They wanted to be anonymous

... bit of back-blipping about to commence!

Mentioned a few days ago that I'd received quite a few (very welcome!) book-tokens over the Christmas-period - one of the volumes I've purchased is Robin Robertson's recent, "The Long Take" (2018, as pictured) and I simply cannot put it down :-)

Here's a brief excerpt from the opening chapter:


1946

People; just like him.
Having given up the country for the city,
boredom for fear, the faces
gather here in the streets
like spectators in a dream.
They wanted to be anonymous
not swallowed whole, not to disappear.
Now they spend their days on South Street
or down at the Battery, their nights
in the Bowery flophouses, the cage-hotels,
tight packed like herrings in a creel.

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Robin Robertson (1955 - )

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