Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York

From one of our most admired (and feared) cultural critics, a memoir that captures all the gritty, grubby glamour of New York in the awful/wonderful Seventies.

In the autumn of 1972, a very young and green James Wolcott arrived in New York from Maryland, full of literary dreams, equipped with a letter of introduction from Norman Mailer, and having no idea what was about to hit him. Landing at a time of accelerating municipal squalor and, paradoxically, gathering cultural energy in all spheres as "Downtown" became a category of art and life unto itself, he embarked upon his sentimental education, seventies New York style. This portrait of a critic as a young man is also a rollicking, acutely observant portrait of a legendary time and place. Mixing grit and glitter in just the right proportions, suffused with affection for the talented and sometimes half-crazed denizens of the scene, it will make readers long for a time when you really could get mugged around here.

Author: James Wolcott
Publisher: Anchor Books
Published: 10/02/2012
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 7.96h x 5.43w x 0.76d
ISBN: 9780767930628

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 11/18/2012 pg. 28

About the Author
JAMES WOLCOTT is a longtime columnist and blogger for Vanity Fair. He is the author of a novel, The Catsitters, and the non­fiction work Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants. He lives in New York with his wife, the critic and novelist Laura Jacobs, and their three ocicats, Jasper, Henry, and Veronica.