Envy Apartment

A novelist hunts for complicated narratives at the sites of historical atrocities I learned to snorkel mid-winter in an indoor pool in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. The air was stifling, thick with the smell of chlorine. There was nothing to see in the pool and no explanation given for the purpose of this middle school gym unit ; maybe our teachers dreamed we’d go on island vacations. I don’t remember ever snorkeling again until 2010 when I traveled to a research station on San Salvador Island in the Bahamas where I’d teach a Caribbean literature course and where I’d start writing a novel about the sediment of history’s layers. The water shimmered aqua closer to shore, deepened to a dark blue farther out. In spite of how clear the water seemed, you had to beware rocks and lionfish, and you couldn’t know where the reefs were without sticking your head beneath the meniscus of the ocean. Locals and research station staff would give instructions for different reefs around the islan...

Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery . Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a city housing department , for a union, for a law clinic, and on a campaign that stopped a PVC factory from being built in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” For the last decade, he has served as executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (better known as t.e.j.a.s.). Part of his work is leading tours past the heaping piles of scrap metal along Houston’s Buffalo Ba...

“Does this mean there’s no apartment?” I stood in the Strawberry Fields meadow and stared at John. He had called me during work to come meet a realtor at the corner of 72nd and Central Park West . We had talked of moving in together and John promised me he had found the ideal apartment. “Two bedrooms, two baths, steps from the park, in our range!” Could it be true? I was suspicious. I had learned there is no “perfect” apartment in New York. Something is always missing (size, no doorman location, light, etc.). Not that I was a vision of perfection, anyway. Unlike anyone in my family before me, I was born with a condition called “ectrodactyly.” To my parents’ utter shock, I had only one finger on each hand, shortened forearms and one toe on each foot. These were the days before sonograms could prepare excited parents for the unexpected. I emerged during a winter blizzard in a peaceful state, appearing to stare calmly at everyone as they stared back in confusion. Whether I would be abl...

The iconic London landmark uses its public spaces to counterpoint the unbridled growth of London’s luxury private structures I recently found myself staring into a stranger’s living room, waiting for something beautiful to happen. I was standing on the 10th- floor viewing terrace of the Tate Modern’s new wing, a twisting ziggurat of perforated brick and mortar that rises above the museum’s home in the old Bankside Power Station . The terrace allows for 360-degree views of the building frenzy that has consumed much of London’s skyline. Cranes dip and dive in every direction; to the east, the Shard, an overwhelming ice pick of a skyscraper, dwarfs the Victorian roofs of the surrounding neighbourhood; to the west, the pregnant monolith of One Blackfriars, a 50-storey mixed-used building, looms over the Thames like an alien mothership. As is the case all over the city, many of its £4 million (Dh19 million) apartments will be scooped up as investments, only to stand empty. Idle butlers ...