New York Stories
Setting is essential to these stories, not least because of the interconnectedness of them. When one thinks of New York City, all too often the imagery is limited to Manhattan. Reading the stories in this collection is tantamount to touring the metropolis on a subway train taking a round trip through all the boroughs. One learns that Flushing during the day is no different from Flushing at night. That those who call the Bronx home will carry their Bronx-ness with them no matter where they move. That the only place where Staten Island feels like an actual city is near the ferry where most people are leaving rather than coming. The whole of the city seethes beneath the hard-edged life of the characters whose stories populate it.
Minority Male Marginalization
While the city is opened up from its conventional portrait of a single lone island with a big park in the middle, the stories feature a sense of claustrophobia by virtue of those very characters. The protagonists are overwhelmingly male, mostly minority, and young enough to make the collection qualify as a coming-of-age collection. As might be expected from their age and location and marginalized economic status, there is a lot of sex, drugs, immature relationships, dashed aspirations, and self-deluded illusions being slapboxed by reality.
Escape from New York
One of recurring themes expressed through narrative event is deep-seated desire among these marginalized New Yorkers to get away from the boroughs of the Big Apple. While some reviewers have framed the collection as a love letter to Queens, the persistent desire of many characters to escape suggests something else. The central character in these connected stories actually goes so far as to stage an uncomfortable sexual situation with a friend secure in the knowledge that his punishment will be exile to Trinidad. Another takes opts for a far more conventional means of escape-joining the Marines—while his best friend is making plans for an escape with socialist girlfriend.
