Different time period, different genre, different heritage… but watching “Brooklyn”—which offers a pretty small glimpse into the borough in the 1950s—made me return to Simon Rich’s novella, “Sell Out,” published serially by The New Yorker a few years ago. The fictional and funny “Sell Out” tells the story of a modern day Brooklynite, a script doctor, who meets his great-great grandfather, an immigrant to the borough who was preserved in brine after an accident at the pickle factory where he worked. The story follows the two getting to know each other, mostly great-great grandfather Herschel increasingly confused by screenwriter Simon’s way of life.
“Brooklyn” and “Sell Out” are pretty different in most ways, but they do both touch on ideas of heritage and home… You can read all four parts of Rich’s story here.
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