“I found an inordinate amount of ignorance about the city where I was born and raised, about a place that even the crudest of maps could not fail to acknowledge.”
-Edward P. Jones, Lost in the City (3)
When writing Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones sought to put together fourteen short stories, encapsulating his imagination about what it feels like to live as an African American in late twentieth century Washington, DC. In the pursuit of creating both people and their actions – “the miracles of imagination,” as he puts it in his introduction – the collection devotes a large portion to the daily transportation of his characters.
Jones remarks that he “does not have a car, a driver’s license or any mechanized means of transport, not even a bicycle,” illustrating that even though he has access to such means of transportation, he willingly chooses to use public transit systems as well as city cabs in place of private transportation. It is evident that Jones prefers the intersecting nature of more public forms of transportation.
In that vein, we spotlight how different forms of transit construct new spaces in Jones’ book. We aim to contextualize these spaces and the communities therein through keystone stories and connect to the overall themes of Lost in the City. The following three quotes contain links that connect you to each of our pages.
In “Young Lions” and “Marie,” buses seem to be the last resort to Caesar and Marie and “there is a weird thin veil between the commuters, where a sense of safety exists while at the same time, interaction remains limited.”
In “An Orange Line Train to Ballston,” seeing somebody on the train “on a regular basis, at the same time, and traveling to a particular destination” gave Marvella a unique intuition about the dreadlock man.
Historically, “DC has created barriers for People of Color via urban planning… Black characters rarely have access to certain areas, and cars act as a conduit to these spaces for the powerful. Furthermore, in one story, “His Mother’s House”, cars are utilized as a clear status symbol. “His Mother’s House” also presents automobiles as a major driver of the plot.”
Works Cited
Tucker, Neely. “The Known World of Edward P. Jones.” The Washington Post, 15 Nov. 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110603404_2.html. Accessed 14 Mar. 2018.
