And as implies, there may very well have been something that happened in the case of all of the cities in the world in the last 50 years or so. So New Orleans would have been the first city to come to life, but then something happened. Everyone knows “ Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” even if they’ve never been to New Orleans. People know the names of boroughs in New York. Everyone’s got this mythic idea of how New York and how New Orleans work, and that’s what triggers the change. It’s about both how people inside the city and people outside the city perceive it. New Orleans’s culture has already reached a point of public saturation or public knowledge. New York’s culture is actually still forming. Because I love both cities, I’ve lived in both cities, but I think New Orleans’s culture formed and cohered just a little before New York’s did. But it’s not actually the first North American city to have come to life so far. Some of the commenters in the book club have taken issue with the idea that New York City is the first North American city to have come to life so far. You can also sign up for the Vox Book Club newsletter for the latest updates on what we’re reading and discussing! “The threats to New York that I am embodying in the story are threats that have a kind of viral flavor to them” Constance Grady Enjoy, and come hang out in the comments if you’re moved to talk further about The City We Became.

You can watch the full video of my discussion with Jemisin above highlights from our conversation are below. But for now, we wanted to share our live event with all of you, including those of you who couldn’t make it. Next week, we’ll be moving along to our May pick, Donna Tartt’s classic campus murder story The Secret History.

The conversation was the culmination of the past month of discussion we’ve been having here at the Vox Book Club. Also I - and, I have to assume, every last one of the more than 100 people watching - admired Jemisin’s impeccable collection of plushes.

For 45 minutes, we discussed what makes cities powerful, New York’s dark history, and the uneasy legacy of H.P. Jemisin about her new book, The City We Became. On Wednesday night, the Vox Book Club went live on Zoom for the very first time to talk with N.K.

The city we became jemisin