“Long Island, baby”, by Thierry Clermont, surveying the island that soars towards the world

After the Venice of Book of San Michelefollowing Cuba, the “promised land” of baroque bordellofollowing The Galway Ride, we find Thierry Clermont in his attire as a walker of the Western world surveying a Long Island grafted onto the Baltic, an extension of Manhattan and a piece of Europe that would have drifted offshore. No need to weave metaphors, just pick the names of Long Island Rail Road stations as they present themselves: Glen Head, Sea Cliff, Glen Cove, Bay Shore will fry your brains with salty crystals. And the metro names: Atlantic Avenue, Bergen Street, the lines of the Eastern Parkway… We go around the world crossing a few boroughs and ocean-washed counties.