Home Boy signals belonging by exact knowledge of New York geography

Evidence

The feeling of being “at home” works its way out in the command of space and the emphasis on precise topography. The first few pages name-check the Bronx, Jersey City, and Chelsea, and Chuck describes the boys’ lifestyle in geographical terms: “We slummed in secret cantons of Central Park, avoided the meatpacking district, often dined in Jackson Heights” (1). Like the questing, peripatetic protagonists of Auster’s New York Trilogy, Chuck and his friends undertake journeys in search of pleasure or the latest buzz that display the city’s diversity: “Each turn promised something else. You would see crazy fistfights in Yonkers, crazy wedding parties in Chinatown. You would meet the great celebrities of our age, raise your thumb to that naked Cowboy guitarist in Times Square” (62). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 300

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to reading Naqvi against/alongside The Reluctant Fundamentalist — both protagonists root belonging in precise knowledge of the host city; connects to the reader’s central task with the two novels as evidence.