Narnia, Middle-earth and New York were my three fantasy universes when I was a kid.

I associated excellence in writing with New York City.

There was nothing New York liked reading about more than itself.

I fell in love with New York at some indeterminate point in my early years.

I have this weird tropism for islands. Take me to an island as far from New York as I can possibly go.

Even before the letter he'd been divided: one part of him swanning with Jay Gatsby around an imaginary Gotham; the other part stolid and earthbound, nose to the deep fryer, in the stifling, sizzling South.