Why We Came To The City: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Five years after their college graduation, four devoted friends remain as inseparable as ever. As this absorbing novel opens, they are making their way through heavy snowfall to gather at a lavish art world holiday party. But for all the glitz and glamour, the festivities mark a more momentous evening than any of them realise. Irene will first notice a curious lump under her eye. William will fall desperately in love with her. And George will, at long last, ask Sara to marry him. All good - until the devastating blow hits.

Reviews

Praise forWhy We Came to the City

A tremendous accomplishment: anelegantand deeply moving meditation on friendship and mortality, bothfearless and finely wrought.I believe this book will stay with me for a very long time.
Emily St. John Mandel, author ofStation Eleven

Stunning . . . A beautiful, sprawling, and generous book. Jansma is a brilliantly talented writer, but he also has a unique insight into what friends mean to one another, and what it means to be part of a city in which you never quite belong, but cant quite bring yourself to leave. Its a heartfelt novel, tender and painful and cathartic all at once, and even if the characters belong to New York, the story belongs to us all.
Michael Schaub, NPR

A brilliant stylist, Kristopher Jansma draws readers into an intricate web of lives in the big city in his astonishing new work. He writes with power and passion . . . and inhabits his characters, thinking what they think and feeling what they feel so compellingly that he pulls the reader into the story and wont let go. . . . A wonderful, unforgettable novel.
Miami Herald

Jansmas novel is a love letter to Manhattan, the letter so many of us who moved here in our 20s have written. . . . Like the rest of us, his characters learn that things dont always work out the way we plan, but if we stick with our city, our city delivers.
Helen Ellis,The New York Times Book Review

Enticing . . . Much like a modern Great Gatsby, this book is awash in the feeling of the city.
Melissa Ragsdale, Bustle

Fans of Bret Easton Elliss stream-of-consciousness narrativeswill enjoy Jasmas paean to New York City.
In Style

Joyful and tragic, Jansmas book will appeal to readers who loved Hanya YanagiharasA Little Life.
Mens Journal

As the characters navigate the complexities of an untimely and unexpected tragedy . . . Jansma artfully counters the heaviness of these themes with a delightful, and at times laugh-out-loud hilarious, narrative. Dialogues are smart, absurd, and addictive; and the authors insights border on the philosophically expansive and profound.
Santa Cruz Sentinel

"Like A Little Life and The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Jansma's Why We Came to the Cityshows us, with beauty and insight, what it's like to be young and smart in this time, and in this place. It's a major achievement."
Darin Strauss, author ofHalf a Life

Why did we come to the city, anywayAnd why on earth would we ever leaveIn Jansma's able hands, these are and are not metaphors. We came because we are more ourselves as part of a collective.We came to learn our limits.We came so that we might know when to leave.This is a lively, addictive party of a book, and you're invited."
Elisa Albert, author ofAfter Birth

Fantastic. This beautiful, boisterous novel is a paean to New York, to the hubris of youthful optimism, and, especially, to the powerful magnet of friendship. Its full of as much heartache and humor as the city itself. And like the city, this story will break you apart in a dozen ways, only to teach you, tenderly, how to put yourself back together. I wanted it never to end, but when I read the last page, I loved it even more. Jansma is a star.
Alena Graedon, author of The Word Exchange

Kristopher Jansmas dazzling Why We Came to the City is at once a tribute and a breakup letter to New York, timeless as the elegant architectural details that jut ornately from older buildings, yet timely as a phone freighted with an urgent missive. The constellation of relationships he charts feels so vivid and visceral that we not only see it but find ourselves caught, swaying in its gravitational tugs and tilts. In page after page abounding with wit, candor, and compassion, Jansma reveals the indelible nature of our connections and commitments to one another, along with their gossamer fragility.
Tim Horvath, author of Understories

Lively and elegant . . .poised to make Jansma a name you know.
Meredith Turits

A deeply emotional ode to friendship . . . Jansmas narrative shines.
Kirkus Reviews

Jansmas compelling paean to New York City features a group of post-college friends who manage the vagaries of love and friendship against the backdrop of living in the big city. . . . A tightly written, smartly conceived story that puts an insightful spin on life in the Big Apple.
Publishers Weekly

This hefty novel, with its multiple characters and shifting relationships, is the kind that book clubs will love. . . . Gets at the heart of what its like to be young and alive in the big city.
Library Journal

Author Bio

Kristopher Jansma is the author of The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, winner of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award. A graduate of Columbia University's MFA program, he is now an assistant professor of English and creative writing at SUNY New Paltz and a graduate lecturer in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. He has written for the New York Times, Salon, The Believer, The Millions, Slice, BOMB, and Electric Literature. He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn, New York. From the Hardcover edition.