Upon settling in New York City, Janowitz started writing about life there, becoming well-known in Manhattan literary and social circles.
[11] The book was adapted into the 1989 film Slaves of New York, which was directed by James Ivory and starring Bernadette Peters.
In The New York Times Book Review, Ada Calhoun noted Janowitz's deadpan, almost careless way of looking at her own life and the glamor of hanging out with Andy Warhol and dancing at Studio 54.
The review also addressed the concern with material goods and financial security that drives many of Janowitz's novels and led her to appear in ads for Amaretto and other products.
Calhoun wrote, "This memoir—which spans her childhood (partly spent in 1968 Israel, where her family was booted from a hotel for not paying), her adventuresome youth (she had a fling with a 63-year-old Lawrence Durrell when she was 19), her career struggles and successes, and her more recent life as caretaker to her dying mother — shows that she comes by her obsession with money honestly.