In 1998, with a sublet lined up but without jobs, Rebecca McClanahan and her husband left North Carolina and moved to New York City. They were well into middle age. (“Isn’t that backwards?” asked one of McClanahan’s nieces. “Don’t most people go to New York when they’re young?”) Expecting to stay for two years, they stayed for eleven – a time frame that included 9/11 and a serious illness.
Out of this experience comes McClanahan’s new book, In The Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays (Red Hen Press). Nancy Geyer talks with McClanahan, who has made a dozen contributions to Brevity over the years, about the crafting of her memoir, with a focus on conveying setting.
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