to the countryside and the Hamptons, on how vivid memories of her time in East Village linger on as she traverses the wider avenues of Manhattan. The narratives are simple to read, with uncomplicated sentence structures. The chapters are short and therefore easily accessible, and yet they provide the full experience of having gone where she has gone, of being accosted by slow-walkers who remind you that walking fast in New York will cause lines on the face, on how ‘mugger’ stations and areas have now been replaced by Prada stores and glittering shopfronts. Brett’s yearning to maintain the sense of place and character in the New York she first knew of, upon transplanting herself from Australia over a decade ago, literally jumps out of the pages, as she writes about the sense of displacement and of wonderment as to why the city makes one remember fear more easily than any moment of happiness spent in it.

Brett’s writing delightfully compresses into witty anecdotes the things we all normally take for granted: the smell of freshly-baked bread wafting from a newly-opened bakery, the honking of car horns that makes up the city’s soundtrack, the essence of being single in a world that frowns on being too single for too long, the heralding of winter by the thankful thought of not seeing people in shorts. As she gazes at these small details with a myopic eye, the minute meanings of trivial, almost negligible, thoughts and things become more significant in the wide world we all live in.

The only aspect of this piece that I find lacking is the meagre portrayal of the desolate and the dispossessed, which surely still inhabit the golden miles of New York to this day. Apart from a brief reference to panhandlers who seem to have developed a degree of diplomacy in appreciating her good looks, Brett does not offer any other insights into the darker elements of the city that would have rendered the narrative even more sympathetic and less self-absorbed. Beyond this critical observation, the book is a highly accomplished piece about the place and the people that revel in it.

Brett brilliantly writes in 'New York' not just about the place, the city or the state that emboldens itself with the roll of the words in one’s tongue. It is also about the sense of belonging that one yearns for, and often fails to find, in a foreign place that is now home, the kind that Nikki Gemmell once wrote about in an essay on her desire to come back to Sydney as an expat living in London. Through snatches of brief conversations and interactions with strangers, Brett manages to bring a certain sense of humanity and sensitivity to the way one would regard a well-worn but still-grandiose city, the kind that goes beyond its glitter and below its oft-exposed navel. It provides a raw introspection of how the city views itself in the bigger world while prompting us to look more closely, more honestly, at our own selves.

(This review appeared on http://www.ramonloyola.org) ( )