Whose City is on Fire, Exactly?

I was listening to Studio 360 on NPR this morning, and heard Kurt Anderson’s interview with “City on Fire” author Garth Risk Hallberg, and felt moved to opine once again.

Let me preface this by needlessly admitting that I’ve never successfully written any fiction. It’s never been a discipline that I’ve felt able to master. I harbor zero desire to compose the great American novel.

More to the point, as I’ve mentioned a few times, I’ve kinda lost my taste for fiction. I’d rather sink my teeth into a good biography, an oral history or bit of true crime. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. I love good, emphatic, resonant writing, but my own preferences normally don’t lean towards fiction. But hey, … that’s just me.

In any case, while I don’t doubt his considerable abilities as a novelist (let alone, probably, a meticulous researcher), when I heard Hallberg admit in the early portion of his interview with Kurt Anderson that he only first set foot in New York City in 1996, I frowned.

While already (almost) two decades ago, the New York City of 1996 owed precious fucking little to the New York City of 1977 Hallberg so celebratedly writes about in “City On Fire" (as he’d probably agree). Once again, I’m sure his investigation into the earlier permutations of New York City life and culture was beyond extensive, but I simply cannot get beyond the fact he didn’t see any of it first hand.

Now, that might sound disingenuous coming from me …. after all, not too long back, despite being a life-long, native New Yorker, I copped to the fact that simply being a native isn’t anything special, when you consider that more than half of the individuals one might consider to be quintessential, definitive and defining New Yorkers came here from somewhere else. But, to my mind, you really should have seen something genuinely up close before you’re going to devote a 1,000 pages to it.

Now, granted …. Homer probably never went to Troy and Tolkien never set foot in Mordor. You obviously don’t need to have actually visited a specific place to write convincing fiction about it. That’s what makes imaginative writing so seductive and alluring. It holds the power to travel beyond the confines of the physical realm.

I’m probably just bristling as Hallberg’s book is being so feted as some sort of definitive document.

Incidentally, someone who was actually there might better suited to answer this, but I don’t believe the mohawks had showed up on the New York City punk scene in 1977. That was a little bit later. But, y’know, …. color me pedantic.

Listen for yourselves.