Resident Alien

Quentin Crisp, long famous as "one of the great stately homos of England," exiled himself to America in 1982 after he discovered that in New York "happiness rains down from the sky." Resident Alien is the often bitingly, amusing account of his love affair with the Big Apple.

His affecting words cover topics from politics to prejudice, from the human spirit to the individual obstacles he faces every day in his solitary life. The spirit of his adopted city is captured as well in uniquely Crispian turns of phrase. But the real flavor of his writing lies not in the punchy one-liners but instead in his mixture of wicked humor and gentle wisdom, of raconteurial flair and analytical rigor, of almost superhuman tolerance for the follies and evils of the age.