Metropolis [Hardcover]

"* 'Gaffney has engineered a thrilling Brooklyn Bridge of a novel, at once old-fashioned and utterly modern, grand and charming, elegant and massive, imposing and delightful, carrying us in inimitable style across the rich, rank waters of New York City's history.' Michael Chabon * A wonderful recreation of the heady world into which so many Irish emigrants arrived to build new lives for themselves 150 years ago.' Irish Independent * '[An] engrossing tale of crime and romance...[a] splendidly bleak portrayal of the mid-Victorian city's underbelly' Guardian * 'A sprawling epic of a novel... this good old fashioned ripping yarn told with no little zest.' Glasgow Herald" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

A hugely entertaining first novel, set in the New York underworld of the 1860s, in the tradition of Caleb Carr's The Alienist and The Gangs of New York.'Gaffney has engineered a thrilling Brooklyn Bridge of a novel, at once old-fashioned and utterly modern, grand and charming, elegant and massive, imposing and delightful, carrying us in inimitable style across the rich, rank waters of New York City's history.' Michael Chabon

'The age of cast iron had not yet begun, but by 1868, you could feel a growth spurt of some sort coming on, you could sense it in the wide open sky. Steamships were edging out the tall ships, ripping out the threads of the way things had once been done. You could say the city's extraordinary nature lurked, in those days. It was biding its time, waiting for just the right moment to surge forward and change into something bigger, newer, better.'Arriving in New York in 1868, on the run from a scandal - or perhaps a crime - back in his native Hamburg, our hero, travelling under the name of Georg Geiermeier, becomes a stableboy, tending circus-owner Barnum's menagerie, until he is framed for an arson attack and finds himself once again is on the run. Falling into the hands of the Whyos, a gang who communicate with each other by means of a complicated system of songs and calls, he is reborn as an Irish labourer and takes a job as a sewerman, unaware of the part in crime the Whyos have in mind for him. Happy in his new job and falling in love with Beatrice, the young Irishwoman the Whyos have selected to teach him Irish English, all seems well, until the gang's leader chooses Beatrice as his First Girl and the criminal plans of the Whyos begin to become clear-Set in a richly realised nineteenth-century New York, a world of crime, corruption, prostitution and disease, Elisabeth Gaffney's debut is a hugely entertaining, irresistibly readable story of love and crime. (20040315)

A hugely entertaining and richly realised literary historical first novel, set in the New York underworld of the 1860s, in the tradition of Caleb Carr's The Alienist and Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White.

'Mesmerizing... An extraordinary achievement' Daily Telegraph --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'A tension-filled crime novel, a thrilling historical exploration, and a wonderfully surreal vision… The reader is compelled to turn each page, to find out what happens next, to taste, to feel, to hear and especially – to smell New York 150 years ago.’ Sunday Telegraph

Arriving in New York in 1868, on the run from a scandal - or perhaps a crime – back in his native Hamburg, our hero, travelling under the name of Georg Geiermeier, becomes a stableboy, tending circus-owner Barnum’s menagerie, until he is framed for an arson attack and finds himself once again on the run.

He falls into the hands of the Whyos, a gang who communicate with each other by means of a complicated system of songs and calls, and is reborn as an Irish labourer and takes a job as a sewerman, unaware of the part in crime the Whyos have in mind for him. Happy in his new job and falling in love with Beatrice, the young Irishwoman the Whyos have selected to teach him Irish English, all seems well, until the gang’s leader chooses Beatrice as his First Girl and the criminal plans of the Whyos begin to become clear…

'[An] engrossing tale of crime and romance...[a] splendidly bleak portrayal of the mid-Victorian city's underbelly' Guardian

'There is a purity and honesty to Gaffney’s characters in particular Beatrice and Frank, that keeps the story sweet. A wonderful recreation of the heady world into which so many Irish emigrants arrived to build new lives for themselves 150 years ago.’ Irish Independent

‘A sprawling epic of a novel… this good old fashioned ripping yarn told with no little zest.’ Glasgow Herald

‘Creates a vast, panoramic history of 19th century New York without ever seeming forced.’ Lisa Hilton in the Sunday Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Elizabeth Gaffney is an editor at the Paris Review. She lives in New York. Metropolis is her first novel. (20040315)