“Accessible and brimming with erudition. . . . Charyn writes with passionate precision about writers, films and filmmakers, about New York’s marginalized classes, and all manner of cultural icons. . . . [He] deftly blends the stories of his own life with the stories of those whose ordeals, failures, and victories hold special meaning for him as symptomatic of the American experience. . . . Wherever he takes us, Charyn’s mind is always agile, and his prose is stunningly electric.”