The 10 Most Classic Brooklyn Novels
Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
Miller is best known as an expat in Paris, but the crudely sexually adventurous legend was raised on Driggs Avenue, and before finally decamping to Paris permanently in 1930 he lived all over Brooklyn: Bushwick, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. (He used to read by the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument!) In this lesser-read follow-up to Tropic of Cancer—the one with the yellowish cover, not the blue one—he relates his time living and working in New York in the 20s, specifically the ethnic neighborhoods of Brooklyn.