Six books set in, and about, New York

Vince Passaro is the author of the novel Crazy Sorrow.

His criticism and essays have appeared in many prominent publications, including Harper’s Magazine, of which he is a contributing editor, The Nation, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Elle, Salon, and others, along with short fiction in such national magazines and literary journals as Esquire, GQ, Open City, Agni, Story, Boulevard, and Quarterly West. His first book, Violence, Nudity, Adult Content: A Novel, was published in 2002. He lives a few miles north of New York City in an old Huguenot town with his wife, son, and a smattering of film cameras, fountain pens, and other fellow-traveling refuse from the mid-20th century.

At Lit Hub Passaro tagged six favorite books set in, and about, New York. One title on the list:

Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis

Not DeLillo’s most famous book, it nevertheless delivers perfectly on its conceit, a late 90s wunderkind banker, not yet 30, in his white stretch limo, a young man with no end of technology in his car and immense power over global currency markets, crossing Manhattan on 47th Street from east to west one day to get a haircut. It’s a wild and brilliant ride and takes all day. The book has an appearance by Bill Clinton, a Sufi rapper funeral, a labor strike accompanied by the big blow-up plastic rat swooning on the sidewalk and actual dead rats to heave at the rich—as well as a ghostly young wife and an assassin. What could go wrong?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue