New York: People, Places and Things

A reluctant assassin is born. A con man tries to sell the Grand Central clock. A superhero is dying to lose her powers. In thirteen fast-moving stories, the author of Hipster Death Rattle explores the tragic world of noir fiction with a wide range of Latinx characters. These stories define noir as tales of people who fall not from great heights but from the stoop and the sidewalk. A follow-up to the author's Roachkiller and Other Stories, which received the Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection, this contains a sequel to that anthology's eponymous story. Praise for NOIRYORICAN: "It strikes an authentic tone that rings true to my seasoned ear. The array of characters encompasses the Nuyorican experience devoid of sentiment or artifice. Score one for the home team." -Edwin Torres, author of Carlito's Way "With considerable style, poise, and humor, Richie Narvaez's Noiryorican unpacks a world of grifters, street punks and hangers-on just trying to get by in the big city when the odds are stacked against them. At his street poet best Narvaez gives Jonathan Lethem and Junot Diaz a run for their money. I loved this collection."-Adrian McKinty, bestselling author of The Chain "In this eclectic collection of noir stories, Narvaez takes the reader across the boroughs of New York City, Puerto Rico, LA, and Texas. Open this book and take this ride through the mazes of Narvaez's imagination."-Ivelisse Rodriguez, author of Love War Stories

Town & Country Magazine's Must-Read Books of Summer 2019 | She Reads' Best Books for Your Summer Roadtrip "Carnegie Hill has got to be one of the most charming, hilarious, and insightful books I've read in ages. When it comes to New York's (often befuddled) elite, Vatner has an eagle eye for detail, and an ear for whip-smart dialogue. This is an assured, heartfelt debut." -Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding and Honestly, We Meant Well Deception is just another day in the lives of the Upper East Side's elite. At age thirty-three, Penelope "Pepper" Bradford has no career, no passion and no children. Her intrusive parents still treat her like a child. Moving into the Chelmsford Arms with her fiancé Rick, an up-and-coming financier, and joining the co-op board give her some control over her life--until her parents take a gut dislike to Rick and urge Pepper to call off the wedding. When, the week before the wedding, she glimpses a trail of desperate text messages from Rick's obsessed female client, Pepper realizes that her parents might be right. She looks to her older neighbors in the building to help decide whether to stay with Rick, not realizing that their marriages are in crisis, too. Birdie and George's bond frays after George is forced into retirement at sixty-two. And Francis alienates Carol, his wife of fifty years, and everyone else he knows, after being diagnosed with an inoperable heart condition. To her surprise, Pepper's best model for love may be a clandestine gay romance between Caleb and Sergei, a black porter and a Russian doorman. Jonathan Vatner's Carnegie Hill is a belated-coming-of-age novel about sustaining a marriage--and knowing when to walk away. It chronicles the lives of wealthy New Yorkers and the staff who serve them, as they suffer together and rebound, struggle to free themselves from family entanglements, deceive each other out of love and weakness, and fumble their way to honesty.

* First book by veteran New York photographer and club habitué, Frank Rispoli* Rispoli's photographs capture the energy and decadence of the '80s club scene in Manhattan* Rispoli's witty focus on women's shoes gives this documentary a unique viewpointAs a young man, living in Manhattan in the 1970s and '80s, Frank Rispoli was drawn to the New Wave and Punk club scenes. Recognizing the inherent performance of sexuality and desire in both fashion and club culture, he documented the intertwining of the two. Always with a camera strapped around his neck, he frequented Danceteria, Tier 3, Max's Kansas City, Studio 54 and many other clubs in Soho, Chelsea, the Lower East Side, and Midtown. Rispoli asked female clubgoers, bar patrons, singers, and band members if he could photograph their shoes, utilizing the staged sets, props, and bathrooms of the clubs, and the taxis, sidewalks, and rooftops of the city, as his backdrops. A selection of these photographs forms the basis of his first book - High Heels. Rispoli attributes his interest in women's shoes to his inability, as a teenager, to look women in the eye and, due to his shyness, focusing on their feet instead. He drew further inspiration from the work of Guy Bourdin, and his advertising photography of the period. Rispoli continues, in his photographs, to capture the fun, freedom, and performance found in other outsider communities and events, such as Wigstock, and the burgeoning art scene in Bushwick, Brooklyn.