THE PRINCESS OF 72nd STREET by Elaine Kraf

I’ll cut right to it. The Princess of 72nd Street might be the best lost classic of which you’ve never heard. From its opening page it buzzes with manic energy, possessed of a voice so singularly wonderful that it only took me a few lines to be head-over-heels in love.

Ellen is an artist on the Upper West Side, prone to bouts of psychosis that she calls her “radiances”. In their grip, she becomes Esmerelda, the titular princess, causing glorious chaos with her every move. I laughed. I shook my head. I cheered.

Told mostly from within her seventh radiance, The Princess of 72nd Street is a celebration of difference. Kraf doesn’t tokenise or fetishise mental illness. Rather, there is a sense of dignity, a lifting of the spirit, in how she writes the often confronting scenes. Esmerelda’s rants are a feat of narrative tightrope walking, hilarious and scathing in equal measure. Her take on the world is so self-evidently wise, so stripped of the bullshit that bogs down most of our thinking that I longed for her clarity.

I don’t know why this book disappeared from view. Here’s hoping Esmerelda can finally shine.

The Princess of 72nd Street by Elaine Kraf
The Modern Library, 2024 (First Pub. 1979)
137 pages