His Dark materials

New York magazine asked some folks for their favorite "overlooked" book of the past 20 years...I picked...this.

Extra value (?!) for Dizzyheads: The unedited version! (Though I like the way they boiled it down...)

In brief chapters, with the most scrupulously intense sentences—pitch perfect, pitch dark—this side of Renata Adler, _______ conjures a hugely sad New York novel that feels at once state of the art and stunningly ancient. (It ends on September 8, 2001.) His epigrammatic wit, always right below the surface, makes the darkness bearable—don't we all know someone who could be described like this?: "If you ask Edie how she is, you don't have to say another word for at least an hour."