The collision of New York City and the 20th Century was a goldmine for the written word. It was fertile ground for the entire spectrum of human emotion on display in public and at close quarters. Working class immigrant strivers,  creatives yearning for a big break, Industrialists flaunting their wealth, and lonely office workers daydreaming atop skyscrapers all become the finely calibrated articulations of extraordinary poets and journalists and fiction writers. Bernard Malamud's The Cost of Living tells in fine grain detail a story of economic anxiety you can feel in your bones. John McNulty, a journalist working in a form now mostly forgotten, tells little urban folk tales in black and white prose that practically give off the scent of newsprint. Or Mary McCarthy's The Genial Host a descendant of Fitzgerald's Gatsby that leaves behind an acrid aftertaste of cynicism in post-war Manhattan. The City pushes a lot of people to the brink. We're lucky that there's this record of those who could tell what they saw there without falling into the abyss.