An Enlarged Heart

This is a lovely and poetic collection of essays by the poet, Cynthia Zarin. Unlike for other reviewers cited on the book’s blurb, her writing in no way reminded me of Joan Didion. However, these essays are readable and convey a New Yorker’s view of the world: the problems of real estate, space, employment and the transient nature of city life. In the respect of change or as Didion would say as things fall apart, they are alike, but not in the style of writing. “Some restaurant stories are tales of the lost world,” she writes. In the big city, there is a changing panorama of ownership, facades and lost worlds. Like the apartment she writes of with the long hallway, there is no place of refuge in this world. She writes of her time at the New Yorker, starting in the typing pool without typing skills. Being promoted after three days; things seem to happen without any discernible rationale. Like the apartment searches in an unaffordable city. This reader looks forward to many more Zarin essays. A trip to New York City without plane fare.