Moving to New York used to be a choice-a creative one, despite its eternal popularity-for people so devoted to nurturing their creativity that they were willing to overlook the strains of actually, you know, living there. I speak not from experience, really, but from my reading. Edith Wharton's writing career only truly began after Henry James advised her, "Use the American subject! Do New York! There it is round you." New York forces its resident to serve as constant interpreter-laying out the whole of "the American subject" in the petty triumphs and real inequities one finds. I always, when I was a student and lived in New York, found this [...]