Brooklyn Is -- Southeast of the Island: Travel Notes
Criticism, Customs and cultures, United States travel and geography
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
In 1939, James Agee was working for Fortune magazine. Commissioned to write an article on Brooklyn for a special issue on New York, Agee moved to the Flatbush neighborhood for two months, later producing "Southeast of the Island: Travel Notes".… As had earlier happened with the essay that was to become his classic portrait of southern farmers, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men", Fortune declined to publish, and the essay remained unpublished until its 1968 Esquire appearance under the title "Brooklyn Is". In the words of Brooklyn-born novelist Jonathan Lethem, who provides the introduction to the essay in this volume, "the narrative rises up on the swirling imaged-junked cone of Agee's prophetic style to see the borough and its people whole".