highland park's fifteen seconds

This is an historic event. I believe I have just read, in the story "What Happened With Wolfowitz," Jami Attenberg's Instant Love, the first reference to my hometown in a literary work, ever.

"Alan, you didn't have to sell me on anything...I didn't care that you were absurdly close to your mother. Or that you frequently went on vacations to Florida without me because they were 'family-only' trips. Or that on most weekends, you disappeared into the warm, all-consuming bosom of your parents' home in Highland Park, far, far away from me."

There it is! Highland Park, Illinois; Chicago suburb extraordinaire. Land of oversize SUVs, McMansions bursting out of smallish plots between older, prettier homes, ladies with clicky long nails and nasal North Shore drawls, excessive bar mitzvah parties, and over-mothered adult sons home for weekend visits. Attenberg has picked a hilariously right suburb for the passing reference. Heh.