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Both are also narrated by young men with problematic dads.
So Im wondering, what did the Dakota signify for you when you were growing up in the neighborhood?
Tom Barbash:It was like a huge, slightly frightening, and gorgeous castle.
And it was soot-covered back then.
I guess theyve cleaned it up.
But back then, it was
J.F.G.
:It was gloomy.
T.B.:Yeah.
Looming over the neighborhood.
But the building always seemed a little haunted to me.
That seemed to confirm it.
The uncle of one of my friends was Carroll OConnor.
:Archie Bunker lived in the Dakota.
At what point did you decide that this was going to be where you would set your novel?
:I love how you describe it as being like a European village.
So Im wondering what kind of interest you had in the gargoyles of the Dakota?
She started doing this in 1954.
So when I was growing up, lost New York was still alive on the walls of my home.
I only became interested in the buildings per se after that.
I think we took it all for granted, where we lived.
:I certainly did.
:It really doesnt exist anymore.
Near the end of the book, you say, Where did the old people go?
The crazy people, the drunks and the prostitutes, the chess-playing socialists go?
The Upper West Side of our growing up had the whole world within, not just the pretty parts.
Are there aspects of New York that you felt died along with John Lennon in 1980?
It was almost right then that things changed.
It transitioned first to these kind of trendy cafes, and later to clothing stores.
And then it was unrecognizable.
:I had a job at one of the first trendy spots on Columbus Avenue.
I was a busboy at Lucys Retired Surfers Bar & Restaurant on 84th and Columbus.
Id come home at one oclock in the morning and walk through this rather frightening dead zone.
:I remember that place.
:People lined up down the block to get in.
It was probably very much how people experienced the Odeon in thatBright Lights, Big Cityera.
You see how grimy the city was.
:And Ill ask you, John, about the real-life heist that was an inspiration for you.
:The incident youre mentioning is this astounding, really larger-than-life architectural heist that took place in 1974.
And thats a true story.
:I got very excited about John Lennons mission to learn how to sail in the spring of 1980.
And at some point the captain, a man named Hank Halstead, was just too exhausted.
He saved everybodys life, and at the end of it, he genuinely felt immortal.
:Thats a remarkable story.
He just had a tremendous breakthrough.
:And Anton is having some struggles with his relationship with his own father, Buddy the talk-show host.
T.B.:Yes.
And when he returned, he kidnapped John and took him to Blackpool for three weeks.
:He went in search of his father and instead found himself.
