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Allen Shawn's Memoir, "Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life"

Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Allen Shawn, books, design, Lillian Ross, music, William Shawn

From the Daily News today (link mine):

WISH I COULD BE THERE by Allen Shawn (Viking, $24.95). Shawn, a composer, writer and son of the legendary former editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, suffers from both claustrophobia and agoraphobia - which means his fears mount both indoors and out. In a book that is a memoir as well as a scientific exploration of phobias, he searches his childhood and the workings of the brain for an understanding. His background was privileged but troubled and it seemed he is further betrayed by his neurophysiology. A must-read for the panic-prone.

I'm really looking forward to reading this. You should click on the Amazon link to, at the very least, admire Viking's evocative, closed-in, subtly sad book-jacket design. If anyone knows who designed it—Amazon's not letting me see inside the book—let me know. (Update: The book-jacket designer is Herb Thornby. Thanks, helpful reader-tipster!) "Wish I Could Be There" sounds like a play on "Wish You Were Here," but it would seem to echo another book title, "Here But Not Here," as well.

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Emdashes, founded in 2004 by Emily Gordon, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

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