Before And After [Paperback]

Michael Cunningham, Luc Sante and Jeanette Winterson take their place alongside newcomers Ariele Fierman and Said Shirazi in this collection of new reportage from high-watt literary types and up-and-comers. In the first half, completed just before September 11, Beller (The Sleep-Over Artist) gathers pieces that chronicle everything from kissing a cabdriver in the early hours of New Year's Day or joining a Monday night pool league to a group of poems written by people staying up all night for Chekhov tickets. The feel is definitively late '90s, and the city seems full of promise, romance and cash. The second half is devoted to essays about the attacks: a meditation on the eerie prescience of Don DeLillo's Underworld book jacket (and his oeuvre), Phillip Lopate's brief history of the towers and many first-person testimonials. Nifty graphics introduce each piece by zeroing in on the city neighborhood whence the report issues. While this is at least partly an instant book, the quality of the pieces is consistently high, and they feel authentic throughout. (Feb. 15)Forecast: Beller's high literary journalistic profile he edits Open City in addition to frequent writing for glossies and continued New York interest should convert to brisk sales. Look for Beller to begin doing talk shows as the book becomes the best-available-option for those wanting book-length stylized New York reportage, and for correspondingly increased traffic at www.mrbellersneighborhood.com, where many of the pieces originally appeared.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Brief and memorable epitomes of the urban encounter: a transporting collection. -- Kirkus Reviews

The quality of these pieces is consistently high, and they feel authentic throughout. -- Publishers Weekly, 21 January 2002

This is a book of true stories about New York, written, for the most part, by the people for whom the city is the stage set for their lives. Some of the voices to be found in its pages are those of well known writers—Michael Cunningham, Jeannette Winterson, Phillip Lopate, Luc Sante, Megan Daum, Sam Lipsyte, Thomas Beller—and many more are from people who may not even consider themselves writers, but who were tempted by the "Tell Mr. Beller A Story" button on the critically acclaimed website, mrbellersneighborhood.com, where all these pieces originally appeared. Taken together these essays, reportage, and vignettes are a testament to the vitality, diversity, and complexity of New York City at the turn of the century.

A version of this book was in production in early September 2001. After September 11th the web site was flooded with pieces by people who wanted to testify to their survival, to bear record of their witness, and to comprehend. Some of the material in the "After" section is as stark and immediate as the photojournalism from that day. And some posses a wisdom and humanity that is an essential part of moving beyond the events of 9/11.

This single volume is in effect two books, with two covers, a "before" and an "after," with a separate introduction for each. It is a powerful document of its time, and, with its vivid and insightful writing, it is also news that will stay news, sometime that will remain an engrossing read long after the events described have receded into the past.

Thomas Beller is the author of a novel, The Sleep-Over Artist (New York Times notable book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2000), and a collection of stories, Seduction Theory. He is a founding editor of Open City Magazine and Books, and has edited two previous anthologies, Personals, and With Love And Squalor: Fourteen Writers Respond to J.D. Salinger.