The Bronx

====Books====
The Bronx has been featured significantly in fiction literature. All of the characters in [[Herman Wouk]]'s [[City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder]] (1948) live in the Bronx, and about half of the action is set there. [[Kate Simon]]'s ''Bronx Primitive: Portraits of a Childhood'' (1982) is directly autobiographical, a warm account of a Polish-Jewish girl in an immigrant family growing up before World War II, and living near [[Arthur Avenue]] and [[Tremont Avenue]].<ref>Kate Simon, ''Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood.'' New York: Harper Colophon, 1983.</ref> In Jacob M. Appel's short story, "The Grand Concourse" (2007),<ref>''[[The Threepenny Review]]'', [http://www.threepennyreview.com/tocs/109_sp07.html Volume 109, Spring 2007]</ref> a woman who grew up in the iconic [[Lewis Morris]] Building returns to the [[Morrisania]] neighborhood with her adult daughter. Similarly, in [[Avery Corman]]'s book ''The Old Neighborhood'' (1980),<ref>[[Avery Corman]], ''The Old Neighborhood'', [[Simon & Schuster]], 1980; {{ISBN|0-671-41475-5}}</ref> an upper-middle class white protagonist returns to his birth neighborhood ([[Fordham Road]] and the [[Grand Concourse (Bronx)|Grand Concourse]]), and learns that even though the folks are poor, Hispanic and African-American, they are good people.

By contrast, [[Tom Wolfe]]'s ''[[The Bonfire of the Vanities|Bonfire of the Vanities]]'' (1987)<ref>Tom Wolfe, ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] 1987 (hardback) {{ISBN|978-0-374-11535-7}}, Picador Books 2008 (paperback) {{ISBN|978-0-312-42757-3}}</ref> portrays a wealthy, white protagonist, Sherman McCoy, getting lost off the [[Bruckner Expressway]] in the [[South Bronx]] and having an altercation with locals. A substantial piece of the last part of the book is set in the resulting riotous trial at the Bronx County Courthouse. However, times change, and in 2007, ''[[The New York Times]]'' reported that "the Bronx neighborhoods near the site of Sherman's accident are now dotted with townhouses and apartments." In the same article, the Reverend [[Al Sharpton]] (whose fictional analogue in the novel is "Reverend Bacon") asserts that "twenty years later, the cynicism of ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' is as out of style as [[Tom Wolfe]]'s wardrobe."<ref>Anne Barnard, [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/nyregion/10bonfire.html Twenty Years After 'Bonfire,' A City No Longer in Flames], ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 10, 2007, retrieved on July 1, 2008</ref>

[[Don DeLillo]]'s ''[[Underworld (DeLillo novel)|Underworld]]'' (1997) is also set in the Bronx and offers a perspective on the area from the 1950s onward.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kakutani|first=Michiko|date=September 16, 1997|title='Underworld': Of America as a Splendid Junk Heap|work=The New York Times|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/14/daily/underworld-book-review.html}}</ref>