Ivan in New York
New York says hello.
Sure, I've been back since I lived here — thirty three years ago — and yet each year it's become an odder place for us.
Manhattan — at very best — is tiny pockets of privileged edge. Mainly it's corporate annihilation of self. To speak of it feels clichéd. The moments of sweet-meeting appear as mirages of suspect fakery… likely, it’s just me.
For sure, parts of Brooklyn and Queens display the ordinary difference a European wants. I've found a Colombian café where I'm convinced the server enjoys me as much as I do them. Have I lost the love or has America?
What I like is doing business here.
The New York publishers are honest in self-promotion that makes London sales pitches look drippy. I'm allowed to be the vulgar nouveau salesman I learned to be from my dad, self-made arriviste that he was and that I nearly am. The task is easy. I'm here to introduce my colleague, new agent, Edwina.
She's found and built a niche in London selling new writing by Korean authors. Spending time in Seoul, she discovered a seam of writing by authors who have no other outlet to shout about what's right and what's wrong in their culture. Their fiction matters. I love introducing Edwina to publishers - she exemplifies everything I imagine a literary agent can be: expert, earnest and Always Be Closing. Of course, the New Yorkers love her.
As ever,
Ivan, from New York.