I agree with Philip Hamburger. Liebling’s Back Where I Came From is like a double edged sword. Bittersweet yet tangy, honest yet jokey, lovely yet dreadful. He does not hold back and pushes the envelope and includes  pain with a mixture of sarcasm and wit. Liebling loves his city, but he isn’t afraid to call problems out. He isn’t afraid to expose the agony that comes with living in such a big city. I love how Leibling compares the city to a “complicated Renaissance clock” or when he says “A man lives on a street until the mayoralty grows over him like patina.” These statements  are examples of how fast and forgetful NYC can really be.