James McCourt's novelistic memoir was written following a deathbed order issued by his late mother -- "tell everything." But Lasting City: The Anatomy of Nostalgia (Liveright) is a far from typical tell-all, as McCourt assumes a hypnotic voice, more poetic than linear, to collage together vignettes of personal and queer community history in the New York City of mid-century. McCourt speaks about his extraordinary memoir, and finding a way to write the rhythms of fading and failing memory.