Bohemian Rhapsody

Michael Gottlieb's new page-turner of a book, Memoir and Essay—in two sections, one a memoir titled "The Empire City" and the other an essay called "Jobs of the Poets"—opens in the turbulent days of 1969 and the draft lottery for the Vietnam War, setting a general mood of anxiety that accompanied the young men of Gottlieb's generation during their college years. That anxiety is never quite alleviated, even after the threat of the draft passes, as Gottlieb recounts his somewhat embattled youth as a struggling poet in that wildly seductive yet unforgiving city, New York. The struggling part comes not only from financial concerns but also from the internal torture of being a practitioner who constantly questions his practice—its purpose, its validity, its audience. The flipside is a wild exhilaration; the heady days of a burgeoning movement yield invigorating and inspiring victories. This duality is ever present among these eloquent pages.

As Gottlieb and friends rove the city in search of jobs, drinks, literature, and apartments, always apartments, we are put in mind of Anatole Broyard's excellent memoir Kafka Was the Rage (1997). Like Broyard, Gottlieb melds the stuff of everyday life, always historically and culturally specific—food, clothing, books, romance—into a sort of bohemian ethos emanating from every tabletop, bookshelf, and subway car of his beloved city. What A Moveable Feast (1964) did for Paris, "The Empire City" does for New York, though if Ernest Hemingway's tales of literary history are punctuated by meals and cocktails—lots and lots of cocktails—Gottlieb's are punctuated by real-estate woes. As any account of life in New York must do, this story touches frequently upon the trials and tribulations of an apartment dweller on an endless quest for a legal, adequate, affordable, comfortable room of his own. Gottlieb takes us from sublet to crash pad to bona fide lease, from Little Italy to Chelsea and several points in between, with ample and richly detailed images of tortuous staircases and kitchen bathtubs. We feel the walls closing in on us in a cramped Kenmare Street flat. We share the excitement of having one's own space after countless precarious in-betweens. Then there's the furniture: a dinette set salvaged from a family friend's relocation, a table lovingly built by a friend in exchange for a couch to sleep on. Everything feels eked out here, and there's an encouraging, if nostalgic, sense of the barter system still being a viable currency. One made do, made being the key word.

Clothing figures in with surprising prominence: striped Brooks Brothers shirts, Levi's 501s, captoed oxford shoes, suits, and blazers all contribute to the images we try so hard to fashion of ourselves—the right package for the contents, how to project an accurate sense of who we are. Gottlieb experiences a momentary astonishment when he encounters a man on the subway with the same shoes he spent a small fortune on for himself, and the man turns out to be John Vliet Lindsay. Some of us who were there even in the 1990s remember the nattily dressed Language poets of the Ear Inn, by which I mean Alan Davies and Michael Gottlieb, forever tied for first place in that contest.

Indeed, the presence of Alan Davies is felt throughout this book. From Gottlieb's first publication in his mimeographed magazine to later collaborations halfway into the night, Davies shines through as an ally and an inspiration. The vote of confidence imparted by publication becomes just the spur that propels the young writer into further adventures. Gottlieb infectiously relives the little dance he did in the foyer of his apartment building upon opening Davies's acceptance letter. Later, he describes the publication of his first book, again with Davies as publisher, as "an adventure of unalloyed joy." There are many such moments, pockets of pleasure, glimpses of joy, among the anxiety. It's the way the two modes mix—the anxiety amid successes, the disappointments along the way, the hopeful dubiousness...