Slaves of New York

Tama Janowitz’s bold and sophisticated modern classic of Manhattan life includes three never-before-collected stories in this first ever ebook edition.

Slaves of New York spoke for a new generation of Americans when it was released in 1986. Acclaimed for her novel American Dad (published when she was just twenty-four) and for her stories in The New Yorker, Interview and Paris Review, Tama Janowitz gave a name to a stylish and highly peculiar new breed of young urbanite.

Some of the slaves of New York are bewildered, opinionated young women like Eleanor, a jewelry designer new to the city. She lives in one room with her artist boyfriend Stash, who paints heroic canvases of Donald Duck and Quick Draw McGraw. She’d like to leave him but they have a dog. And it’s his apartment. What’s a slave to do? Join the ranks of the others: eerie East Village performance artists, a harried art dealer and his mistress, and a prostitute who happens to be from one of the best Southern Jewish families.

In Tama Janowitz’s keenly observed world, these urbanites share cramped apartments, endure cramped love affairs and waft half-cheerful, half-lost through the city. Their lives are fiercely funny – and ultimately moving.