Review
AREA CODE 212: NEW YORK DAYS, NEW YORK NIGHTS
by Tama Janowitz
St. Martin’s Press, 348 pp.
Tama Janowitz is best known for her 1986 best-seller Slaves of New York, but she has written extensively since then, from recent books such as Peyton Amber (2003) to magazine articles for Vogue and Modern Ferret. Area Code 212 is a collection of essays chronicling her New York life, and includes such wide-ranging topics as the formation of Janowitz’s blind date club with Andy Warhol in the early 1980s, reflections on 9-11, and her penchant for adopting neurotic dogs and wearing "thrillingly" unsuitable clothing.
Her quirky, deadpan style is both appealing and unsettling at once – she explains her fondness for Yorkshire terriers with the same odd detachment she uses to describe her miscarriage in a washroom at the Museum of Modern Art – yet it’s impossible not to look forward to other eccentric observations that are undoubtedly forthcoming. Unfortunately, these observations often involve a topic that has already been covered in previous pieces, making for a disjointed reading experience. The author devotes an entire essay to the adoption of her daughter Willow, for example, and then introduces Willow in subsequent essays as if the reader had never heard of her. Better editing would have made this collection less repetitive and allowed for fewer tedious New York days and New York nights.
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