Tama Janowitz wrote “Slaves of New York” and then…

I don't remember it being very good. She was mostly hair and clubbing.

Last paragraph illuminates a bit.

I am 58 years old, so I remember this scene. You often saw her on the society pages, along with writers Oscar Hijuelos, Jay McInerney, and Easton. Although I read a few of McInerney's books, I never read Janowitz's book. Many years later, I searched my county's library system for it to no avail. I finally found a copy on Ebay. I can't believe I spent so much time searching for such a clunker. It was absolutely dreadful.

I like the book. The movie however, with an miscast Bernadette Peters, is terrible.

I liked the first book as a teen. Tried to read other books by her, they were awful.

I never read the book.

But the film! When I first saw it when it came out I was kind of like, “…it was good I guess, whatever,” and I did think Peters seemed like a kind of misfit actress to choose for the lead.

But subsequent viewings have endeared me more and more to the movie. I actually think it’s quite great. It really takes me back (I moved to NYC in 1990 and lived there for 16 years… yes I know this book and film is about the 80s).

The film is quite funny, and has some hysterical characters/archetypes for cultural and art scenes everywhere. Even though it’s a cartoon version of NYC downtown I think it’s canny in its parody, and strangely touching near the end.

It’s not perfect but it has aged well.

good for her. minor talent. got her 15 mins and milked it.

In her memoir, “Scream”, that came out in 2026, by the end of it, she’s broke, being sued by her brother for using her mom’s Social Security to pay her bills and facing the prospect of jail time.

And it’s just left hanging. No google searches report anything on her after 2016. It’s as if she’s vanished.

*2016

[quote]It’s as if she’s vanished.

Or stolen someone else's identity (again).

[Quote] But the Brooklyn Public Library doesn’t even have a copy of “Slaves” to borrow in storage.

Well, come on though. Brooklyn.

R8 Wow. I did not know this.

In her prime she was attractive in a tawdry way, and that had a lot to do with her fame after the first book.

But how far can one ride that bus?

I prefer to think her memoir came out in 2026.

perhaps tama is in the slammer

R10, elaborate.

She stole somebody’s identity before?

She briefly posted witticisms about disloyal friends on Twitter from 2019-2020 and then lost interest. She has no interest in anything other than herself, which is why I'm guessing her relevance is limited. She doesn't seem to be broke. She had a horse and two houses and was living with some blue collar guy.

I knew people who studied with her mother in the MFA writing program at Cornell and thought well of her. They never mentioned Tama.

If she was a household name, "Tama in the slamma" would make quite a New York Post or Daily News headline.

I always thought she was published for fhe girl view of clubs & drugs. Jay Mc’s second album was his version of girl club & drugs. (Awful). I guess when the club kids came in (late-ish 80’s ) the game changed.

Second book a(above)

By the way, it's not hyperbole to say Bernadette Peters was miscast in the Slaves of New York movie. The scenes where she's getting verbally abused by her leach boyfriend play like watching a teenager pick on his mom.

wtf with Bernadette Peters! Horrible miscasting. Who shows up for a Bernadette Peters movie? Nobody. The voice alone ruined it.

“Putting on more make-up Eleanor?”

“No, I’m just checking to see if I’m still here.”

The "Slaves of New York" stories are very funny at first, but she relies on the same old tricks throughout most of them. They're also not very profound. I think they got published in The New Yorker mostly because the fiction editor at the time wanted something that would be considered very hip in that era (and also because he probably was friends with her mother).

Its interesting, though, that she and McInerney have mostly vanished, while Bret Easton Ellis--whom they were always grouped with--survived. I always thought that of the three 9and they were always grouped together), he was the least talented and the most awful.

She should’ve become a college professor. Steady job, good income, students would’ve wanted to take her class years ago.

[quote]She stole somebody’s identity before?

That was a half-joking reference to how she helped herself to her mom's money. Whether she was craven enough to take out additional credit cards in her senile mother's name, you'd have to ask her brother.

[quote]She doesn't seem to be broke. She had a horse and two houses and was living with some blue collar guy.

This review of "Scream" recaps how she bought an uninhabitable farmhouse and expected to inherit another house from her dad. That's how the blue collar guy entered the picture; he was hired to do repairs.

[quote]Janowitz writes: “I did not understand that pipes had to be connected to other pipes and then to some kind of tank or pump in order to have water. I did not understand that you had to have wires going through the walls connected to a pole, or a generator, in order to get electricity. I did not understand.”

[quote]This is a woman who graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College. She’s not stupid. But she’s also not an adult. As a result, a great deal has gone wrong in Janowitz’s life. And a great deal continues to go wrong. By the time the end of Scream arrives, a lawsuit from Janowitz’s brother, appears. She didn’t know you shouldn’t spend your mother’s money to pay your personal bills. Or board your horse. Janowitz continues to be shocked, amazed, outraged by each new catastrophe. The reader is weary.

I got through one and one quarter novels by Ellis and never read him again. At least the first one was short.

Guess i am the minority here, but i found some of her work quite funny. Also liked one of her later novels, A Certain Age, sort of a reworking of The House of Mirth.

I found myself dining at Indochine with Louise Bourgeois, Lester Wilson, Karen Alexander, Calvin Klein and Judy Peabody, of all people, when Tama tried to crash our table. It was embarrassing.

R29, I agree on her work. Her stories are much lighter than the other Brat Pack writers and enjoyable.

[quote]But the Brooklyn Public Library doesn’t even have a copy of “Slaves” to borrow in storage.

(Fixed that fer ya.) However, the Brooklyn Public Library doesn’t even have a copy of “Slaves” in storage for borrowing.

In the book, Marley Mantello is described as having a long, pockmarked face. In the movie, he’s played by handsome Nick Cori.

I live in a tiny town, but a copy of Slaves is available at our library.

Some frustrated, unpublished novelist and Brooklyn PL Librarian, Tama's age, probably through away the library's copy out of bitterness.

[quote] That's how the blue collar guy entered the picture; he was hired to do repairs.

That happens a lot. Suzy Green on Curb Your Enthusiasm married a guy she hired to fix her upstate NY home. The tragedy of the woman in CT whose children and parents died in a house fire on Christmas Eve was living with her boyfriend, a contractor she’d hired to help fix her house. And Christa Worthington who was murdered on Cape Cod had a baby with her house painter.

I personally know a wealthy woman who married a contractor she hired to completely gut and renovate her old home. She had two kids with him and when they finished the massive renovations, she divorced him.

Janowitz’s stories in “Slaves” don’t really deal much with the clubs or drug scenes. They are present but her stories focus more on galleries and soirées and the reality of day to day life as a struggling artist in NYC in the 80S.

I really know nothing about her except that she was a Gap model for the Fall 2006 T-Shirt campaign. Photographed and artwork by Ellen Van der Laan. It was also published in the 2006 book released by Gap, INDIVIDUALS.

Two years ago, after I posted that ad on Instagram, a friend of Tama's wrote me and asked for a HQ copy of the pic as well as the text article that Tama wrote to go along with it in the INDIVIDUALS book. The friend wanted to give it to Tama who did not have a copy.

I remember David Letterman indignantly making her take out the gum she was chewing out of her mouth while she was a guest on Late Night - which is what led me to Slaves, and eager anticipation for the movie, which is the turd in the punchbowl of Merchant/Ivory movies for a ton of reasons, but still has a pretty killer soundtrack of stuff you would normally be Least Likely To Normally Hear In A Merchant Ivory Movie (Les Rita Mitsuko, Buffalo Stance, Good Life).

Vaguely remember another book or two that were not as digestable as Slaves.

I thought she was so cool when I read Slaves of New York at 18. The back cover picture of her, long tousled hair flying in the breeze, giant dangly earrings, Wayfarers. She had it all figured out!

I remember the rumor that she was really a man called Tom A. Janowitz.

Not trans, though.

I'm sending you all my love!

XXOO Tama

People who write books about being young cool, always turn into hags with bags.

Omg, is that her, r42,? Very bad ageing process.

Yep. She's 68 years old.

R41, she addresses that in her memoir.

Slaves of New York, that title would turn anyone off. Better to watch the movie Gangs of New York, brilliant but severely underrated.

Many of the stories in “Slaves” are quite funny. The character of Marley Mantello, who appears in about three stories, is so deluded. They made him less fun in the movie. I can’t help but picture Bernadette when I read the Eleanor stories even though I don’t want to.

It would have made a good miniseries on cable or streaming if you adapted a lot of the stories or did it as an anthology.

The one thing the movie does do that I like is the drag queens dancing to “Love is Like an Itching in My Heart” as they walk down the street in the morning.

Ellis’s work goes into some creepy, dark places. McInerney not so much -“Bright Lights” is very good but sad. “Slaves” is the most fun of their early works.

I actually love the Merchant/Ivory movie and think Peters makes the role work (although she is miscast). The actor playing Stash is adorable and the dialogue is funny enough. Great music and atmosphere. Also love the three drag queens cited by R48. I used to work for the original of the fat art collector.

[quote]Janowitz writes: “I did not understand that pipes had to be connected to other pipes and then to some kind of tank or pump in order to have water. I did not understand that you had to have wires going through the walls connected to a pole, or a generator, in order to get electricity. I did not understand.”

Are there really people like this or is she full of shit making excuses?

I am not handy at all, but I know (generally), how power gets to my house, what a septic tank is, how to check a pilot light on a furnace, etc.

Unless someone grows up obscenely rich with literal servants, I just don’t get it.

[quote]Its interesting, though, that she and McInerney have mostly vanished, while Bret Easton Ellis--whom they were always grouped with--survived

i didn’t know this R25 until I just checked his wiki today, but McInerney married a Hearst daughter in 2006, so he probably does’t have to do shit. Ellis still has to work for a living.

Janowitz certainly didn’t grow up rich. Her dad was a psychiatrist- but also a narcissistic, deadbeat who was completely insane. Her mom was poor after the divorce. It was not an envious existence.

I saw the movie the other day (since it's on Tubi until tomorrow) and while it's probably the least effective of the Merchant-Ivory films, it does have its moments.

And I too agree with what R48 said about the 3 drag queens dancing down the street to Diana Ross & the Supremes. That scene is electrifying.

Ellis came from an obscenely privileged background. I am sure he has enough money.

I liked the book and the movie back in the day. They were very much "of their time".

Is Bret still dating Todd?

Where does the "itching in my heart" scene come in?

Right here, R58.

R59 is a prince among men. Thank you.

Pretentious, shallow, and the tone of a cunt more interested in displaying her pussy cred than writing with taste and style (taste meaning the detachment needed for a work worth the bother).

Women artists, perhaps because of a long recovery needed from centuries of legal and social subservience rather than a lazy viciousness and self-approbation in approaching their art, tend to have a tell. They often will select one or trademark attributes (gray and pink modalities, scarred breasts and blood, daddy lust/hate and fibroids, pearl buttons, or women with one-sided mustaches and kitties, depending on their selected media).

So I just picked up her memoir, Scream, from the library today. I have read about 30 pages, her father is so creepy. Speaking of writers marrying blue collar guys, Romance writer, Nora Roberts, married the carpenter she hired to build bookcases. It is her second marriage and they have been married since 1985. Everytime I look at a photo of Tama from the 80's, I remember how wild, untamed hair was an acceptable fashion statement back then.

R62, her father was an ass. And it gets worse as the memoir goes along regarding his profession and early retirement.

I wonder if the responses would be more sympathetic if the scientist was more conventionally attractive.

R64, Tama looks awful as per above she also wrote much better than said, in my view. Also, in her book of chronicles (i was really a fan) she has the most wonderful (and in hindsight , deservedly) putdowmon Gillian Anderson ever.

Do tell, R65.

R65- are you AI??

R3/R62 here. I am reading her memoir, Scream, and I am at the part where her mother, brother, and Tama return home after living in Israel for a couple of years. She has lived an itinerant lifestyle with her family. Her father is awful, and her mother lacks common sense.

One of the worst anecdotes about her father: when she was young, she spent a few days helping her dad and his wife prepare for a pig roast. When the party starts, he tells her to go as she isn’t invited. Young Tama has a meltdown and, years later, somebody who witnessed it uses it as a story of what an unstable kid she was.

I hate her dad.

Ellis came from a privileged and well connected but not excessively wealthy LA family. If you’re interested in his early days, Once Upon A Time at Bennington College is a fantastic podcast series. It’s about BEE and Donna Tartt.

I loved Slaves of New York when it first came out. Tama was a very big deal in NYC then. I don’t know how you could read Scream and not have sympathy for her. She’s a mess by her upbringing explains a lot.

Bret and Donna Tartt (who is far better than him, and I say this as a fan of both) are the only truly good writers to emerge from that scene. I remember reading “Slaves” in the late 1990s a little bit before I moved to NYC, but by then the main literary bitch in the cultural vogue was Elizabeth Wurtzel, who I do still have a soft spot for.

Janowitz is obsessed with money. In “Scream” she mentions a Warhol print she and her mom saw in a store in the 70s and wonders how much it would go for now. She assumes the land in Israel, where she and her family lived in a shack, would be worth millions now. And then the whole clusterfuck at the end with her brother and her mom’s money…

I think she disappeared into the 80s void with Diane Brill.

R66, retelling does not really work because it was mainly how she put it, but apparently they were on the same dinner table at some gala event and Anderson was lethargic and did not speak all evening except when a photographer appeared and Tama says it was like she was transformed and was the only moment she showed any animation, looking like she was the life of the party or something.

I remember this because again and again i confirm my impression that Gillian is rather a phony.

So I finished "Scream" last week. Although I do not think it was well-written, it was an entertaining read. Janowitz 's story was authentic and down-to-earth. Her life has not been easy and she shows so much love and grace towards her mom.

Isn’t the real question:

[bold][italic]Why did Tama Janowitz‘s career go straight down the shitter?

Does she have boil on her lip?

Agreed, R75.

I think “Scream” was written to help get money for all of her legal problems. I wonder how everything with her brother played out.

[quote]Does she have boil on her lip?

That's unevenly applied lipstick.

R32 "Fer ya" is the best kind of English.

A film adaptation of her memoir would be a wonderful vehicle for a Pia Zadora comeback! Really two comebacks (Tama too!) for the price of one!

Her memoir is on sale for 75 cents on Kindle right now.

I suddenly remembered this.

Thanks for the heads up, R83. I just bought it - my first Janowitz purchase since around 1989.

I was a fan back in the day, but her later books do reveal the depth of some of her own issues; especially with money. This makes me less interested in her work overall.

R84, I think I was 15 when that came out and it was the first I heard of her.

It's actually a cute pic.