New York City is not only *The New Yorker'*s place of origin and its
sensibility's lifeblood; it is the heart of American literary culture.
Wonderful Town collects superb short fiction by many of the
magazine's and this country's most accomplished writers. Like all good
fiction, these stories take particular places, particular people, and
particular events and turn them into dramas of universal enlightenment
and emotional impact. Here New York is every great place and every
ordinary place. Each life in it, and each life in Wonderful Town, is
the life of us all.