Haley Tanner

Haley Tanner is the author of the novel Vaclav & Lena, which has been published in Italian by Longanesi as Cose da salvare in caso di incendio. It tells the story of  two Russian immigrant children in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach community. This is very close to Coney Island, which Haley Tanner describes: 

Haley Tanner (Standard American accent)

So Coney Island was a beachfront vacation town and it’s… it’s now a boardwalk and there’s a… a side show… a side show theatre, where there are magic acts acts and there’s burlesque and every year there is a Mermaid Parade where people dress up as sea creatures and parade along the boardwalk. It’s sort of become… it’s sort of become a wild and subversive place… but it’s also an amusement park where there’s a famous rollercoaster, the Cyclone, and there’s an enormous Ferris wheel, called the Wonder Wheel, and it’s a popular place to take your kids and your family and it’s a… very… it’s a… it’s a… it’s a… it’s a juxtaposition of… of day and night and like… light and dark and family and very “not-family” activities that happen! 

(Haley Tanner was talking to Mark Worden)   

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