Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers from Walt Whitman to Teju Cole

This survey of writers' impressions of New York City on foot treads some fairly well-worn paths, though it's also suffused with an earnest appreciation for New York's pedestrian and literary heritage. Miller traces the footsteps of Charles Dickens through the slums of Five Points in the 1840s and the romantic exhortations of Walt Whitman, without neglecting more recent writers. Colson Whitehead, for instance, describes, in his essay collection The Colossus of New York, rambling in the city's "inscrutable hustle," while Teju Cole's novel Open City depicts a psychiatry resident who finds that daily peregrinations not only "help him think, but also keep his brooding under control." At times, Miller seems torn between providing context%E2%80%94such as how Stephen Crane's sidewalk encounter with a prostitute irreparably damaged the writer's reputation %E2%80%93and exploring his subjects' writing in depth. That being said, Miller has taken on an ambitious project and succeeded, up to a point. But since this is New York, after all, a minor success registers as a mild disappointment, for not every page can convey, as Elizabeth Hardwick did, the "wild electric beauty of New York, %E2%80%A6 the marvelous excited rush of people in taxicabs at twilight, %E2%80%A6 the great Avenues and Streets, the restaurants, theatres, bars, hotels, delicatessens, shops." (Nov.)