Brownsville

This is the New York suburb where the author grew up, and is the book's primary setting. Its geographical placement just outside of New York simultaneously echoes, defines, and reinforces the author's experience of living "just outside" of a life he desires, a life of acceptance, freedom, and joy.

New York

One of the most famous, the most populous, and the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, New York is portrayed by the author as a kind of ideal, a physical / emotional / spiritual goal, commenting that the people of Brownsville always referred to New York as "the city" and that it seemed like an "eternity" of a subway ride away. Both his writing and his stories about New York, however, suggest that for him the city, its museums and galleries and libraries and LIFE, had a profound hold on him, shaping both his actual life and his...