IN THE EARLY nineteen sixties I joined one of the most gratuitous and contemptible migrations in
history: the middle class deserting the cities for the suburbs. I was not a willing traveler. Indeed, I
thought my life (the loyal and charming affections I had won from my twelve-year-old city friends)
was forever lost. And the most bitter part of this destruction of my social life was that my parents
explained it as being for my benefit.
I thought they were lying, but as I stood on our lawn in front of the cumbersome, dreary house my
mother described as cute, and looked at the athletic types who had paused in their play to observe the
movement of our furniture inside, I couldn’t imagine what good this would do for them. Dad would
have to commute to work and Mom was separated from her friends and her sister—with whom she
was neurotically close.
