In Praise Of The Familiar Terrain Novel

Jami Attenberg, Barbour sneakers, and a new brasserie

I think we’ve reached a cruising altitude with the baby. Lulu is almost five months old and we’re at that point where Emily and I constantly say things like she’s becoming her own little person when we’re not breathlessly praising how adorable and funny she is. Initially, I had planned to go back on leave (“leave” since I’m freelance) from October until January, and then she’d start daycare. But things changed, and we ended up hiring the nanny our friends had been working with for the last two years after their kid started daycare. The nanny thing is right up there with real estate and prospective schools for kids on the list of things New Yorkers obsess over since there is a wide variety, they cost a lot, and a good one can be tough to come by. If you get one that somebody you know not only recommends, but you got to watch work with other babies in action and see how good they are, that’s basically like finding a rent-controlled, three-bedroom, pre-war next to a train that’s one-stop from Manhattan.

Since I turned in my novel edits and I’m not going Full-Time Dad Guy for the fall, I’ve got a little bit of time freed up for the first time…ever. Part of that will be dedicated to going back to two newsletters a week, some will be working on projects I’m starting a little early, and the rest will be spent reading. That’s really all I want to do, and that means my mind is mostly on books these days. Presently, it’s on my dear friend Jami Attenberg’s latest, A Reason to See You Again. The book is Jami’s 10th, which is a milestone in itself. One of those books is a memoir, there’s a short story collection, and another is her 1000 Words guide that people are always telling me they get so much out of.

Jami has taught me a lot about being a writer, especially how to find the sweet spot directly in the middle of artist and worker. Writing is her job, and she’s one of the most prolific people I know, but she puts the same amount of sweat and obsession into every book she puts out. You’d think that would be the case with every writer, but I’m not so sure. There are writers who put out too many books and it feels like they’re just getting paid to publish one minor work after another, and some big-name commercial authors sometimes don’t even write their own books. Obviously I’m a little biased since Jami is basically family to me, but I’ve really come to appreciate the way she moves from familiar territory to unfamiliar. Her 2015 historical novel Saint Mazie was a departure that I loved, and 2017’s All Grown Up was a great New York novel that (I mean this as the highest compliment) reminded me of Sex and the City and, oddly, some of the best films by Albert Brooks.

But the truth is that I love the familiar. I was telling Jami that some enterprising critic would look at A Reason to See You Again as part of a series of her books that revisit somewhat similar territory that 2012’s The Middlesteins and 2019’s All This Could Be Yours covered: messy Jewish families. There is no contemporary writer who does it as well and with such consistency that I decided if no reviews will point that out, then I’d have to say something. So here I am saying the Messy Jewish Family (unofficial) trilogy deserves something like a Library of America edition treatment.

After I finished Jami’s latest, I thought about what a special thing it is when a writer can revisit certain territory and make each installment feel different. I started thinking about John Cheever’s sad WASPs, Philip Roth’s screwed-up middle-aged Jewish men, and Whit Stillman’s trio of Doomed Bourgeois in Love films, which could have all been turned into novels like how The Last Days of Disco was. It’s not an easy thing to do, and I’ve seen plenty of writers keep covering the same ground with the same results time after time. But when it’s done right, I’ll keep returning when a writer can show they understand how to write about a specific group of people and can figure out a different way to tell their stories whenever they revisit.

Other things

• It’s Barbour season, and the other day when I visited the website to make sure the Madison Ave. store would still rewax my jacket, I saw they had done a collab with the Japanese brand Flower Mountain I had somehow missed. The jackets are…fine. I think whenever the British company lets some cool young brand “re-imagine” their classic waxed jackets it usually turns out bad, but the sneakers they did with Flower Mountain are something else. I’m particularly interested in the trainers, even though they don’t have them for men with size 13 feel like me. That’s a problem I usually run into when I try to get any footwear from Japan.

• Last Week was a wild one in Keith McNallyland, with the fight and Keith getting drunk while taking over Balthazar DJ duties, so while Robert De Niro showing up for dinner at Minetta Tavern is…cool, it’s not Keith downing a few martinis and pissing off lame customers by playing “Waterloo Sunset” cool.

• The brasserie takeover of NYC is something I’m personally very happy about, but honestly didn’t have Wildair taking over a hotel restaurant space and opening one on my 2024 bingo card, but I’m here for it. Brass sounds nice. Expensive, and in a hotel, but nice.