From couch-surfing the Lower East Side to lamenting the construction of The Cross Bronx Expressway, Arthur Nersesian, author of The Fuck-Up, is about as New York as they come. His novels offer astute observations of his city and the people in it. Drawing on his own personal experiences, memories and fantasies, Arthur continues to create seriously compelling and often dark fiction.
His most recent project, “The Five Books of Moses,” is a fantastical interpretation of the history of New York City with Robert Moses as one of the story’s central figures. In the first book, The Swing Voter of Staten Island, we learn that New York City has fallen victim to a crippling terrorist attack and is no longer habitable to its citizens. New Yorkers are subsequently relocated and confined to a small-scale replica of their home city built in the middle of the Nevada desert on government property. The second book, The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx, works backwards to explain what prompted such a devastating nuclear attack on New York. Arthur is currently working on the third book of the series.
I got the chance to have lunch with Arthur in a fitting location: the Lower East Side. Here’s what we talked about.
Chief Magazine: So you were born in New York, right?
Arthur Nersesian: Born and raised in New York, yeah.