“Unveiling Secrets: What Columbus Never Knew About His Journey”
It’s my dad who should be here — all those Roth novels in our living room belong to him. The sight of his favorite writer would have him crossing Columbus, calm but delighted, to introduce himself and his daughter. He’d tell Roth he was from Newark, too — a cold-water flat on the other side of Park Avenue—and that “Cathy works as a copy editor, and she lives down the block.”
If he’d had his way, I would have grown up a city kid. When I was six, Dad proposed a move to my mom after he’d secretly lined up a job for himself in the city. “Over my dead body,” was her reply, and that was that. To her, New York was the gateway to all manner of fantasy, folly, and vice. Their daughter would grow up in a house with a backyard. If Dad wanted to get away from the squares of New Jersey, he could take the 50-minute drive in himself.
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