A Cannibal in Manhattan

Tama Janowitz's satirical fever dream captures 1980s New York at peak decadence and absurdity. This 1988 paperback follows Mgungu Yabba Mgungu, a South Seas islander transplanted to Manhattan's art world, as he navigates cocaine, galleries, real estate sharks, and downtown's glittering debris. Published at the height of Janowitz's "brat pack" fame (following "Slaves of New York"), the novel skewers the era's excess through the eyes of an outsider who might - or might not - be a cannibal.

Janowitz's deadpan prose transforms Manhattan into an anthropological site as strange as any remote island, where the rituals of dinner parties and gallery openings reveal a savage social order. The book captures that particular 1980s collision of art, commerce, and hype before the decade's bubble burst. For those fascinated by downtown New York's brief moment as global cultural capital, this is the era in amber - funny, sharp, and already aware of its own approaching extinction.