Deviation Posting – New York History Reads

I’ve long been interested in New York’s history and picked up a few books on a trip there earlier this year which found themselves at the top of my holiday reading pile now I have a month of reading before me (-3 days now already). I was once told that when it came to historical fiction you can kill a book with too much information. Consequently I’ve personally stayed away from fiction and decided non-fiction allowed me to over-inform a readership that largely wants to be over-informed. Then I read Heyday by Kurt Andersen (he of the New Yorker and the excellent Studio 360 radio show). It’s a rollicking story that flashes from London to France, all across America but by far most of the book and the best bits are set in New York in 1848.

Andersen simply loads the narrative down with historical detail for 600 pages and I loved it – the Lower East Side B’hoys, the volunteer fire crews, bordello etiquette, minstrel shows, opium, the Astor Hotel, the ethic map of mid-nineteenth century Manhattan (including the Irish, the Germans, the English, the Jews, the blacks etc etc),the underground railway etc etc…on and on with detail that is usually woven well into the story and when it isn’t it still doesn’t bother you that much. It’s also a good piece of fiction though to be honest the parts set in England and France rang less true than New York (obviously Andersen’s obsession).

I also threw a copy of TJ Gilfoyle’s excellent A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York. The true story of George Appo, half Chinese and one of the most notorious pickpockets of his time. Gilfoyle takes you through the life of a pickpocket and those who ran the Green Goods Game (a famous sting played out on yokels at the time by city criminals) as well as the opium den culture of Manhattan.

Two better reads on New York in the nineteenth century would be hard to find and incidentally, as I get asked the question a lot, if you’re thinking of writing an historical novel Heyday would be a good education and if you’re thinking of writing engaging non-fiction (i.e. not just something for the academics and a few libraries) then Gilfoyle is an equally good education.