I could be fascinated by Sloane Crosley playing Sloane Crosley on “Gossip Girl.” Or at least amused.īut by and large, the essays aren’t that funny. I happen to like a lot of low-stakes personal writing about being young in New York. The subject matter of the essays isn’t inherently a problem. The stakes in the essays are mostly low: One is about Sloane Crosley playing Sloane Crosley on the TV show “Gossip Girl.” Another is about a very loud teenage neighbor in the West Village who wheedles his way into her psyche. They don’t overexplain themselves they just are. Two of my favorite essays in the collection - “Wheels Up” and “The Grape Man” - are abbreviated, strange, poignant missives that tell us something nebulous about what it is to live in New York. She also doesn’t conform to conventions about what essays need to be: She’s not wedded to getting to the point, or even having one. Or, “They are both from Boulder, the Bennington of the West, so their affinity for a numerically based wizardry system makes sense.” “On the passenger seat was the seldom-seen dual subscription to Maxim and Mother Jones,” she notices. When she’s looking outward, especially, her observations can be astute, acerbic and deadpan. Her newest book, “Look Alive Out There,” features 16 personal essays, some intermingled with a dash of reporting.
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