Well.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, especially as I believe I was one of the Project Gutenberg proofers who worked on stages 1 or 2 of the transcription process so would have read a portion of this at some point. However, reminded as I was by the Neglected Books blog, a link for which you can find on the right there somewhere, I downloaded it for free and got cracking.
And stopped almost immediately.
Although I did eventually get through the ordeal, I did so out of an uncomfortable obligation. An elegy for or an ode to a Broadway that no longer exists, Mel Heimer's tired and dated characterisation of the human flotsam and jetsam that would wash up along the titular Big Drag is a chore to read. Yes, it may be an important snap-shot of a bygone era, a pithy and whip-smart literary observation of a very limited time and place, but it is also of almost no interest to me whatsoever. I could care less what the hat-check girls thought or at what time the various sleazy denizens took their breakfast, or where.
You, dear reader, may well have a legitimate interest in Broadway's past, or New York's evolution from bartered-away Dutch colony to the Covid Capital of the World, but it's not for me. However, if you do, don't whatever you do pay the Amazon price for it. It's available for free by clicking this link.
(The picture link is a paid link for Amazon)
Comments
Post a Comment