Gritty New York Underground Classics!
Discover gritty New York underground classics! Explore a curated list of raw, unfiltered books that capture the dark and vibrant soul of the city's underbelly.
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The Fuck Up
by Arthur Nersesian
Doesn't the title say it all? After a series of set-backs, an unnamed slacker pretends to be gay to get a job which launches him on a darkly hilarious odyssey through New York City grit.
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(Type: books)
Book
Chinese Takeout
by Arthur Nersesian
From the author of the cult classic The Fuck-Up comes a vicious new tale of art, drugs, love, and death on the Lower East Side. Orloff Trenchant is a painter who sells books on West 4th Street in Manhattan and is obsessed with mastering his craft. Desperate for cash, Or agrees to take a commission no one else will touch: he has three weeks to carve a headstone for a recently deceased restaurateur -- a Chinese takeout box. As Or attempts to make his deadline, he navigates among a toxic mix of fellow artists, struggling gallery owners, bloodsucking art dealers, his politically active friends, and a haunting addict poet whose life is more out of control than Or's own. Nersesian's prose is sparkling and hypnotic in this brutal and comic story that will make you wonder if life and art are two different things.
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Bright Lights, Big City
by Jay McInerney
With the publication of Bright Lights, Big City in 1984, Jay McInerney became a literary sensation, heralded as the voice of a generation. The novel follows a young man, living in Manhattan as if he owned it, through nightclubs, fashion shows, editorial offices, and loft parties as he attempts to outstrip mortality and the recurring approach of dawn. With nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in this anti-quest, he runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts. This remarkable novel of youth and New York remains one of the most beloved, imitated, and iconic novels in America.
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ID: 0679752455
(Type: books)
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The Wanderers
by Richard Price
The Wanderers, a teenage gang in the 1960s Bronx, are coming of age and drifting apart. Tormented by cold-hearted girls and cold-blooded ten-year-olds, maniacal gangs and murderous parents, they are caught between the juveniles and the adults. This is the acclaimed writer's first book, which he wrote when he was only twenty-four, and the basis for a major feature film.
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Last Exit to Brooklyn
by Hubert Selby
The decadence and violence of the urban streets is graphically portrayed in this novel set in a post-WWII Brooklyn slum.
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Call It Sleep
by Henry Roth
When Henry Roth published Call It Sleep, his first novel, in 1934, it was greeted with critical acclaim. But in that dark Depression year, books were hard to sell, and the novel quickly dropped out of sight, as did its twenty-eight-year-old author. Only with its paperback publication in 1964 did the novel receive the recognition it deserves. Call It Sleep was the first paperback ever to be reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, and it proceeded to sell millions of copies both in the United States and around the world.
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Black Spring
by Henry Miller
Ten autobiographical pieces that take Miller from his childhood in Brooklyn to literary life in Paris.