Maybe the People Would Be the Times

In his second collection (after Kill All Your Darlings, 2007), Luc Sante pays homage to Patti Smith, Rene Ricard, and Georges Simenon; traces the history of tabloids; surveys the landscape that gave birth to the Beastie Boys; explores the back alleys of vernacular photography; sounds a threnody for the forgotten dead of New York City.

The glue holding the collection together is autobiography. Ever...