The Book Review23 Feb 2024

The Rise and Fall of The Village Voice

Tricia Romano’s new book, “The Freaks Came Out to Write,” is an oral history of New York’s late, great alternative weekly newspaper The Village Voice, where she worked for eight years as the nightlife columnist. Our critic Dwight Garner reviewed the book recently — he loved it — and he visits the podcast this week to chat with Gilbert Cruz about oral histories in general and the gritty glamour of The Village Voice in particular.

“You would pick it up and it was so prickly,” Garner says. “The whole thing just felt like this production that someone had really thought through, from the great cartoons to the great photographs to the crazy hard news in the front to the different voices in back. It all came together into a package. And there are still great writers out there, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. No one has really taken over, to my point of view. ... There’s no one-stop shopping to find the great listings at every club and every major theater, just a great rundown of what one might be interested in doing.”

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