We didn’t say much as the car drove us up and across through Queens and through the Midtown tunnel and into the corridors of the city streets where the high-rise buildings make you feel like you’re deep at the bottom of something that is big and humming and alive.
The driver dropped us off at the edge of Times Square. We climbed out of the car onto the sidewalk. It was a Sunday night but it was still heaving with people: tourists, folks finishing their days at work, other folks starting theirs.
Wow, my brother said.
I know, I said. I held my arms up, as if I was offering Arthur something, as if the city belonged to me. Which it did, as much as any place did. As much as I belonged to any place.
I said to my brother: This is New York!
We looked up.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Daisy Parente and the team at L&R. Francesca Main, Kish Widyaratna and the team at Picador. David Forrer at Inkwell.
Early readers, writing friends: Olivia Laing, Jessie Burton, Laura Goodman, Joanna Anderson, JoAnna Pollonais, Saskia Vogel, Helen Zaltzman, Dan Bobkoff, Ben Buckland, Emma Young, Katherine Angel, Lauren Elkin, Ellena Savage, Cathrin Wirtz, Ruth Curry, Liz Greenwood, Frances Dodds, Diana Kimball, Cassie Marketos, Jamie Coleman.
The loyal readers of ‘Thread’.
Catapult and This Recording published some early iterations of some of what became this book.
Fiona, Arthur and Elspeth, with special thanks for their support (and tolerance).
Martha Dogelstein. Eric Winkler.
Jean Hannah Edelstein is a writer who lives in Brooklyn. She writes regularly for outlets including the Guardian and The Pool, and a weekly newsletter, which Vogue said ‘pops up in your inbox like lucid dreaming.’ She also writes marketing emails for tech companies, so you’ve probably deleted her work.
First published 2018 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2018 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5098-6380-8
Copyright © Jean Hannah Edelstein 2018
Cover photograph © Rachel Juarez-Carr
Cover design and lettering: Mel Four / Pan Macmillan art department
Author photo © Averie Cole
The right of Jean Hannah Edelstein to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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