Starred review from June 12, 2006
Lanpher, a journalist, spins cultural vertigo into comedy after forsaking her native Midwest for New York in 2004, at age 44, to cohost Al Franken's radio show on Air America—a gig that demands the good-natured wit and epigrammatic aplomb on display here. "I came of middle-age in Manhattan," she writes, a city in constant flux that strikes her as a fitting spot to undergo her own transitions. Recently divorced and largely friendless, she readily acknowledges the hurdles she faces in the Big Apple—compounded by the insecurity of living in a younger, slimmer city. But Lanpher finds kindness in the crowds, and her zingers (often flung at her own expense) render her narration upbeat. Though her name is linked with liberalism, her memoir's focus is more personal than political: a reflection on midlife's transition and a cultural comedy of manners, as she marks the rituals of becoming a "true New Yorker," growing savvy about everything from the corner bodega to the wheel-greasing "baksheesh." First flummoxed, then smitten, by Manhattan's "tough-love" demeanor and colorful hordes, she rehashes her "fish-out-of-water" encounters with poignant candor and unconcealed wonder, all in a quest to find a way to call Manhattan home.