Goodbye to all that

She's a beautiful writer with a very distinct voice. Observant, noticing the telling details.

Her essay compilations "Slouching towards Bethlehem" and "The White Album" are essential reading if you're interested in California in the late 1960s and into the 1970s -- she lived in LA at the time, and is definitely an outsider to the hippie/boomer explosion, some of the side-effects of which are in the essays. (The essay above was about her move from Manhattan to LA; she grew up in Sacramento.)

Another influential essay of hers is "The Deferential Spirit" from 1996 (teaser at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1996/sep/19/the-def...) which demolishes the technique and works of Bob Woodward.

I really connected to this piece a lot: I'm in my 20s, in NYC for the first time, grew up in the South, and am completely infatuated with this place for some unable-to-be-explained reason.

  I suppose that a lot of us who have been very young in New
  York have the same scenes in our home screens. I remember 
  sitting in a lot of apartments with a slight headache about 
  five o’clock in the morning. I had a friend who could not 
  sleep...

It's so easy to fall in love with this city but so hard to describe the reason why. She did a great job.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good-Bye_to_All_That

This was so beautiful that i almost cried. But what it certainly did was enhance the charm for NYC. I am a 24 year old Indian with little hope of making it to NY in my 20's but when i get there eventually, i will try to remember this piece.

Fascinating read, but would benefit from the attention of an editor.