Paradise Alley (City of Fire Trilogy) [Paperback]

As many saw it, poor white workingmen were being forced to fight for the freedom of blacks, who would then come north and take their jobs.

Those three chaotic days provide the backdrop for Kevin Baker's extraordinary new novel, ''Paradise Alley.'' Baker sets seven major characters in motion on the morning of July 13. Most of them occupy derelict houses along the short, fetid block off Cherry Street that gives the book its title.

The characters are as diverse as their backgrounds and as their hopes and aspirations in their adopted city. The frictions between them are what define them as they unite in one common struggle - to drag themselves out of the poverty of the worst of New York's slums.

Without ever slowing his novel's pace or letting us lose sight of any of his characters, the author takes the reader on a careering, kaleidoscopic tour of their world. The faint-hearted might think twice before embarking. Baker's itinerary takes in a ravaged Ireland of the 1840's and the carnage at Fredericksburg, as well as New York's lower depths. He takes us to a bull-baiting pit, walks them past slaughterhouses and through a Manhattan sewer filled with scuttling rats. And we visit places most New Yorkers know nothing about: Seneca Village, a waterfront dive where, for a nickel, thirsty patrons are welcome to as much rotgut whiskey as they can suck through a rubber hose in 30 seconds; and a Bowery saloon that displays on its bar a jar of pickled ears, bitten off misbehaving customers by the female proprietor.

As a convincing portrayal of how things were in the 'new world' and as a compelling fictional vision of how things might have been, as well, ''Paradise Alley'' makes wonderful reading.

The "Draft Riots," the people who participated in them, the conditions which spawned them, and the politicians, churchmen, and police who either did not or could not stop them, are fully examined in this huge novel, filled with ugliness and offering little in the way of hope.

These days of anarchy, with all their depredations, are recreated through the stories and points of view of seven characters--Ruth Dove, who survived the Irish potato famine (depicted in horrifying background detail) and her husband Billy, a former slave; Dangerous Johnny Dolan, Ruth's abusive and jealous former lover; Johnny's sister, Deirdre Dolan O'Kane, and her husband Tom, who participates in the battles of Fredericksburg and Gettysburg; and newspaper hack, Herbert Willis Robinson, who follows the rioters around the city while worrying about his lover Maddy, a woman who became a prostitute when he refused to give her entree into his world.

Baker is a master of odd, and apparently accurate, details from the period, devoting many pages to wide-ranging background material, and developing his characters just enough to make the plot seem plausible, despite its remarkable coincidences, its frequent telegraphing of the action, and an ending which leaves no loose ends. The picture of humanity here is very dark, with details sometimes appearing to be inserted for their shock value. The mob's ghoulish delight in torture and mayhem is sustained for over 600 pages, an experience which makes the reader long for a moment or two of levity. I wish, among all the encyclopedic detail, Baker had offered a few hints about the inner resources which allow one or two characters to rise above the fray and achieve grandeur. Mary Whipple