Oral History Masterpieces by Craig Taylor: Londoners, New Yorkers

Londoners and New Yorkers, by Craig Taylor, are an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the two cities, and the lives of the people who live there

I’ve been to London once – spent a few days in the city in 2010, and found it quite fascinating. And while I’ve never been able to visit New York, it’s one place where I hope to go someday. I believe London and New York must be two of the greatest cities in the world, cities that hundreds of thousands of people aspire to visit, see and experience. Some want to live and work there, some love those cities and, I’m sure, many might also dislike these cities. But in any case, London and New York aren’t cities that you can easily ignore. And if you can’t actually go there, I suppose reading about these cities might be the next best thing.

Two of the most remarkably interesting and eminently readable books about the two cities have been written by the New York-based author, Craig Taylor. For his books, both of which are oral histories of sorts, Taylor went out and spoke to a wide range of regular people – immigrants, taxi drivers, commercial pilots, engineers, driving instructors, plumbers, traders, counsellors, students, photographers, commuters, cleaners… the list is pretty much endless. And he has used their stories to illustrate London and New York, the way these cities are, the life they offer, what they have to give, and what they take away from those who choose to live there. It’s a fascinating method and one that Taylor has used to great effect.

‘Taylor is, like many of the best writers about London, an outsider, having grown up in a small seaside village in western Canada before moving to the UK in the year 2000. What makes Londoners as valuable as any sociological treatise is Taylor’s appreciation of the ways in which his subjects are themselves surveying, analysing and theorising the turbulent city in which they live. Taylor’s confidants prove that the city inspires its inhabitants to coin neologisms, torque meanings and create striking turns of phrase. On occasions Londoners attains a level of eloquence as beautiful and blue as anything to be found in the works of Jean Rhys or Samuel Selvon,’ says The Guardian. ‘Londoners [is] a rich and exuberant kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noisy, daunting, inspiring, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting Rorschach test of a place. Though countless excellent books have been written on the city, this is the one that best captures what it’s like to live in London right now, through the words of the people themselves,’ adds The New York Times.

‘An ambitious and entertaining attempt to channel the city’s collective voice, New Yorkers is a collection of interviews – oral histories somewhat in the mode of what Svetlana Alexievich (Belarusian Nobel prize laureate) calls ‘documentary literature.’ Taylor introduces us to people who provide services to the wealthy [and] characters with colourful, quintessentially Gotham jobs. Much of the pleasure of New Yorkers comes from a kind of sly parataxis, the rhetorical trope in which elements are placed side by side, without being overtly connected together,’ says The Guardian. ‘The joys and agonies of New York City – what Taylor unabashedly calls ‘the greatest ongoing flicker of human life I’ve ever encountered’ – are the subject of a teeming oral history. The kaleidoscopic portrait captures the city’s thrilling lexical diversity, as well as moments of grace, compassion, cruelty, and racism,’ says The New Yorker.

If you have ever been even remotely interested in London and New York, and the lives of those who live there, you owe it to yourself to read these two books.

Londoners and New Yorkers are available on Amazon