Notebook

Notebook

Share this post

Notebook
Notebook
new writing: the princess of 72nd street (elaine kraf, 1979)

new writing: the princess of 72nd street (elaine kraf, 1979)

at the washington post

BDM
Aug 09, 2024
∙ Paid
23

Share this post

Notebook
Notebook
new writing: the princess of 72nd street (elaine kraf, 1979)
Share
This file comes from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) or Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). These are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consist of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written reports.
72ND STREET STATION. NORTH ENTRANCE FACADE. - Interborough Rapid Transit Subway (Original Line), New York, New York County, NY

At the Washington Post, I have a review of Modern Library’s new edition of Elaine Kraf’s The Princess of 72nd Street. I feel like it is a pretty exemplary version of the type of book that it is and every time I write some version of that statement it sounds like a put down but it’s not I swear:

It’s no insult to Kraf’s novel to say that if one were to imagine a perfect specimen of a “forgotten classic” by a woman writer from the 1960s and ’70s, you might come up with “The Princess of 72nd Street.” Like Renata Adler’s “Speedboat,” Elizabeth Hardwick’s “Sleepless Nights,” Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Woman Destroyed” or Iris Owens’s “After Claude,” it’s a slender, accomplished and frequently funny work told from the perspective of a lively and bruised female consciousness. Like those books, it focuses primarily on the narrator’s inner life rather than on external eve…

This post is for paid subscribers

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 B.D. McClay
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share