“There is no such thing as a born writer. There are only made writers. I have no more facilities doing it than anybody else” said Adam Gopnik, a New Yorker staff writer since 1986, and the winner of three National magazine awards for essays as well as the George Polk award.
Gopnik came to Montreal last month to launch his third book Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York. He was at Concordia University last month to introduce his book to students.
The hall was packed, leaving many attendees no choice but to sit on the floor. Gopnik started by apologizing to those students, he then read a couple of chapters from his new book. There was much laughter during the next hour of his speech.
Through the Children’s Gate is a detailed book about the five years of Gopnik’s life in New York.
He describes the small adventures of life. The book is a collection of essays and stories, some of which have been published before. Gopnik came back from Paris in fall 2000, and that is where the book begins.
He discusses minute details-such as struggling to find an apartment within a reasonable price range, noise complaints from neighbours, New Yorker parakeets, buses, music, and department stores — in a fabulous way.
Gopnik may lose his non-Jewish readers in the beginning when he talks about some religious ceremonies without enough specific details. The book is about love, hope, humour, devotion, grief, and sorrow – all the emotions Gopnik experienced in his five years in New York.
Through the Children’s Gate discusses children’s psyche as well. Gopnik tells amazing stories about his three year-old daughter Olivia and her imaginary friend Charlie Ravioli who is always busy, just like other New Yorkers. He talks about his seven year-old son Luke’s interests that change every other month and about arranging different “no screen” activities with his children like a Harry Potter party, football, pool, playing piano and guitar.
At the end of the book Gopnik tells a funny story about trying to communicate with his son via text messages. He mistook the abbreviation “LOL” as lots of love and it created a whole ordeal in his life until he finally realized it actually meant “laugh out loud.”
Gopnik was born in Philadelphia and moved to Montreal when he was 12 years-old. He got a Bachelors degree at McGill and then moved to New York a few years later.
Gopnik started writing for The New Yorker in 1986 and soon became well-known for his writing. He has a positive attitude towards his editors and thinks they helped him to improve his writing.
“I have been blessed to work with two amazing editors in The New Yorker..the first one (…) brutally took out the stuff from my writings and helped me become a writer and the other one taught me to put them back in” Gopnik said, laughing.
Gopnik fulfilled his dream of living in Paris when he moved there with his family in 1995. At the end of his stay, he published his first book Paris to the moon, which is about life in Paris.
In the same year, Gopnik published his second children’s novel The King in the Window, a book about an American kid living in Paris. Gopnik returned to New York in 2000 and started working on his next book about life in New York. Gopnik has never written about Montreal, which is where he spent his youth.
“I always wanted to write about Montreal,” he said, “I never found the right way to do it.”
Gopnik considers New York to be his home. “I am a person who has many homes, but New York always felt like the most home . in fact, New York is my home but Montreal is my hometown” he said.
