In “The Referees,” your story in this week’s issue, a man named Rob is trying to rent an apartment in a co-op building. However, he’s having trouble getting the reference letters that the co-op board requires. Is there a particularly New York way in which real estate and self-worth are entwined? Is the message of this story, finally, “leave New York”?
The New York real-estate market is a realm of evil. Just as the term “business ethics” refers to the commercial world’s exemption from normal ideas of right and wrong, persons involved in New York real-estate transactions are subject to a weird regime of immorality, or amorality. To successfully deal in New York property—to rent or buy or remortgage—is, apparently, a question of making sure that your defrauding and screwing of the other guy more is more efficient than his hoodwinking and double-crossing of you. How this ties into the question of self-worth is interesting: bourgeois hysteria is undoubtedly a powerful factor in all of this. I’m not sure what my story’s message is, but I would certainly urge people to leave New York. That might bring down home prices for the rest of us.
Is this the moment to note that more than fifty thousand New Yorkers are now homeless?
Is Rob’s difficulty the result of some grave personal failing, or are we meant to think that this is a problem that could affect any one of us, if we’re not careful?
I have no idea, of course. I’m done with this story now, and am as mystified by it as the next person. I suppose I can say that, on re-reading it, I see little evidence that Rob is guilty of much more than being a guy in a tight spot. But he certainly seems to be ashamed of something, doesn’t he? And why not? What person of sensitivity is not ashamed?
This is one of those stories that, were it not so funny, would be intolerably sad. Is that a register that especially appeals to you, and can you think of some of your favorite novels or stories that deal with this territory?
It’s hard to think of a worthwhile writer who doesn’t deal in black comedy. Three Cs—O’Connor, Carver, Cheever—jump to mind here. And three Jews—Heller, Bellow, and Roth. And three Irishmen—Joyce, Beckett, and O’Brien. And Kafka and Spark. And…
