Fiction_L Archives escape from New York Dates: 1/20/01,10:09 AM  through  1/25/01,4:34 PM  (2 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2011-current     2009-2010     2004-2008    1995-2003    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to January 2001 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: J Heuer <[removed]@itol.com>
REC'D: 1/20/01, 10:09 AM

Here's one that is pretty vague because I got it via fax from one of our
branch librarians. I say vague because I wasn't in on the ref. interview so
this is all I have.

A book with something about escaping from New York where people are trying
to escape because it is a bad place to live. She thinks there were lots of
stairs in it too.


We suggested "Escape from New York" and "House of Stairs" but neither has
both stairs and NY. My feeling is the customer is remembering two different
books not one but I thought I would toss it out to you all anyway.

--
Jeanne Heuer
Brown County Library
Green Bay, WI
[removed]@itol.com

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes, Art is knowing which ones
to keep." -anonymous

FROM: Dennis Lien <[removed]@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 1/25/01, 4:34 PM

At 10:15 AM 1/20/01 -0600, you wrote:
>Here's one that is pretty vague because I got it via fax from one of our
>branch librarians. I say vague because I wasn't in on the ref. interview so
>this is all I have.
>
>A book with something about escaping from New York where people are trying
>to escape because it is a bad place to live. She thinks there were lots of
>stairs in it too.
>
>We suggested "Escape from New York" and "House of Stairs" but neither has
>both stairs and NY. My feeling is the customer is remembering two different
>books not one but I thought I would toss it out to you all anyway.
>--
>Jeanne Heuer
>Brown County Library
>Green Bay, WI
[removed]@itol.com


Your suggestion sounds more likely than anything I can think of.

(The novelization of the movie ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was by Mike
McQuay, by the way.) There's also another movie, 1985's ESCAPE
FROM THE BRONX a.k.a. ESCAPE 2000, which has a somewhat comparable
plot (a polite way of saying "ripoff"). That one showed up on
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER in its last Comedy Channel season.

The only other "people trying to escape from New York" book that
comes to mind is DEADLINE AT DAWN by Cornell Woolrich/William
Irish, but there's no special quantity of stairs in that one either.

(A couple of midwestern small-town kids find each other in cruel
New York City one evening and decide to return home and make a
life with each other, but first they must solve a murder in one
night and still make the dawn bus out of New York to home. There
is no logical reason in the plot why they couldn't take a later
bus (assuming they weren't falsely arrested as criminals), but
a lot of emotional handwaving about if they missed this one specific
bus they would not have the emotional fortitude to try again and
evil old New York would win and never let them go.) It's a great
book in spite of a large amount of underlying silliness, which is
pretty much typical of Woolrich a.k.a. Irish.

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // [removed]@tc.umn.edu

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