Literary Nonfiction. Kurt Brokaw is a literary phenomenon. A pulp fixture on the streets of New York City, Brokaw is a living testimony to the greatest popular writers on the 20th century, and one of the most knowledgeable authorities on the pulp genre in the country. "I've taken advantage of an 1893 local law that permits the vending of written matter without a license on the sidewalks of New York," Brokaw admits. "NYC is the only city with such a law--it was originally designed to protect Jewish immigrants who peddled chap books out of pushcarts in the hurly burly of Orchard Street for a penny a copy....People think book selling is a First Amendment right in the United States. It's not." In a lively and amusing style, Brokaw goes out to tell the history of American popular writing from the point of view of his street-wise experience.
