Like Paris in the twenties or postwar Greenwich Village, Brooklyn today is experiencing an alchemical cultural boom. In recent years, writers, journalists, and cities of all stripes have flocked to its patchwork of neighbourhoods. But as literary critic and journalist Evan Hughes reveals, the rich literary life now flourishing in Brooklyn is part of a larger, fascinating history. Hughes not only traces the origins of Brooklyn's contemporary literary scene but illuminates a revealing slice of American urban history. Starting with Walt Whitman, Brooklyn's first laureate, through the greats of the twentieth century, such as Henry Miller, Marianne Moore, Thomas Wolfe, and Truman Capote, to today's prominent writers - Jonathan Lethem, Jhumpa Lahiri, Colson Whitehead, and more - Hughes peers into their lives, their work, and their Brooklyn, the home that shaped them. And chapter by chapter, Hughes uses Brooklyn's literary tradition to tell the story of city life in America.

Reviews

"Smart...[Hughes] has perceptive things to say about Brooklyn's tangled relationship to American lit. He traces the way writers have absorbed Brooklyn's scruffy, somewhat persecuted mindset."..Literary Brooklyn" is at its best in the details and quotations Mr. Hughes plucks from Brooklyn writers' lives; his book becomes a pleasure-delivery system."--"The New York Times""In a way, the literary history of Brooklyn is like a literary history of America itself -- not because America is like Brooklyn, which it isn't, but because it is a story of a certain set of writers describing what they knew as America came into being, as the country invented a literature of its own...[Hughes] lays in the facts and brightens them with solid literary critique."--"Los Angeles Times""" "Lively...Urban history and literary history often brush up against each other to profound effect."--"The New York Times Book Review""" "The rich history of literary life in "America's first suburb" is very enjoyably explored...Hughes is good at forging connections between the many Brooklyn authors whose stories he tells...even as he gives the arcs of their careers fresh context by setting them against the dramatic ups and downs of the borough they all called home." --"The Christian Science Monitor"

"Engaging..."--"Newsday"

"Highbrow" and "Brilliant"--"New York Magazine"'s Approval Matrix

"One of the many fine points in "Literary Brooklyn; The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life "is that for decades writers wanted to escape Brooklyn for the glamour of Manhattan--it was one definition of success--and now they want to go the other direction, not just because of what's happening now but because of all the history."--"Portland Oregonian""An engrossing cultural memoir of what some consider our most intriguing borough today."--"New York Daily News""" "They say Brooklyn is the literary navel of the nation right now, but after reading Evan Hughes's book you'll ask, 'Wasn't it always?'