Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
How much misery can you tolerate?, 20 Oct 2002
Life was cheap in New York City in 1863, the setting for this powerfully realized, naturalistic novel. For $300 a man who did not want to fight in the Civil War could hire another man to take his place, an option available only to the wealthy, the poor, of necessity, obeying the draft. Living in the city's fetid back alleys, where pigs ran wild, children sailed paper boats in rivers of blood running out of butcheries, and horses and dogs rotted where they fell, the mainly Irish poor finally reached their limits and exploded in murderous rage. During three of the hottest days in July, 1863, they rioted, bludgeoning any man, woman, or child who got in their way, saving their particular wrath for blacks, whom they blamed for the war--innocent neighbors who were stripped, set on fire, and hanged from lamp posts. 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
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The compelling story of a struggle to survive, 10 Oct 2002
By A Customer
Until September 2001, three summer days in 1863 were the most frightening in the history of New York City. From Monday, July 13, through to Wednesday, July 17, mobs held much of Manhattan. The rioters were working class, overwhelmingly Irish Catholic and filled with simmering resentments at the Protestant establishment who exploited them, at the conditions in which they were forced to live, at inflationary prices and lockouts and strikebreaking. But the final spark was provided by the new National Conscription Act, which made virtually all able-bodied men eligible for the draft but allowed the well-to-do to escape service by paying a $300 fee.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.
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