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A Writer's Life
by Michael Greenberg
To the literary elite, Michael Greenberg has always been known for his trenchant and moving columns that appear biweekly in the Times Literary Supplement. But when critics hailed his memoir Hurry Down Sunshine as a classic, Greenberg became a household name. Beg, Borrow, Steal is an autobiography in installments, set in New York, where the author depicts the life of a writer of little means trying to practice his craft, or simply stay alive. He finds himself writing about golf, a game that he never played; doctoring doomed movie scripts; driving trucks and taxis; selling cosmetics from an ironing board in front of a women's department store; and botching his debut as a waiter in a coveted five-star restaurant.
Central characters include the City of All Cities; Michael's father, whose scrap metal business looms large; his elegant mother; his first wife, Robin, whom he met in a Greenwich Village high school; their son, Aaron, who grew up on the Lower East Side; a repentant communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War; a Chilean filmmaker in search of his past; rats who behave like humans; beggars who are poets; a man who becomes a woman; and a woman who prefers to live underground. Greenberg creates a world where the familial, the incongruous, the literary, the humorous, the tragic, and the prosaic not only speak to each other, but deeply enjoy the exchange.
Praising Greenberg and his column in the New York Times, Rachel Donadio wrote: "Imagine The Talk of the Town as if written by Dostoyevsky." This is an entirely original book, whose writing is magical and whose insights are deceptively profound.
"From odd jobs and family drama to political unrest in Argentina and the many pitfalls of memoir writing, Greenberg skillfully explores issues that range from the profoundly tragic to the delightfully funny. Succinct, entertaining personal narratives." - Kirkus Reviews
"These are graceful ponderings by a deeply sympathetic soul, a consummate New Yorker and terrific writer." - Publishers Weekly
"Greenberg, a native New Yorker, loves the city as a child loves a parent, and in its honor he has put together a collection of tightly written incisive chapters, each another tessera or tile in a big mosaic…Greenberg is an acute observer (if ‘acute’ is defined as sharp, sensitive, even painful)." – Edmund White, The New York Times Book Review
"Each piece is about four pages long, which makes this a quick and easy read, especially for subway or bus commuters; recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs and essays." - Library Journal
"Greenberg’s book is an important reminder to writers that they don’t need to write ‘important’ stories, but rather, they need to give each story importance." – Carol Hoening, The Huffington Post
"A] terrific new collection….It is as though Bellow or Alfred Kazin were transported to post-millennial New York, bringing their toughness and romanticism to bear on our softer and more familiar world….This book, with its intrepidity, humor, and dark insight, offers its own, irrefutable justification for the ‘writer’s life.’" – Adam Kirsch, Tablet
This information about Beg, Borrow, Steal was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A native New Yorker, Michael Greenberg is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Hurry Down Sunshine (2008), which was chosen as one of the best books of 2008 by Time, the San Francisco Chronicle, Amazon.com, and Library Journal. He is a columnist for the Times Literary Supplement (UK), where his wide ranging essays have been appearing since 2003. His fiction, criticism, and travel pieces have been published in such varied places as O, The Oprah Magazine and The New York Review of Books. He lives in New York with his wife and son.
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Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down.
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