Map by Aaron Reiss, 2013
for Hannah Weyer

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.JPG (325k)


Hannah Weyer's novel On the Come Up follows AnnMarie Walker, who, from a very young age, dreams of stardom in a world beyond her socially isolated neighborhood of Far Rockaway, Queens.

This is a map of her neighborhood as she experiences it. “Far Rock,” for AnnMarie, is mostly a collection of friends and institutions. It's bounded by the ocean, large infrastructure projects, and the vast blank unknown, and it's connected to the rest of the world by the sinuous umbillical cord of the A train.

In other words, it's a lot like my neighborhood — or yours. There are no subways or beaches where I live, but there are friends, familiar streets, and large buildings that negotiate a tense alliance between my community and the institutions of the state. Beyond this comfortable bubble, there is a cognitive void pierced by fragile threads of connection.