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There aren’t a lot of writers left who can hold the titles of bohemian and iconoclast, but Bruce Benderson is still one of them. Well known for his novels “The Romanian” and “User,” Benderson thrived in the darker days of Times Square when it was a home to pimps, drug dealers and hustlers, a rabble William S. Burroughs once called “hipster-bebop junkies.” Benderson didn’t just write fiction about this world, he also wrote several scholarly essays and profiles which have been collected for the first time in the book “Sex and Isolation.” Together, they are history, literary and social review – a fascinating cross-section of a world most people wouldn’t dare to get to close to when it was around and will never have an opportunity to experience again. Benderson’s essays are certainly not conservative: he makes no attempt to hide his distaste for the tourist-friendly version of Times Square, explicitly describes his online sexual encounters and speaks affectionately of random drug use and promiscuity. What makes them work so well is that he’s not pushing them out of rebellion, but nostalgia – it was this culture that helped him find out who he was. |
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