The funny thing about New York is that so many of us dream of getting here, then we do and either end up stuck here, or give up and leave leave. Those that leave either do so because they found something better elsewhere, or they just can’t deal with the high rent, over-priced everything, smelly summers, and shitty neighbors. I should mention that I chose to use the word “stuck” for the rest of us only because no matter how content you are–is there really such thing as a content New Yorker?–once this city has you, it is really difficult to get away from its grip. 

That’s why in some small way, the anthology of stories edited by Sari Botton, Goodbye to All That, is sort of like a survival manuel for those of us that don’t see a clear way out of here because either we’re tied to our careers, family, friends, or maybe just too lazy to get a drivers license. It gives us some hope, but it gives us so much more than that.

If you’re in currently New York, you left here, or you’ve never had the faintest plans to move here, the stories written by some of our favorites like Mira Ptacin, Roxane Gay, Emily St. John Mandel, and others, offer something for everybody, and with the nod to Didion in the title, you can’t really go wrong with this great collection.

Read: Emily Gould’s “I Left New York for Moscow” from Goodbye to All That at Salon.

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