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Title details for At the Strangers' Gate by Adam Gopnik - Available

At the Strangers' Gate

Arrivals in New York

by Adam Gopnik
Adam Gopnik
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
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, left the comforts of home in Montreal for New York, the city then, much like today, was a pilgrimage site for the young, the arty, and the ambitious. But it was also becoming a city of greed, where both life's consolations and its necessities were increasingly going to the highest bidder. At the Strangers' Gate builds a portrait of this particular moment in New York through the story of this couple's journey—from their excited arrival as aspiring artists to their eventual growth into a New York family. Gopnik transports us to his tiny basement room on the Upper East Side, and later to SoHo, where he captures a unicorn: an affordable New York loft. He takes us through his professional meanderings, from graduate student-cum-library-clerk to the corridors of Condé Nast and the galleries of MoMA. Between tender and humorous reminiscences, including affectionate portraits of Richard Avedon, Robert Hughes, and Jeff Koons, among many others, Gopnik discusses the ethics of ambition, the economy of creative capital, and the peculiar anthropology of art and aspiration in New York, then and now.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 5, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525499770
      • File size: 280369 KB
      • Duration: 09:44:06

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Richly composed and expressively narrated, journalist (THE NEW YORKER) Adam Gopnik's audiobook is a memoir of sorts. He primarily recounts his and his wife Martha's relocation from Montreal to New York City in the 1980s. Gopnik is a highly skilled narrator with an expressive, sensitive style. His precise intonation strengthens a story that some might hear as one of luck and family privilege, replete with instances of "showing off." Too much of the book involves documenting the sizes, varieties, colors, and challenges of the tiny living spaces they shared with New York rats, roaches, and mice. The evolution of artsy SoHo into a neighborhood in which money interests predominate is portrayed within the context of Gopnik's dual loves-- Martha and The City That Never Sleeps itself. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 14, 2017
      Gopnik (Paris to the Moon) moves masterfully between humorous, poignant minutiae of private experience and a macro view of New York City throughout the 1980s. Starting with his wide-eyed move to the city at the start of the decade, Gopnik makes readers feel like Manhattan insiders as he shares stories of how he and his wife moved through low-rent apartments and a parade of quirky jobs, friends, and experiences, culminating in his plum gig writing for the New Yorker. Gopnik is especially adept at writing about episodes both dynamic (a writer’s joy at seeing his words in print, or frantically helping a neighbor stop a damaging leak) and disappointing (the drudgery of being an art reference librarian) as he integrates into some of the Big Apple’s most famous cultural institutions. The Museum of Modern Art, the booming SoHo art scene, and book publishing all serve as sources of his wonder. No matter what the topic, however, whether it is married love, the meaning of physical space (he describes the city’s “basement flats that look out on an airshaft”), or the growing greed surrounding him, Gopnik’s greatest gift
      is his playful insight (“Tenderness toward one’s lost self is sentimental; tenderness toward one’s lost longings is just life”).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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