"Slaves of New York" @ 30

To read Tama Janowitz's acclaimed short story collection Slaves of New York is to gaze upon a world both familiar and distant.

Published thirty years ago this summer, the book was prescient about the exigencies of life in NYC: the spiraling rents, the ruthless ambition, the preening narcissism of the successful, the desperation of those who aren't -- and the way that people and their relationships are warped by this existential maelstrom. The book is set mainly in the world of artists, where creativity clashes with reality, where love clashes with money. According to the book, a "slave" is someone in NYC who lives with someone they don't really like (or even loathe) but are forced to by economic circumstances; the "slaves" are the focus of Janowitz's funny and moving book.

Today, when so New Yorkers can barely afford to live here, there are probably more "slaves" here than ever before. Ms. Janowitz was on to something way back when. 

And yet ... Slaves of New York is about a time and place gone by. In 1986, when the book was published, the "downtown art scene" still existed, even thrived. Sure, crime was a lot higher, the city was in rough shape, and people were fleeing. But the NYC art world seemed more like a community, a world unto itself that defied the city's decay, a defiant flower blooming in the tundra. Today, the downtown art scene doesn't really exist in NYC anymore. Sure, there are still big fancy galleries downtown but most of the struggling and innovative artists have been banished to the outer boroughs or out of the city altogether. The creativity, for the most part, has gone elsewhere. Go to downtown today and it's mostly fancy clothing stores and restaurants and glass buildings. The NYC art scene is much more diffuse today, less of a community and more of an abstract idea.

That's why, in many ways, Slaves of New York is more relevant today than ever. It saw where the NYC art scene and NYC itself was headed: into a world of concentrated wealth and mass economic disparities, into a world where art wasn't valued except for how much it could be sold for, where relationships were transactional and fungible, where NYC is a place so many live in but few believe really belongs to them. In many ways, this world existed then but in a somewhat more primitive form; today, it is institutionalized, absolute.

I wrote about Slaves of New York several years ago when I did a blog post about the NYC art scene in the movies. In 1989, the book was turned into a movie by the Merchant-Ivory team, better known for adaptation of classic British novels. The movie is, in a word, funky. It stars the always fabulous Bernadette Peters as Eleanor, an aspiring hat designer who lives with her awful boyfriend artist Stash in his downtown loft (she is his "slave"). The story concerns how Eleanor liberates herself from the her "slavedom" and re-starts her life as a single woman and an artist in her own right. (Some might call the story a feminist statement but, if so, it's not very a preachy one.) The movie, like the book, also concentrates on an artist named Marley Montello, a rather absurd character who intersects with Eleanor at various points.

What I love about the book and the movie is how the story is both so New York and so rooted in the 1980s art world yet also universal, timeless. It's about struggle, it's about love, it's about the complexity of all sorts of relationships, it's about wanting to become something and facing so many immovable obstacles to achieve it, it's about confronting your fears. And it's also a wonderful snapshot of NYC at a time when it was no longer a place where people really could afford to starve but where it was still possible, with very little money, to eke out an existence. Without knowing it, it was a swan song. Without knowing it, it was about the mythic downtown NYC art world -- just before the deaths of such icons as Andy Warhol and Basquiat, who ruled and defined it -- came to an end.

I remember discovering Slaves of New York and Tama Janowitz many years after the book was published and the movie came out. It was the summer after I had graduated from college, and I was working in a miserable job in a sterile corporate environment, dreaming of a life that was more artistic, more fulfilling, more ... funky. The Bravo Channel (then a great arts and independent film channel and not a reality TV grindhouse) was showing Slaves of New York endlessly. The movie and then the book inspired me. It felt like Tama Janowitz had created this story just for me. She seemed to get me -- get my anxiety, my fears, my hopes and dreams, and my romantic yearnings about the possibilities of life and NYC. No, I wasn't an artist and didn't aspire to be one (except, maybe, a writer). But Slaves of New York, Eleanor's story, seemed to be the only thing understanding me at a time when no one else seemed to. Eleanor, c'est moi (even though I'm a dude).

Slaves of New York has a proud legacy. It's a real NYC story and a poignant encapsulation of an era. But its the pure delight of the writing and the story's universal message that makes it great. And that's why, three decades after it's publication, people still read and remember it. And when my kids are old enough to read Slaves of New York, and I want them to learn more about the NYC I grew up in, it will be one of the first books I'll give them.

Interview: Tama Janowitz, Legendary New York Novelist

If you’ve read this blog long enough you know how much I love the work of Tama Janowitz, the author of Slaves of New York and other New York novels. Her writing is funny, quirky, and brutally honest. She explores the loves, lusts, ambitions, and anxieties of people striving to be successful and happy – and how it’s almost impossible to be either in this super-competitive world. 

Tama has been publishing books for over thirty years, a literary survivor. Describing herself as a “depressed person who laughs a lot”, she has lived an amazing life. Tama was kind enough to tell Mr NYC readers about her life’s journey, her work, her writing process, her memories of NYC in the 1980s, what it was like to know Andy Warhol -- and about the future. 
 

Very briefly, who is Tama Janowitz and where did she come from? What made you choose a crazy career like writing -- or did it choose you?

I wanted to be a painter but my mom was single, unemployed (for the most part) and we lived very, very marginally. Paints/materials cost money. You could write with a pencil and paper (although in my case I had a manual typewriter!). I just was very determined and even in high school I wrote and wrote and wrote. Plus, me and my mom were huge readers, we read avidly, all the time, we discussed everything we passed back and forth. We got books at the drugstore with the covers ripped off, they cost a quarter; we went to the library every week. Reading to me was being allowed to visit another planet; to enter into someone else's head. If you are reading something you are absorbed by, you are THERE, and then you put down the book and you are NOT there, you are back in the world, but as soon as you pick up that book again you are right back teleported onto that other planet, other time, other people. The actual writing was far harder than I imagined. My mother was very encouraging. She never said, 'You are great!' she just said, 'Good work, keep going, I am enjoying this.' She was never shocked by anything I wrote, just supportive and encouraging. Painting for me was fun; writing was work, but I expect that had I continued to paint as a 'career' or 'life path' it would have eventually turned into 'work'. My mother told me, 'You don't wait to be 'inspired,' you just put words down on paper and when you have enough pages, you can start revising, which is where the work really begins.

You became famous for Slaves of New York in 1986 -- a book about struggling artists and hangers-on in early 1980s Manhattan. Did you still feel like a struggling artist when you wrote it, and even after you became successful? Does a professional writer always need to feel like he or she is struggling in order to stay good?

Oh I don't know. I never made much money from the whole thing, I always say had I started at McDonald's I would now have made more, plus I might be a manager or own my own franchise AND have health insurance. I know rich people who are writers, or look at Edith Wharton! She not only never struggled financially, she never -- apparently -- struggled with getting words on paper, and she is a great writer! Or, William Styron, he struggled with depression but he was married to a wealthy heiress, at least he didn't have to worry about money! Ultimately all human beings are pretty much struggling with something, from what I can see. However, I really, really want to win a BIG lottery so I can fully understand what it is like to not worry or struggle financially. Indeed, winning might prove to 'blight' me. It might be dreadfully burdensome. However, I am WILLING to accept the prize money, if for no further reason than to STRUGGLE with the outcome.

One of the things I like about your books is that the characters are complex and messy. They have very real but also contradicting motivations, just like people in real life. For instance, Eleanor in "Slaves", Florence Collins in A Certain Age, and Peyton Amberg are women who want to be successful in their own right but also feel dependent on men. Is that a good way to describe your characters or, as a man, am I missing something?

Again, I don't know. I think in A Certain Age Florence wanted the societal conveniences and acceptance that come -- at least in my experience, in NYC -- from being married to/associated with -- a wealthy man. (And, these days, same sex is also a status thing). I don't think she felt dependent on a man -- not for love, really -- but for status. She felt like she had waited too long, at 32, the game of musical chairs was ending and she didn't have a seat. Peyton Amberg was different than Florence, it was in a sense a study of a nymphomaniac, she had a void she kept trying to fill: adventure, excitement, basically she was looking for love but since she did not understand what love was, the hunger was all consuming. I can't explain further, I don't think. Both books are in a way about desperation, despair, wanting and an inability to find an inner peace.

When you write, are you more interested in advancing a plot or exploring the lives of your characters?

I don't think plots are my forte. I always think of E.M. Forster's advice 'the king died and then the queen died' is different than, 'the king died and then the queen died OF GRIEF' the latter is a plot. I'm paraphrasing Forster now of course. How does real life work? Dickens was heavy with the plot. And the coincidences too. Most of 'real life' is not a plot. You are born, you go to school, your parent’s divorce, you go to college, you get a job, you get married, you have kids, your parents die, whatever -- it's a string of events. How do you turn a string of events into a plot that, in so many ways, is NOT real life? Even W.G. Sebold, who one reads for the purity of the writing, manages to put a plot into the work of some sort, however un-plot like. The novel: there are suspense novels, mystery novels, horror novels, family sagas, historical novels etc. the person living her or his life may or -- more probably -- doesn't see their life as having a plot. There's very little way to understand much more than waking up in the morning, eating breakfast. Let's say you have a bad night's sleep and in the morning you are irritable with your child and so that child goes to school that day and gets in a fight with another kid and gets suspended and during that time hangs out in the park and burns down a nearby house, killing an elderly woman and her grandchild and blah blah blah. To see the 'plot' on the part of the person who was irritable that morning with their child, would take an outside observer. Because otherwise, we'd all go crazy, just because we got irritable with someone the entire planet is destroyed? Or, you're very kind to someone and give them five dollars and that gives them just enough to buy some bullets? What I'm trying to say is, just because you as a person are irritable at breakfast, you're not taking part in a plot.

How do you go about creating characters in your fiction? Who are some of your personal favorite characters that you've created?

I can't even remember my books. I struggle writing, sometimes it is more of a struggle. When I am done I have a good feeling for about five minutes. If my book gets accepted, published, I feel good for about five minutes. I can't feel so good for more than five minutes. And there are some fun moments in writing but they are rare and then I do feel good for five minutes. Sometimes I write a line or so that I can still feel good about. Or the moment when a character starts doing stuff I didn't know they would do, that is a good feeling.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've published 12 books, including a memoir. Has it gotten easier or harder to keep writing over the years?

Yes, I wrote about that many and I did write more that never got published. And it got harder over the years with nasty reviews 99.9 per cent of the time and I mean that seriously, and no money, and fewer brain cells. And I used to wake up determined DETERMINED I would write 1,500 words a day like a job, just DO IT good bad indifferent until the book took off on its own recognizance or there was enough of a finished book to get an actual idea and start re-writing (like my mom would say, 'gee, this book really starts to take off on page seventy, throw out the first seventy pages and start from there'). I'm not complaining, I had a lot of fun. But if you do something and you don't make money and you don't get good reviews and it's not that much fun to do it most of the time, you get tired out.

In the 1980s, you were part of the glamorous party, art, and literary scene in NYC. What was special about the city and that time to you?

I had so much fun then and met people and traveled all over the world and ate in all the restaurants and went to openings, nightclubs, theater, ballet, opera, openings. And back then you could pretty much create your own outfit, even if you didn't have the same cache as rich people buying Hermes and Valentino etc. one time a magazine made me over to look like a rich person and, wow, did I command respect and was ushered into the V.I.P [. board members club at the opera. free champagne, for sure! Other times I went to Three Roses on Canal Street back when NYC was ROUGH. In retrospect, had I been more confident, had I had any self-esteem, had I been less scared, had I had any financial cushion/security to fall back on (other than scrambling to apply for grants/awards, writing a story that possibly The New Yorker might buy for 3k that would pay my rent for 3 months) had I been prettier, had I not been treated with hostility, well, gosh! Things might have been different.

You and other popular young writer in the 1980s became known as the "Brat Pack." Did you resent that label or is it a badge of honor?

It did not bother me because it had nothing to do with me and other people I barely knew/met. It was odd to be lumped together, but the media sure liked it.

You also knew Andy Warhol in his final years. What was he like -- and what's was it like knowing someone who was already a legend?

Now I wish I had written down everything he said when I would get home every night because he was so so so funny and in a really brilliant way, dry, observant, witty and I did not write down what he said and he had me howling with laughter every night and now I can't remember what he said. and he was so maligned at the time, by critics, by a lot of people, they were so snarky about him - a has-been gay aging pop artist - but he did not let it get to him, at least outwardly, and he always told me, 'gee Tama it doesn’t matter what they say about you in a column, it's how many inches they give you' but he said it in a much better way. but, the difference is, he loved going out and going to the places and seeing the celebrities and the latest play, show, opening, club, whatever, and he loved the attention = good, bad, indifferent -- and I just can't stand it. I just feel invaded, accosted, scared. There is no fun in that for me. That's why I left the city, I like to see some plants growing and my horse and the seasons, and in NYC if you are a success you don't have a second to realize it before you are rated a SECOND CLASS HAS-BEEN TOAD. Which is how they treated Andy, but he didn't mind. 

You're a female writer in a male-dominated field. How did you deal with the sexism that came from that? And what do you think about #MeToo?

I don't think people realize the level of contempt that men have for women (I'm generalizing now) but until recently women were no more than something held 'a little higher than my horse, a little lower than my dogs' anyway life is so so short, I know I am lucky there is dental care and antibiotics and it is strange first you are young, as a female, and considered a sex entity or just plain and valueless, and then you get old and you become invisible as a female, but if you are an old guy, you are still esteemed. But that's my opinion. 

As someone who has lived in and written a lot about NYC, what do you think about how the city has changed over the years? 

It is not the same place where thirty years ago although that time was almost over, you could come to NYC and survive, you did not need to have money, you just needed to escape where you came from, you needed to have desire, dreams, ambition, you needed a community with which to identify, you needed to go there because you wanted to 'make it'. You could find probably a cheap apartment, you could find a job that was in a copy shop or a waiter position that would pay for the rent, if you were young you could go out at night and find other lunatics of your ilk. now it is a city of young P.R. people paid for by their parents and anxious to get a ticket to a P.R. event on a rooftop where the crowd is composed of other P.R. kids. 

You eventually left NYC for upstate New York. What was that transition like and do you miss the city at all? 

I don't miss NYC but it is so grim bleak and dreary here six months of the year it is mud, cold, darkness, there is no delivery of food, it is hunting season, they go bang bang bang with the guns, they shoot anything they want and the roads are icy. And it is bleak here but it can be bleak in the mountains of West Virginia and many, many other places but it is not that cold there! then six months a year it is beautiful and there are leaves on the trees, although there are many flies and things, we have horse flies, deer flies, green flies, bot flies, mosquitos, ground bees, wasps, no, I would not choose to come to this area. No no no. I think Hawaii sounds really nice, away from a volcano. Maybe the mountains of Tennessee? Mountains of Arizona? What about, parts of Oregon? I would like to move to one of those places. But I have applied for many, many teaching jobs. I applied for a job at the community college of Laramie, Wyoming but they did not even trouble themselves to respond and say, 'Sorry, Tama Janowitz, you did not get the job.' What do you hope to accomplish in the future, either personally or in your writing? I am trying to learn how to ride a horse. I have a horse, she is a 16 year old quarter-horse I purchased from my teacher, Stasia Newell at Newell Farm. I have been riding this horse for five and a half years now. So far, I am not a good rider. But, my dream would be to LOOK good on her. Plus, my mare Fox is, like, my closest friend! I know that sounds silly but we just love each other. 

Finally, tell us something about Tama Janowitz that we don't know! 

There's nothing I can tell you; really. I am a depressed person who laughs a LOT.

Couldn’t have said it better myself! That said, when you look at the great works and amazing life she's had, I hope you feel some joy! Thanks!

You can find all of Tama's book on Amazon.com here

End Credits for "Slaves of New York" (1989)

I've written extensively about the book and movie Slaves of New York over the years. The book by Tama Janowitz came out in 1986 and the movie version in 1989.

If you want to find the complete Mr NYC Slaves of New York archive, go here.

And even though I can't find a full version of the movie available anywhere, you can watch the end credits, with wonderful shots of late 1980s downtown Manhattan -- a place both very familiar and quite distant.

End credits for movies usually aren't that interesting but I suggest you read these for a few reasons:

1) The cast inludes, in minor roles, actors who would go on to big careers: Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci, Mercedes Ruehl, and Anthony LaPaglia. It's odd to see them next to people who ... wouldn't go on to big careers.

2) At the end of the credits, they thank Mayor Ed Koch -- and this movie came out just a few short months before he was bounced out of office.

3) You will notice that two future Mr NYC interviewees are in these credits: Tama Janowitz herself and Barbara Nitke who served as an on-set photographer. 

Enjoy! Watch these credits, go into the archive, and revisit the world of bohemian NYC!

Classic Mr NYC

One of the biggest casualties in this time of pestilence is the party. People can't party. They can't go to parties. They can't organize parties. They can't congregate to make merriment or "get down" or do whatever people like to do at parties. 

If they do, they're breakin' da' law. You may like the nightlife, you may like to boogie, but right now it'll get you arrested. 

So people are making withdrawals from their party memory banks, remembering times and places before the plague when they had carefree fun with their fellow homo sapiens en masse.  

I recently read a big article where a variety of famous and glamorous people were recalling the very best parties they ever went to. Most of these fetes were big bashes thrown by wealthy and famous and powerful people for other wealthy and famous and powerful people -- the kinds of parties that yours truly has never been, and never will be, invited to.

However ... I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the folks in this article was previous Mr NYC interviewee Tama Janowitz, where she recalls going to an "after-party" of sorts for Andy Warhol's funeral. It's a touching, beautiful vignette of a time, place, and event celebrating the life of a unique and memorable figure. 

You can read all about it, as well as Tama's interview with this blog, here and here. 

The New York Art World in the Movies

The New York art world of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s has become, like the nightclub scene of 1920s and 1930s Berlin, an era legendary for its youthful exuberance, artistic innovation, libertine behavior, and unrestrained weirdness and decadence.

This was when starving artists could still afford to live in Soho and the Village, and devote their lives to creating strange, conceptual work. The hip downtown art world in New York came to prominence via the influential work of Andy Warhol. He became a God to all those aspiring artists rushing to NYC back in the day, and his "Factory" studio nurtured the talents of many of these artists. Of course, when they weren't making weird art, they were doing lots of drugs and having all sorts of exotic sex. Their lives became, in some cases, more interesting than their art.

By the 1980s, the downtown art world had become more popular and wild than ever but it was really the end of this era. Warhol died in 1987 and the gentrification of the 1990s made downtown Manhattan way too expensive for starving artists. By the year 2000, Soho and the Village were playgrounds for the rich, and aspiring artists were exiled to Brooklyn and Queens -- or out of the city altogether.

This world still exists today, however, in the movies. If you're interested, not only in the New York art scene of Andy Warhol and his protegees, but also in kind of New York that doesn't exist anymore, you should check out the following films:

I Shot Andy Warhol: Valerie Solanos was an aspiring writer who became obsessed with Andy Warhol and hoped she'd produce a play she wrote. When he and his Factory cohorts ostracized her, Solanos actually shot him (as the title suggests) and ended up in an asylum. This 1996 movie stars Lilly Taylor as Valerie Solanos and really takes you into the heart of the New York art scene at its zenith.

Factory Girl: this 2006 movie stars Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen (he of Star Wars) about Edie Sedgwick, who was a hanger-on in Andy Warhol's Factory and who met a tragic end.

Basquiat: this 1996 movie stars Jeffrey Wright as the artist Jean Michel Basquiat who became The Artist in 1980s Manhattan but then OD'd in 1988 at the age of 27.

Slaves of New York: Based on the stories of Tama Janowitz, this 1989 movie stars Bernadette Peters as Eleanor who lives with her miserable superstar artist boyfriend Stash in the East Village. Eleanor is Stash's "slave", meaning she can't afford NOT to live with him and thus he can treat her however he wants. Eleanor is an aspiring artist herself (she makes weird hats) and, through her art, is trying to find her happiness and freedom from Stash. Slaves of New York is, believe it or not, a Merchant-Ivory movie that was a big departure from their English costume dramas. As the clip above shows, its a long way from the likes E.M Forster.

25 NYC Novels in 100 Years

The New York Times has recently published a list of 25 novels set in NYC, published within the last 100 years, where the city is more than just a backdrop or even a "character" in the story -- it is the story, NYC is intertwined with the plot.

These are books that, simply put, couldn't have taken place anywhere else. 

Believe it or not, some big titles are missing -- no Gatsby, nothing by Edith Wharton. Sadly Slaves of New York was not included either but the author, Tama Janowitz (a previous Mr NYC interviewee) was mentioned (with a photo) since her 1980s Brat Pack colleagues Jay McInery's 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City was included (my review of the movie version of it can be found here). 

This list is very interesting, and it includes commentary by the various critics who chose the titles. Lists like this are inherently flawed and infuriating, but at least they remind you that there are lots of good books about NYC that you should put on your shelf -- or load onto your Kindle. 

One big inclusion is Don DeLillo's 1997 masterpiece Underworld. That is a great NYC novel but so much more -- its an epic sweep of an Everyman living through the second half of the 20th century while history unfolds around him and occasionally touches him. For me, it's not just a novel, or a great novel, or a great NYC novel -- it's a state of mind, a raising of consciousness, a story that makes you look at the world and history differently. I'm glad to see it on this list but Underworld is sui generis, like all great work. The same way that NYC is a city bigger than its population and its borders, Underworld extends beyond the story on its pages.

Review: "Bright Lights, Big City" (1988)

Continuing my catalogue of oft-forgotten NYC movies, my latest is Bright Lights, Big City from 1988. It's based on the 1984 debut novel by Jay McInerney who was one of the era's "brat pack" authors like Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz who published popular novels that were quickly made into movies.

When the book came out it made quite a splash due to the youth of the author, the zeitgeisti-iness of the story (a young man, like the author, navigating the world of NYC media, money, club culture, and drugs), and the fact that it was written in the second person (the narrator refers to "you" instead of the first-person "I" or third-person "he/she"). The plot concerns a guy named Jamie who lives in NYC and works as a fact-checker at a magazine that's basically supposed to be the stodgy and boring pre-Tina Brown/David Remnick version of The New Yorker (it had yet to transform itself into a media powerhouse). Jamie is trying to write a novel and live out his fantasies of being a literary star but he's been side-tracked by the recent death of his mother, his wife who has suddenly and inexplicably left him, and his growing drug addiction fueled by a sleazy guy named Tad. When not working and struggling to write, he spends his time snorting drugs and hanging out in clubs with Tad, processing his anguish over his marriage and mother. Eventually a series of events leads him to realize that he needs to change. And that's basically the whole story.

So is it a good movie?

Eh ... it's okay. The main problem is that Michael J. Fox, who plays Jamie, is totally miscast. Don't get me wrong, I love Fox in just about anything but he simply wasn't the right choice for this part. He was cast, I assume, because he was a massive star at the time, still riding the success of Back to the Future (this movie actually came out just before the two sequels and was part of Fox's dramatic interregnum) and he was still being watched by tens of millions of people a week on TV in Family Ties. (Rob Lowe and Robert Downey Jr. were considered for the part at the time and would have been much more believable as cokeheads because, well ...). Actually the best and most compelling performance is by Keifer Sutherland as Tad -- he's perfectly cast -- and you almost wish the movie was about him! The rest of the cast -- Swoozie Kurtz, Phoebe Cates, the late great John Houseman and Jason Robards -- are fine but they have little to do (Robards is only in a couple of scenes and is drunk in both of them). The movie was directed by a man named James Bridges (who died in the early 1990s) and who had earlier directed the classics The Paper Chase and Urban Cowboy. This did not have the same success as those. 

But it's still worth seeing for a couple of reasons.

First, flawed as this movie is, it's interesting to see because it's the kind of earnest, humane, character-driven sort of movie that the big studios hardly make anymore. It's an attempt to do something more interior, more emotionally complex, even if it doesn't entirely succeed and the result is mostly just depressing. Second, it's a fascianting piece of late 1980s NYC slife-of-life, of a world that's both recent and hopelessly in the past, of a city that feels so close but also so far away. 

If you want to know what NYC in the 1980s was like, this is the movie to watch. 

P.S. It's hard to remember now but, at the time, the author of the book, Jay McInerney, was being heralded as a 1980s F. Scott Fitzgerald. The big success of "Bright Lights, Big City" led many to believe that literary greatness awaited him, that this novel was a solid start and that even better ones would come along ... Yeah, not so much. He wrote several more novels, some better received than others, but none had the success or acclaim of his first one. These days he's better known as a Man-About-Town (he married a Hearst) and a wine critic. But who knows ... maybe one day he will produce his Gatsby but we're still waiting.