(Reviewed by Pat Luboff)
“Does she live in the subway?” “Non, non, mon fils. She rented an apartment across from the park because the Washington Square Arch reminds her of L’Arc de Triomphe.”
“What does the Lamplady eat?” “Hmmm…the moon is her favorite dish.”
Songs to New York consists of ten dreamlike tales of fanciful, whimsical, spiritual, adventures in the city that never sleeps. The lyrics to the song are sprinkled with those words you only find in New York, Upper West Side, Central Park, IRT, Bronx, Van Cortlandt Park, Greenwich Village, the Staten Island Ferry, Coney Island, the F Train. They filled me with longing for my hometown, which I abandoned almost fifty years ago. Thankfully, I read it just before a visit to the Big Apple, so my longing was satisfied in a way I never would have imagined before.
Ms. Brooks’ imagination has no limits. She takes us on New York journeys that feature a talking worm who helps a stuttering shy man win the love of his life, a bicycle riding cat, a little girl who asks to see heaven and gets her wish and gives an account of what she saw in her own way, an apartment elevator allegory about the necessity of making the full journey to a goal, a man who leaves New York to raise his children in the country only to be called back by a dream of a bar in the city he is destined to visit.
I found myself looking forward to bedtime, my time to read. I wanted so much to continue on the ‘anything can happen’ adventures of Songs to New York. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to see what unbridled creative writing is!
