In a wonderfully nostalgic and bittersweet collection, Goodbye To All That features the stories of 30 New Yorkers at a time when they either left the city or considered leaving. The collection is inspired by Joan Didion’s iconic essay of the same name about leaving New York after eight years of living and working there. Originally published in 2013, this second edition features seven new pieces documenting the dramatic changes to the city in less than a decade, from the acceleration of gentrification to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The collection takes up the themes of Didion’s essay, offering stories from New Yorkers at various different ages and stages in their careers who each offer their own perspective on what it means to leave or lose the city they love. Editor Sari Botton says each of the writers in this collection have all, “after once being enamored with the city and excited by its literary scene, over time become largely disenchanted with both.” These pieces offer the personal stories of several writers that have permanently left New York, contemplated leaving, or left and eventually returned. With seven new pieces written in 2020, this collection acknowledges the truth of loving and leaving New York: many of those who become disenchanted and leave (including Didion herself) regret their decision and return. The collection pays homage to Didion’s essay and New York City in a beautiful yet realistic way.

The final piece in the new collection is Emily Rabouteau’s “Shelter in Place,” an essay that recalls the early days of the pandemic when New York was the American epicentre. As one of the strongest pieces of the whole book, Rabouteau’s piece sticks out because unlike all of her co-writers, she doesn’t leave New York. Instead, it’s the city’s wealthiest inhabitants that leave her behind as the city shutters. Rabouteau is wonderfully skilled at highlighting the class divide in New York City. While she and her lower-class neighbours stay put, watching the city she loves be ridiculed on the news, and longing for the return of the art and culture that make New York feel like home, her wealthier neighbours escape to second houses in the Hamptons.  

My favourite of the new additions is “Eleven True Things” by Ada Limón. In the listicle, Limón eloquently articulates her gradual realization that she no longer feels like a New Yorker, starting with the moment when she gets hit by someone coming out of the subway escalator because she forgets to move out of the way. “A real New Yorker would know better,” she writes. “A real New Yorker doesn’t look up or down; they look straight ahead.” Limón writes about leaving New York as if she is mourning a lost loved one, perfectly articulating the bittersweet nostalgia that is threaded through each essay in the collection. 

As is often the case in collections of works by different writers, some essays steal the spotlight while others leave more to be desired. Danielle A. Jackson’s “Brooklyn Summer”, an essay where she recalls her childhood in Memphis and decides to return home after a few years in Harlem because of a job offer, is somewhat lacklustre. Sandwiched between two essays by life-long New Yorkers making peace with leaving the city they’ve lived in their whole lives, Jackson’s piece seems to lack the intense, intimate connection with the city that makes other pieces in the collection feel so personal.

However, even the weakest pieces in Goodbye To All That do a fantastic job of articulating the fluidity of being a New Yorker, and the realities of a city that could never live up to our romanticized fantasies of it. Each of these writers discuss the constant pull of the city, even after decades away. Limón explains it beautifully: “Leaving New York is impossible. It’s as if you are the gum and it is the hair; you are stuck and the more you pull away the more it hurts and tears you apart.” At a time when COVID-19 has left New York City considerably altered and has engendered conversations about whether the city will ever return to what it once was, this collection is a fabulous reminder of the pull this city has on those entangled in it, just like gum in your hair.