Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
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A Reader Asks: What Was That Old New Yorker Story I Can't Get Out of My Mind?
Filed under: Letters & Challenges Tagged: anthologies, books, Complete New Yorker, fiction, Roger Angell
A learned reader who owns The Complete New Yorker was still unable to track down a story that’s haunting him. Can you help? We tried, too. No dice. Whoever writes in first with the correct answer, whatever it is, wins a copy of The New Gilded Age, in my opinion one freaking fantastic document of our times.
I read a New Yorker short story circa 1966 that has been haunting me ever since but have been unable to track down. All I remember (I think) is that it was about a summer romance in Brooklyn or some place like that, and it had a kicker of an ending in which it was revealed that the hero, who had been called by some more or less dashing name, was really named Howard. Then there was a sort of implication that the two lovers never saw each other again. In around 1979 I described this to Roger Angell, for whom it rang no bells. Then yesterday I was on a 9 1/2 hour flight from Rome and opened up NYer on DVD and searched consecutively for “summer,” “summer romance,” “Brooklyn,” etc., and looked at summaries for everything between 1960 and 1971, but had no luck. Do you have any suggestions?
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
You'd like to know more about the writers and artists and what our column titles mean? We live to serve!
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive new contributors. Click here to email us.
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Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
- Follow us on Twitter
- Befriend us on Facebook
- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
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Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
Comments
It may have not been in the New Yorker! You may have read it somewhere else, and thought wow! this is a great New Yorker story, but it wasn’t there…perhaps slumming in Esquire?
Now that we have the Complete New Yorker on dvd, and Playboy magazine coming out this fall, and MAD magazine already out on dvd, I suggest someone come out with the complete Esquire. I would definitely buy it
for the old covers.