The hand-to-mouth existence of a struggling writer in New York is Greenberg's subject in this delightful collection of brief yet memorable essays. Written originally for the Times Literary Supplement's Freelance column, they describe his troubled relationship with his father, a scrap-metal dealer in the South Bronx, and his attempts to support his writing habit through a succession of dead-end jobs – from chauffeuring to mail-sorting and street peddling: "To really achieve distinction, I believed, one's failure must be total." Beautifully observed and full of wry humour, these haiku-like pieces create a wonderfully vivid and personal portrait of New York life, from rat infestations ("the barbarians had overrun us") and bird-watching in Central Park (where he spent two nights sleeping rough as a teenager after an argument with his dad), to the foibles of the Dachshund Friendship Club. His own cantankerous dachshund, Eli, has a taste for biting children. It is, he says, "a cross between Truman Capote and Norman Mailer".