Hello (And Goodbye) To All That

Synopsis

Raised in suburban Chicago, Jonathan Liebson grew up hearing fabled stories about his father's childhood in New York. The Manhattan and Queens of his father's past, and the Lower East Side of his immigrant grandfather, always shimmered in the background—until one day Jonathan finally moved there himself. This was right on the cusp of the twenty-first century: the dawn of a new millennium. The city raced headlong into an era of cellphones, the internet, and many other unpredictable changes. Over time, New York would be wracked by 9/11, a Great Recession, a great hurricane, and a great pandemic—plus much more. Hello (and Goodbye) to All That is a memoir that recounts the indelible ties Jonathan would forge in his father's city, and his up-close view of profound historical episodes. The memoir plays off Joan Didion's famous essay "Goodbye to All That," where she describes the exciting yet fleeting experience of living in New York. In contrast, Jonathan's memoir provides a narrative about the city's permanence: it tells an intergenerational story of father and son that reveals a mutual connection to a constantly changing, often-troubled, yet still-dynamic city—and to the larger American history it comprises.