Jen Adams' Own True Story of Life, Love, and Lit

METROPOLITAN LIVES
by Amanda Halkiotis

Jen Adams moved to New York and published her first book --The Books they Gave Me

New York City has always been a haven for readers and writers. Whether working your way through a daunting, growing Goodreads list, or pounding the pavement until you publish that first novel, this city provides both motivation and moral support. For the nonstop writer and overachieving reader --- get some inspiration and beef up your suggested reading list at the same time with Jen Adams' debut, The Books They Gave Me.

Composed of the true-life stories behind literary works given as gifts, Adams' brainchild began as an interactive Tumblr blog.

“I started the blog in June, 2011, after a man I was dating gave me a very thoughtfully chosen book,” Adams wrote recently over email. “I realized that I’d been given books by many people I’ve loved in my life, and I started writing out those stories. I put them up on Tumblr and things sort of took off from there.”

Jen was then approached about making the blog into a book, and she did just that. She now has a beautiful blue hardcover to show for it. The stories range from a new divorcee accepting a cookbook from a well-meaning friend to lovers exchanging poetry anthologies, to one of Adams’ favorites: parents bestowing their child with a signed Edward Gorey compilation in unspoken support of their offspring’s peculiarity. These and other stories in The Books They Gave Me depict relatable, universal narratives.

The collection reveals Adams' knack for listening and observing. “My dad was in the Army when I was growing up, so we lived in a variety of places in the US and Europe,” she said. “This gave me a taste for the cosmopolitan and the exotic, as well as an anthropologist’s eye—both vital characteristics for a writer.” And as a writer, Adams takes advantage of New York’s many literary happenings. “This is the best place to be a writer,” she said. “There are so many readings, signings, launch parties.”

Relocating to the Big Apple after 15 years in the Chicago suburbs, Adams now savors every moment of her time here. A top spot for Adams to indulge her urban infatuation is Union Square. “Not because it’s so commercial, but because it’s a hub. It’s so close to NYU and the freshness of that area, and doesn’t feel far from the corporate hub of Midtown,”  she said.

Union Square is a hub in downtown Manhattan--by insane gal via Flickr

Not to mention some serious feelings for her home borough of Queens. “I really love Astoria, where I live," she said. “It’s one of the last true immigrant neighborhoods in NYC.”

Adams loves living in New York City because of its "vibrancy." Even though it's a safer, cleaner Disneyfied time, she feels the energy associated with New York still remains. "This is the place people come when they’re smarter and stronger and more ambitious than anyone else wherever they came from."

Adams also loves New York’s dueling duality of inclusion and anonymity. “There’s a delicate balance between publicity and privacy in the city. We walk down the streets living our lives out in the open." This is something that as New Yorkers, we often take for granted, but we'd quickly regain appreciation of such invisibility after living in other cities of similar size and opportunity.

"Any weekend night you’ll see couples falling in love and fighting and breaking up, and there’s always someone crying on the street corner," Adams said. She remembered seeing a man fall down with a heart attack at the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue and so many people rushing to help him. "People leave you alone, but when you really need help, they’re there."

But all distractions aside, with some support, the author stays focused on her writing. She expressed that as a writer, the most important part of living in New York is that it’s not considered insane or eccentric to admit that you don’t have a day job, or that you're living off savings to finish a novel. 

Adams explained, "That’s the sort of thing people here do—and they respect art in a way that they don’t in other places. Nobody here asks me what my fallback plan is.”

Her fallback plan sounds like it definitely includes life in New York City, a place that Adams had long thought about living. 

“New York was an unfathomable dream to me for so long,” she said. “When it became clear that moving here was not only possible, but wise, I was thrilled. It was like falling in love.”

Moving to New York was an unfathomable dream that became Jen Adams' reality.--by Mavi via Flickr