What Do You Want to Write a Book About?

In 86, I was approached by these publishers who had been recommended to me that read my work in the New York Review books. And they said, we want you to write a book. What do you want to write about? and I blur it out. I want to write a history of the slums because you know, these tenement buildings,. I look at them and they're, you know, terracotta decorations and embellishments from the 19th century. So after five years became low life. It's this kind of explosive moment.