My Ears Are Bent
Famed New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, as a young newspaper reporter in 1930s New York, interviewed fan dancers, street evangelists, voodoo conjurers, not to mention a lady boxer who also happened to be a countess. Mitchell haunted parts of the city now vanished: the fish market, burlesque houses, tenement neighborhoods, and storefront churches. Whether he wrote about a singing first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers or a nudist who does a reverse striptease, Mitchell brilliantly illuminated the humanity in the oddest New Yorkers. These pieces, written primarily for The World-Telegram and The Herald Tribune, highlight his abundant gifts of empathy and observation, and give us the full-bodied picture of the famed New Yorker…
$24.95
July 8, 2008Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996) came to New York City on October 25, 1929, from the swamp country of southeastern North Carolina. He worked as a reporter and feature writer for The World, The Herald Tribune, and The World-Telegram for eight years, and then went to The New Yorker, where he remained until his death. Mitchell's interests included the waterfront and architecture of New York City, commercial fishing, Southern agriculture, and Irish literature.