Tales of Two Americas
BookishMall.com
TALES OF TWO AMERICAS
John Freeman is founder of the literary biannual Freeman’s. He has written two books of nonfiction, How to Read a Novelist and The Tyranny of E-mail, and Maps, a collection of poems. Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times in Today’s New York, an anthology about inequality in New York, was published by Penguin in 2015. The former editor of Granta, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City, where he is writer in residence at New York University and teaches at The New School.
A portion of the proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to homeless charities in the United States.
BookishMall.com
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
penguin.com
Published in Penguin Books 2017
Copyright © 2017 by OR Books LLC
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Published by arrangement with OR Books LLC, New York.
These pages constitute an extension of this copyright page.
Ebook ISBN: 9781524704827
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Freeman, John, 1974– editor.
Title: Tales of two Americas : stories of inequality in a divided nation / edited by John Freeman.
Description: New York : Penguin Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011506 | ISBN 9780143131038 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Social problems—United States—Fiction. | Social justice—United States—Fiction. | Social conflict—United States—Fiction. | United States—Ethnic relations—Fiction. | United States—Race relations—Fiction. | Short stories, American.
Classification: LCC PS648.S58 T35 2017 | DDC 813/.0108355—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011506
Cover design: Christopher Brian King
Cover image: Benjamin Lowy / Getty Images, (sky) detchana wangkheeree / Shutterstock
Version_1
This book is for my brother Andy,
who has lived in many countries
CONTENTS
About the Editor
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction by John Freeman
Death by Gentrification Rebecca Solnit
i’m sick of pretending to give a shit about what whypeepo think Danez Smith
Notes of a Native Daughter Sandra Cisneros
Dosas Edwidge Danticat
American Work Richard Russo
Fieldwork Manuel Muñoz
For the Ones Who Put Their Names on the Wall Juan Felipe Herrera
Trash Food Chris Offutt
Some Houses (Various Stages of Dissolve) Claire Vaye Watkins
Mobility Julia Alvarez
Youth from Every Quarter Kirstin Valdez Quade
Outside Kiese Laymon
White Debt Eula Biss
Leander Joyce Carol Oates
Fault Lines Ru Freeman
We Share the Rain, and Not Much Else Timothy Egan
Blood Brother Sarah Smarsh
Hillsides and Flatlands Héctor Tobar
Invisible Wounds Jess Ruliffson
How Roxane Gay
Enough to Lose RS Deeren
To the Man Asleep in Our Driveway Who Might Be Named Phil Anthony Doerr
Soup Kitchen Annie Dillard
Howlin’ Wolf Kevin Young
Looking for a Home Karen Russell
Visible City Rickey Laurentiis
Portion Joy Williams
Apartment 1G Nami Mun
Happy Brad Watson
A Good Neighbor Is Hard to Find Whitney Terrell
Here in a State of Tectonic Tension Lawrence Joseph
Once There Was a Spot Larry Watson
Hurray for Losers Dagoberto Gilb
La Ciudad Mágica Patricia Engel
American Arithmetic Natalie Diaz
The Worthless Servant Ann Patchett
Contributors
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
John Freeman
LAST WINTER I flew home to Sacramento for a short visit. On a mild December night I slipped on a coat and set out walking from the capitol to a bookstore not far away.
Very quickly, as in most American cities, I was approached and asked for money. Each man—and they were all men—spoke a reason. Spare some change for the holidays? A dollar for a veteran? Do you have any money for food? Taken in isolation, their requests had a stark, brutal simplicity. They were each a call to basic kindness. Will you see me, will you help? Of course even the most strapped of us has a quarter for a hungry person. So I gave, I always do. I know it is quite possible the reasons were ploys to get money for other things, but I cannot stand the other possibility—which is that the need was actual, and dire.
I walked on after speaking to the last man, and approached my destination in a state of dismay and déjà vu. I had been traveling a lot that fall and winter and everywhere I went I saw an unkind America. It was a constant refrain in Chicago, in Seattle, in Portland, in Miami: got some change, can you help, got some money for a veteran? Most people walk right by. Somewhat understandably. The only way in which to reside or work in much of America for many is to ignore these requests, in essence to deny our mutual humanity in order to live our lives. My dismay had another source, however. I had actually traveled to Sacramento that December to have an event at Time Tested Books to discuss this very issue of homelessness and inequality in New York. I had just published an anthology called Tales of Two Cities: The Best of Times and Worst of Times in Today’s New York, and I decided to walk because some of the most important essays in that book came from walkers, from people who saw New York at a human pace and so saw the stories it was not telling itself.
I thought about it and realized that most of my memories of Sacramento were seen at the speed of a car. I couldn’t remember a single walk I had taken with my grandfather, who moved to the city in 1933, and helped build the church we attended; or my father, who was born six years later and grew up downtown; or my brothers, who moved with me to the suburbs of Sacramento from Pennsylvania in 1984. We drove, parked, and walked a short distance to our destination. Now, thirty years later, I was on foot and seeing a very different city, wondering if I had been passing by it all along, or if something important had changed.
1 comment