Broyard’s Greenwich Village memoir, Kafka was the Rage, makes me deeply nostalgic for my first “feelings” about New York.

It revives memories of my own time, of people and situations thought lost, and restores to me a great warmth I only seem to get now when New York is decked out for the holidays.

Too late to thank Anatole in person and pick his brain for more of those small details that unlock my own repository of observations which become the tableware and serving pieces of the stories I would write.

Shallow Thoughts and Glib Reactions

“Do not wait for inspiration to motivate you to the keyboard and convert your thoughts into words--your muse is beguiled by the same distractions you are.”

On the Reading List

for entertainment and enlightenment:

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (feeding my morbid curiosity for how relationships fracture and founder) 

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (returning to the foundry floor of my formative years)

Kafka was the Rage by Anatole Broyard (CPR for my own New York memories)

Click the image above to be magically transported to Amazon for these titles.
Bozophobia and Immortalman can still be found on Amazon and through Bookshop.org.

Check out Scott on Substack

Check out Scott on Instagram

Click on In the Works link here or in the menu above to read excerpts of longer pieces Scott is developing for publication.

Click on the Meter Readings link here to sample Scott's adventures in versicular mayhem.

Click on Going Off-Road link here to read about those times when the pavement gives out and the story is the journey.

Click on Credits link here or in the menu bar above to see where else Scott's short fiction has appeared. Click the title to read the piece.

All text (c) Scott Parson

Header image:  Joel Meyerowitz, New York City, 1964 (cropped)