Last year I started a million books and didn’t finish a single one. I used to be a big reader but I somehow renounced that person the minute I downloaded TikTok. I’m trying to get back on track and read at least one book a month this year. It’s February 1st and I have already finished two books so I’m already surprising myself.
I technically started the first book I read at the end of December but I’m counting it. It was Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. I have a good history with Salinger. Everyone hated Holden Caulfield's character when we read The Catcher in the Rye in my sophomore English class. I secretly kept my liking for him in my heart out of fear people would hate me too. You’re not really supposed to like Holden, anyway. He’s callous and bitter and doesn’t change in the end but I adored his rebellion growing up. I never thought about how I related to Holden until I recently recollected my terrible time in high school and my hometown. All I wanted to do was move to New York and get away from the fake people I knew… yeah it sounds familiar (and pretentious and out-of-touch). Anyways, I told a friend about this and she said it makes sense that I decided to move to New York. Now I feel some sort of weird ownership towards the city, even though I never grew up there but lived adjacent to it my whole life. I act like I’m not a gentrifier myself when I clearly am. Zooey actually says to Franny on page 132,
“‘The trouble with me is, I don’t trust any out-of-towners in New York. I don’t care how the hell long they’ve been here. I’m always afraid they’re going to get run over, or beaten up, while they’re busy discovering some little Armenian restaurant on Second Avenue. Or some damn thing.’”
Zooey is a born and raised New Yorker, but I can relate to him. If r/AskNYC has taught me anything, so do lots of people. I think this is a universal feeling for everyone who moves out to New York and has been here long enough to have a routine. It’s what I call the “NYU effect.” We all think we’re unique and different because we chose New York when in reality we’re just feeding on our own egos.
Franny and Zooey felt so much like Donna Tartt characters. Pretension, slight delusion, a bit of queerness, and old money antics. The Glass Family that Franny and Zooey are a part of is composed of well-read geniuses. The kids were even on a radio show that tested their intelligence called "It's a Wise Child.” I can only imagine what kind of old-money NYC brownstone-raised children they would be in today’s world; probably made famous by cheesy Facebook videos about their intelligence. Their unusual upbringing made them kind of weird and awkward. Zooey sits in the bathtub for what feels like the entirety of the book with his mother weaving in and out of the bathroom even in his adult age.
I ended up starting this book while loitering in my hometown Starbucks in that purgatory period between Christmas and New Year’s eve. I actually got the idea of beginning a Substack while sitting in this exact spot. I transcribed my journal entry from that day:
It’s kinda sticky in here. The ground is crunchy with salt from the parking lot and crumbs from croissants. The staff is fairly gay and polite. Their kindness wrapped up in the tone of a New Jersey accent.
My mouth is coated in residue from foamed oat milk. I’m simultaneously charged from the espresso and lethargic from the hot sun shining on my back through the window. My black wool turtleneck is electric against my skin as I rub static throughout my body every time I flip a page of the book I'm reading. I’ve been in here for way too long now–my only patronage worth 2 grande drinks and a cheese and cracker box paid with year-old gifts cards. I might leave any minute now but I don’t want to go back home and be alone with my thoughts.
When I return to my hometown, I experience nothing but dichotomies. I hate being there because of all the bad memories regarding racism and family trauma. Yet I love being there because of the comfort in what I know and what I’m used to.
Is hating your hometown some kind of biological response that urges offspring to distance themselves from their parents and grow up? I find myself immediately reverting to my grim mood and unhealthy habits of high school. It’s not inherently bad to stay in your hometown. That’s not what I’m saying at all, but I personally did not have a good experience growing up.
I can’t help but compare myself to every person that walks in. I think about how many used to fit into my old life. They could have been my bully, a parent of a friend, a substitute teacher. I think about people I never see or have any inkling of their existence in my current life. It is somehow entirely a portrait of all of Monmouth County in this Starbucks. No one wears coats because they drive everywhere and don’t need to be in the cold. Sweatpants and flannel bottoms are the uniform here. And of course, there is the occasional white mom in head-to-toe Michael Kors. For some reason, everyone is short here.
That’s it for this edition of Bad Gateway. Subscribe or not, I’ll still keep writing!