What do you think?
Rate this book
The World of Tomorrow
Three brothers caught up in a whirlwind week of love, blackmail, and betrayal culminating in an assassination plot, set in prewar New York.
June 1939. Francis Dempsey and his shell-shocked brother Michael are on an ocean liner from Ireland bound for their brother Martin's home in New York City, having stolen a small fortune from the IRA. During the week that follows, the lives of these three brothers collide spectacularly with big-band jazz musicians, a talented but fragile heiress, a Jewish street photographer facing a return to Nazi-occupied Prague, a vengeful mob boss, and the ghosts of their own family's revolutionary past.
When Tom Cronin, an erstwhile assassin forced into one last job, tracks the brothers down, their lives begin to fracture. Francis must surrender to blackmail, or have his family suffer fatal consequences. Michael, wandering alone, turns to Lilly Bloch, a heartsick artist, to recover his lost memory. And Martin and his wife, Rosemary, try to salvage their marriage and, ultimately, the lives of the other Dempseys.
From the smoky jazz joints of Harlem to the Plaza Hotel, from the garrets of artists in the Bowery to the shadowy warehouses of mobsters in Hell's Kitchen, Brendan Mathews brings prewar New York to vivid, pulsing life, while the sweeping and intricate storytelling of this remarkable debut reveals an America that blithely hoped it could avoid another catastrophic war and focus instead on the promise of the World's Fair: a peaceful, prosperous World of Tomorrow.
June 1939. Francis Dempsey and his shell-shocked brother Michael are on an ocean liner from Ireland bound for their brother Martin's home in New York City, having stolen a small fortune from the IRA. During the week that follows, the lives of these three brothers collide spectacularly with big-band jazz musicians, a talented but fragile heiress, a Jewish street photographer facing a return to Nazi-occupied Prague, a vengeful mob boss, and the ghosts of their own family's revolutionary past.
When Tom Cronin, an erstwhile assassin forced into one last job, tracks the brothers down, their lives begin to fracture. Francis must surrender to blackmail, or have his family suffer fatal consequences. Michael, wandering alone, turns to Lilly Bloch, a heartsick artist, to recover his lost memory. And Martin and his wife, Rosemary, try to salvage their marriage and, ultimately, the lives of the other Dempseys.
From the smoky jazz joints of Harlem to the Plaza Hotel, from the garrets of artists in the Bowery to the shadowy warehouses of mobsters in Hell's Kitchen, Brendan Mathews brings prewar New York to vivid, pulsing life, while the sweeping and intricate storytelling of this remarkable debut reveals an America that blithely hoped it could avoid another catastrophic war and focus instead on the promise of the World's Fair: a peaceful, prosperous World of Tomorrow.
560 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2017
181 people are currently reading
5567 people want to read
About the author
Brendan Mathews
5 books48 followersBrendan Mathews is the author of This Is Not a Love Song and The World of Tomorrow, both published by Little, Brown and Co. This Is Not a Love Song has been shortlisted for the Massachusetts Book Awards and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. The World of Tomorrow was named an Honor Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. It was also named an Indie Next Great Read and an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Book Review.
A Fulbright Scholar to Ireland, Brendan’s fiction has twice appeared in The Best American Short Stories and in Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Cincinnati Review, and other publications in the US and UK. He has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Born and raised in upstate New York, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA from the University of Virginia. He lives with his wife and their four children in Lenox, Massachusetts, and teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
A Fulbright Scholar to Ireland, Brendan’s fiction has twice appeared in The Best American Short Stories and in Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, Cincinnati Review, and other publications in the US and UK. He has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Born and raised in upstate New York, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA from the University of Virginia. He lives with his wife and their four children in Lenox, Massachusetts, and teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
October 25, 2017
Here's my review for Washington Post Book World:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
“The World of Tomorrow,” the affable debut novel by Brendan Mathews, begins neither here nor there. All is in transition. It’s 1939, World War II is imminent, and we join the story aboard the MV Britannic en route from the Old World to the New. In the first-class dining room, Sir Angus MacFarquhar, “a Scottish Mr. Darcy,” is busy charming a table of wealthy Americans with his witty repartee. Angus’s real name is Francis Dempsey, however, and he is neither an aristocrat nor even a Scotsman; he is an impetuous Irish jailbird witha bagful of cash swiped from the Irish Republican Army.
The possibility of dramatic transformation amid historical ferment is at the heart of “The World of Tomorrow,” a fat novel stuffed with well-drawn characters grappling with different versions of themselves. For Francis, a purveyor of illegal risqué books, living a double life seems like a surefire method of social advancement. But for his shell-shocked younger brother, Michael, a former seminarian, the rupture in his self-conception is far more violent. Michael has been rendered deaf and dumb by the same accidental explosion that left several IRA bomb makers dead and their money up for grabs. For him, life is divided into Before and After, and the schism in his identity is so acute that his mind conjures up a companion for him to “speak” with — an aloof white-haired gent who turns out to be the recently deceased Irish poet W.B. Yeats. The scenes of bickering between Michael and Yeats provide some of the book’s most pleasurable moments.
As Francis and Michael take up residence in the Plaza Hotel and reunite with their estranged brother, Martin, a jazz musician, the brothers encounter a range of other characters who are also confronting twinned opposites of themselves. Lilly Bloch, a Jewish street photographer, is torn between pursuing her art as a single woman in America and returning to Nazi-occupied Prague, where her lover awaits her. Tom Cronin, a peaceable upstate farmer, finds himself slipping back into his old role as a hit man for one last job: extinguishing Francis Dempsey.
Mathews is an able prose stylist, and breathing life into so many diverse characters is no mean feat. But the book, like the men and women who populate its pages, is riven by conflicting identities. For all the craft Mathews lavishes on these intricate back stories, the sensational plot that binds the characters together — a tale of gangsters, “One Last Score” and a scheme to murder a world leader — feels like a somewhat facile screen story grafted onto a literary novel. Indeed, Mathews mentions the movies repeatedly, which shakes the reader out of whatever realism has been generated and casts a spotlight on the constructedness of his narrative. The novel’s pulpy action climax at the World’s Fair, meanwhile, is unconvincing, as its outcome relies on the credulity-straining gullibility of security officials.
If the period and milieu of “The World of Tomorrow” feel familiar, well, that’s because they are. Setting a debut novel in 1939 New York and naming it after the theme of the World’s Fair is either a bold or derivative act, given the long shadow cast by E.L. Doctorow, the colossus of New York historical fiction. In 1985, Doctorow published “World’s Fair,” an evocative bestselling novel in which the same 1939 expo figures prominently.
But the two books approach 1939 Gotham in different ways. Doctorow, a Bronx native, wrote a tender, first-person story that reads as deeply felt memoir. “World’s Fair” achieves remarkable intimacy by presenting New York through the limited but expanding perspective of a child discovering himself and his city. The visuals are tight shots: close observations of the “strange marks” — swastikas — chalked on the garage doors of the Jewish protagonist’s Bronx home, or of the building material from which that house was built — “red brick, which I knew was essential from the tale of the three little pigs.”
Mathews, by contrast, opts for a panoramic lens, taking in great swaths of the city and a sprawling cast of characters. Paradoxically, Doctorow’s choice to go small made for a bigger book, while Mathews’s broad scope diminishes his story’s intimacy and the reader’s emotional engagement.
Still, Mathews has a flair for bringing street scenes to life, and his hopscotching narrative — from a Harlem jazz joint to a Bowery art studio to a Fifth Avenue palace — makes for an enjoyable tour of a vanished city. “The World of Tomorrow” is an appealing if uneven debut by a promising writer.
John Freeman Gill is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Gargoyle Hunters.”
https://www.amazon.com/Gargoyle-Hunte...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
“The World of Tomorrow,” the affable debut novel by Brendan Mathews, begins neither here nor there. All is in transition. It’s 1939, World War II is imminent, and we join the story aboard the MV Britannic en route from the Old World to the New. In the first-class dining room, Sir Angus MacFarquhar, “a Scottish Mr. Darcy,” is busy charming a table of wealthy Americans with his witty repartee. Angus’s real name is Francis Dempsey, however, and he is neither an aristocrat nor even a Scotsman; he is an impetuous Irish jailbird witha bagful of cash swiped from the Irish Republican Army.
The possibility of dramatic transformation amid historical ferment is at the heart of “The World of Tomorrow,” a fat novel stuffed with well-drawn characters grappling with different versions of themselves. For Francis, a purveyor of illegal risqué books, living a double life seems like a surefire method of social advancement. But for his shell-shocked younger brother, Michael, a former seminarian, the rupture in his self-conception is far more violent. Michael has been rendered deaf and dumb by the same accidental explosion that left several IRA bomb makers dead and their money up for grabs. For him, life is divided into Before and After, and the schism in his identity is so acute that his mind conjures up a companion for him to “speak” with — an aloof white-haired gent who turns out to be the recently deceased Irish poet W.B. Yeats. The scenes of bickering between Michael and Yeats provide some of the book’s most pleasurable moments.
As Francis and Michael take up residence in the Plaza Hotel and reunite with their estranged brother, Martin, a jazz musician, the brothers encounter a range of other characters who are also confronting twinned opposites of themselves. Lilly Bloch, a Jewish street photographer, is torn between pursuing her art as a single woman in America and returning to Nazi-occupied Prague, where her lover awaits her. Tom Cronin, a peaceable upstate farmer, finds himself slipping back into his old role as a hit man for one last job: extinguishing Francis Dempsey.
Mathews is an able prose stylist, and breathing life into so many diverse characters is no mean feat. But the book, like the men and women who populate its pages, is riven by conflicting identities. For all the craft Mathews lavishes on these intricate back stories, the sensational plot that binds the characters together — a tale of gangsters, “One Last Score” and a scheme to murder a world leader — feels like a somewhat facile screen story grafted onto a literary novel. Indeed, Mathews mentions the movies repeatedly, which shakes the reader out of whatever realism has been generated and casts a spotlight on the constructedness of his narrative. The novel’s pulpy action climax at the World’s Fair, meanwhile, is unconvincing, as its outcome relies on the credulity-straining gullibility of security officials.
If the period and milieu of “The World of Tomorrow” feel familiar, well, that’s because they are. Setting a debut novel in 1939 New York and naming it after the theme of the World’s Fair is either a bold or derivative act, given the long shadow cast by E.L. Doctorow, the colossus of New York historical fiction. In 1985, Doctorow published “World’s Fair,” an evocative bestselling novel in which the same 1939 expo figures prominently.
But the two books approach 1939 Gotham in different ways. Doctorow, a Bronx native, wrote a tender, first-person story that reads as deeply felt memoir. “World’s Fair” achieves remarkable intimacy by presenting New York through the limited but expanding perspective of a child discovering himself and his city. The visuals are tight shots: close observations of the “strange marks” — swastikas — chalked on the garage doors of the Jewish protagonist’s Bronx home, or of the building material from which that house was built — “red brick, which I knew was essential from the tale of the three little pigs.”
Mathews, by contrast, opts for a panoramic lens, taking in great swaths of the city and a sprawling cast of characters. Paradoxically, Doctorow’s choice to go small made for a bigger book, while Mathews’s broad scope diminishes his story’s intimacy and the reader’s emotional engagement.
Still, Mathews has a flair for bringing street scenes to life, and his hopscotching narrative — from a Harlem jazz joint to a Bowery art studio to a Fifth Avenue palace — makes for an enjoyable tour of a vanished city. “The World of Tomorrow” is an appealing if uneven debut by a promising writer.
John Freeman Gill is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Gargoyle Hunters.”
https://www.amazon.com/Gargoyle-Hunte...
October 2, 2017
As a fellow author, it pains me to give The World of Tomorrow only 3 stars. It is clearly a labor of love and I respect and admire the enormous effort and skill that went into its writing--the prose, vivid details and sense of place are all excellent.
However, the novel needed a stringent edit. Sprawling is the word that repeated in my mind as I read. It is much too dense with extraneous details, telling, and, worse, characters. Ultimately, the lack of focus, nuance and depth of characterization shut me out of this story.
Again, Mathews' skill is impressive. I would definitely read more work by him.
However, the novel needed a stringent edit. Sprawling is the word that repeated in my mind as I read. It is much too dense with extraneous details, telling, and, worse, characters. Ultimately, the lack of focus, nuance and depth of characterization shut me out of this story.
Again, Mathews' skill is impressive. I would definitely read more work by him.
September 28, 2017
The storyline was interesting, but not enough to get past that this book needed an editor. Felt I was buried under sentences and needed air.
October 29, 2017
OMG!!! The journey I have just been on. WHAT a GREAT story!!! I am typing this with tears in my eyes!
So many characters and so many stories. I was rooting for all the main ones.
A family of brothers whose father was involved in the IRA, a immigrant Jew from Prague with her visa about to expire just when Hitler’s regime had invaded and taken over the country and an African American couple, both very musically inclined and good at it, were dealing with racism and a country trying hard to invent the future during a World’s Fair. An absolutely mesmerizing story that enthralled me and definitely kept my attention.
I did a little something different with this book that I've never done before. I Googled images from 1939 of the Plaza, the World's Fair and street scenes. I can't tell you how much that added to my enjoyment of this book. It's something that I will definitely be doing in the future as sometimes, no fault of the author, I don't get the pictures they are describing.
Again, great read, thoroughly enjoyed!!!
Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
So many characters and so many stories. I was rooting for all the main ones.
A family of brothers whose father was involved in the IRA, a immigrant Jew from Prague with her visa about to expire just when Hitler’s regime had invaded and taken over the country and an African American couple, both very musically inclined and good at it, were dealing with racism and a country trying hard to invent the future during a World’s Fair. An absolutely mesmerizing story that enthralled me and definitely kept my attention.
I did a little something different with this book that I've never done before. I Googled images from 1939 of the Plaza, the World's Fair and street scenes. I can't tell you how much that added to my enjoyment of this book. It's something that I will definitely be doing in the future as sometimes, no fault of the author, I don't get the pictures they are describing.
Again, great read, thoroughly enjoyed!!!
Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
September 30, 2017
2.5/5
This book needed focus. It's one of those stories where it's hard to keep track of what's going on and how all the characters relate to each other, and combined with the length, it could have been cut down for sure. I liked the three brothers, but the combination of many side stories, not a lot of dialogue, and frequent POV changes, made it hard to follow. Less is more, people :)
The jacket is beautiful, though!
*Won this through Goodreads Giveaways.
This book needed focus. It's one of those stories where it's hard to keep track of what's going on and how all the characters relate to each other, and combined with the length, it could have been cut down for sure. I liked the three brothers, but the combination of many side stories, not a lot of dialogue, and frequent POV changes, made it hard to follow. Less is more, people :)
The jacket is beautiful, though!
*Won this through Goodreads Giveaways.
September 8, 2017
3.5
The World of Tomorrow recreates America in 1939, the year of the World's Fair in New York City. It was a time of progress, dreams, and optimism, hot jazz and The Lindy Hop.
It was also a time of world political unrest, racism, and anti-Semitism. Father Coughlin had a radio broadcast from The Shrine of the Little Flower in Metro Detroit, spewing anti-Semitism. Cab Calloway was playing in The Cotton Club to a white audience while black maids lined up on the street to be picked up for day jobs, hoping their employer didn't jilt them of their pay. Anti-lynching law petitions were circulating with little hope of impact.
There is talk about Roosevelt's "latest plans for the ruination of the country," taking from the rich to give to the undeserving poor "who still lined up for free soup and stale bread." The Fascism of Italy and Germany could be "exemplary," with business and government working together. Meanwhile in Europe, Hitler was taking over and Italy was embracing Fascism.
The mission of the World's Fair was to "showcase the abundance and industrial might of America's great corporations." Imagine a world with frozen food! A highway system and a car in every garage! And there was the promise of "Asbestos: The Miracle Mineral." But, the real draw at the fair was the Amusement Zone, and especially the Aquacade with women swimming in flesh-colored swimsuits so they appeared nude.
In Ireland, Francis Dempsey was serving a prison term for trafficking in banned books but is allowed to attend his father's funeral. Also at the funeral is his youngest brother Michael, released from the seminary he turned to after his true love married to solve her family's financial problems.
The boys are 'rescued', supplied with a car and a map to a remote cabin where IRA members make bombs. Francis accidentally sets off the explosives and is left with a shell-shocked Michael and the IRA's stash of money.
Frances comes up with a First-Class Plan: he assumes a false identity and with Michael they take a ship to America. On board he meets a wealthy New York City family whose daughter falls for his persona, the Scottish Lord Agnus MacFarquhar. Meantime, Michael's memory, speech, and hearing has failed, but the ghost of William Butler Yeats has become his new best friend.
The American gangster Gavigan, whose money Francis has stolen, rouses his retired henchman Cronin to tail Martin Dempsey, brother to Francis and Michael. Martin has been in America ten years, and has a wife and children. He is a musician in love with 'jungle' music. Gavigan believes that Francis deliberately killed his Irish contacts and stole his money. He wants revenge. Cronin is to bring Francis to him.
The Dempsey boys don't know that Cronin was mentored by the Dempsey patriarch, doing that which needed to be done for the IRA. Like cold blooded murder. He hated that Dempsey exploited his baser nature, which he has tried to overcome in his new life with Alice and her son, enjoying the simple life as a farmer. Gavigan threatens Alice's life if Cronin fails.
The set-up is long and perhaps overwritten, but it is full of color and vivid characters, and the writing clever with humorous insights. The story later heats up and drives to a heart-pounding and satisfying ending. I loved the Dempsey brothers.
The belief in an America as a place of fresh starts and miracles to come has become quite the nostalgic dream, or disdained hoax, to many Americans today. The novel takes us to a time when we still believed in a better tomorrow.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The World of Tomorrow recreates America in 1939, the year of the World's Fair in New York City. It was a time of progress, dreams, and optimism, hot jazz and The Lindy Hop.
It was also a time of world political unrest, racism, and anti-Semitism. Father Coughlin had a radio broadcast from The Shrine of the Little Flower in Metro Detroit, spewing anti-Semitism. Cab Calloway was playing in The Cotton Club to a white audience while black maids lined up on the street to be picked up for day jobs, hoping their employer didn't jilt them of their pay. Anti-lynching law petitions were circulating with little hope of impact.
There is talk about Roosevelt's "latest plans for the ruination of the country," taking from the rich to give to the undeserving poor "who still lined up for free soup and stale bread." The Fascism of Italy and Germany could be "exemplary," with business and government working together. Meanwhile in Europe, Hitler was taking over and Italy was embracing Fascism.
The mission of the World's Fair was to "showcase the abundance and industrial might of America's great corporations." Imagine a world with frozen food! A highway system and a car in every garage! And there was the promise of "Asbestos: The Miracle Mineral." But, the real draw at the fair was the Amusement Zone, and especially the Aquacade with women swimming in flesh-colored swimsuits so they appeared nude.
In Ireland, Francis Dempsey was serving a prison term for trafficking in banned books but is allowed to attend his father's funeral. Also at the funeral is his youngest brother Michael, released from the seminary he turned to after his true love married to solve her family's financial problems.
The boys are 'rescued', supplied with a car and a map to a remote cabin where IRA members make bombs. Francis accidentally sets off the explosives and is left with a shell-shocked Michael and the IRA's stash of money.
Frances comes up with a First-Class Plan: he assumes a false identity and with Michael they take a ship to America. On board he meets a wealthy New York City family whose daughter falls for his persona, the Scottish Lord Agnus MacFarquhar. Meantime, Michael's memory, speech, and hearing has failed, but the ghost of William Butler Yeats has become his new best friend.
The American gangster Gavigan, whose money Francis has stolen, rouses his retired henchman Cronin to tail Martin Dempsey, brother to Francis and Michael. Martin has been in America ten years, and has a wife and children. He is a musician in love with 'jungle' music. Gavigan believes that Francis deliberately killed his Irish contacts and stole his money. He wants revenge. Cronin is to bring Francis to him.
The Dempsey boys don't know that Cronin was mentored by the Dempsey patriarch, doing that which needed to be done for the IRA. Like cold blooded murder. He hated that Dempsey exploited his baser nature, which he has tried to overcome in his new life with Alice and her son, enjoying the simple life as a farmer. Gavigan threatens Alice's life if Cronin fails.
The set-up is long and perhaps overwritten, but it is full of color and vivid characters, and the writing clever with humorous insights. The story later heats up and drives to a heart-pounding and satisfying ending. I loved the Dempsey brothers.
The belief in an America as a place of fresh starts and miracles to come has become quite the nostalgic dream, or disdained hoax, to many Americans today. The novel takes us to a time when we still believed in a better tomorrow.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
August 2, 2017
This review appears in Historical Novel Review 81 (August 2017):
This ambitious, sprawling adventure imagines New York City and the 1939 World’s Fair in all its jazzy glory. Mathews, a professor of creative writing, uses every fictional trick he can think of to steer the three main characters—the passionate but hapless Dempsey brothers, Martin, Francis, and Michael—in and around the streets, hotels, dance clubs, and back alleys of the metropolis. The beating heart of the narrative is Irish, and savvy readers will spot many allusions to Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, whose Ulysses is Mathews’ narrative model.
As in Joyce’s masterpiece, we follow each brother in turn, up and down the city, and listen to his internal monologues. Beckett’s sense of loss and suspended identity is present in the central character of Michael, brain-damaged and aphasic after a brush with an IRA bomb, but acutely sensitive to the sights and sensibilities of the city in which he wanders, accompanied by the ghost of William Butler Yeats. After a brief prologue on a luxury ship en route from Ireland to New York, where we meet Michael and his brother Francis, a scrappy escaped con with a stolen IRA bankroll, who has donned the persona of a louche Scottish lord, the rest of the story takes place during a single tumultuous week. The third brother, the emigré Martin, is an up-and-coming big band leader who finds himself and his young family endangered by Francis’ underworld pursuers. But, there are many more characters, and whether readers will find this novel joyously overstuffed or annoyingly cluttered is a matter of taste.
The multiple points of view—expressed in lovingly detailed musings and flashbacks—slow the action to a crawl at times; there’s a lot of telling rather than showing, and the author’s style can be a bit ponderous. Still, it’s an impressive evocation of the time and place, and the action becomes satisfyingly suspenseful in the last quarter of this long read.
This ambitious, sprawling adventure imagines New York City and the 1939 World’s Fair in all its jazzy glory. Mathews, a professor of creative writing, uses every fictional trick he can think of to steer the three main characters—the passionate but hapless Dempsey brothers, Martin, Francis, and Michael—in and around the streets, hotels, dance clubs, and back alleys of the metropolis. The beating heart of the narrative is Irish, and savvy readers will spot many allusions to Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, whose Ulysses is Mathews’ narrative model.
As in Joyce’s masterpiece, we follow each brother in turn, up and down the city, and listen to his internal monologues. Beckett’s sense of loss and suspended identity is present in the central character of Michael, brain-damaged and aphasic after a brush with an IRA bomb, but acutely sensitive to the sights and sensibilities of the city in which he wanders, accompanied by the ghost of William Butler Yeats. After a brief prologue on a luxury ship en route from Ireland to New York, where we meet Michael and his brother Francis, a scrappy escaped con with a stolen IRA bankroll, who has donned the persona of a louche Scottish lord, the rest of the story takes place during a single tumultuous week. The third brother, the emigré Martin, is an up-and-coming big band leader who finds himself and his young family endangered by Francis’ underworld pursuers. But, there are many more characters, and whether readers will find this novel joyously overstuffed or annoyingly cluttered is a matter of taste.
The multiple points of view—expressed in lovingly detailed musings and flashbacks—slow the action to a crawl at times; there’s a lot of telling rather than showing, and the author’s style can be a bit ponderous. Still, it’s an impressive evocation of the time and place, and the action becomes satisfyingly suspenseful in the last quarter of this long read.
October 9, 2017
I love a good family saga. And THE WORLD OF TOMORROW by Brendan Mathews does deliver on that end. It's the story of three Irish brothers who face multiple challenges in the summer of 1939 as New York City prepares for the World's Fair and a visit from the King and Queen of England.
Martin Dempsey, the oldest, is trying to support a wife and two daughters while pursuing his passion for music. Michael, the youngest, is frustrated by a head injury that comes with the sudden appearance of the recently deceased Irish poet, William Butler Yeats. Yet it's the middle brother, Francis, who drives the plot as a handsome charmer running from the IRA.
Along the way we meet Tom Cronin, a former IRA enforcer who believes his new life as a happily married farmer is safe and secure. And there's Lilly Bloch, a talented photographer struggling with her conscience and her passion for her work.
Mathews is best when describing his characters, their movements and thoughts. As other reviews have pointed out, his plotting can be a bit scattershot especially as the denouement approaches. When it arrives, it's tempting to shake your head. Which is why I'm torn between giving this book 4 or 4.5 stars. I loved several of his creations, especially the tortured Cronin. And I feel Mathews is an author to watch. Perhaps his second novel will feature a tighter plot and another cast of scintillating characters.
Recommended especially for readers who enjoyed SAINTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS by J. Courtney Sullivan and THE LAW OF DREAMS by Peter Behrens.
Martin Dempsey, the oldest, is trying to support a wife and two daughters while pursuing his passion for music. Michael, the youngest, is frustrated by a head injury that comes with the sudden appearance of the recently deceased Irish poet, William Butler Yeats. Yet it's the middle brother, Francis, who drives the plot as a handsome charmer running from the IRA.
Along the way we meet Tom Cronin, a former IRA enforcer who believes his new life as a happily married farmer is safe and secure. And there's Lilly Bloch, a talented photographer struggling with her conscience and her passion for her work.
Mathews is best when describing his characters, their movements and thoughts. As other reviews have pointed out, his plotting can be a bit scattershot especially as the denouement approaches. When it arrives, it's tempting to shake your head. Which is why I'm torn between giving this book 4 or 4.5 stars. I loved several of his creations, especially the tortured Cronin. And I feel Mathews is an author to watch. Perhaps his second novel will feature a tighter plot and another cast of scintillating characters.
Recommended especially for readers who enjoyed SAINTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS by J. Courtney Sullivan and THE LAW OF DREAMS by Peter Behrens.
September 8, 2017
This is a sprawling, ambitious, and delightfully old fashioned sort of novel— the kind that's perfect to escape into during long autumn afternoons. With a style that toys with Joyce, Beckett, Chabon, Doctorow, Dickens, and more, Brendan Mathews still emerges with a sensibility that is very much his own. The story introduces us to a large cast of characters (the Irish Dempsey brothers, the women who love them, the men who would like to foil them, and several others, including the ghost of William Butler Yeats) and cleverly unfolds how all of their hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow have set them all on a collision course that none of them can anticipate and some may not survive.
Side note: To be honest, since getting my degree in literature a decade ago I've taken a long break from reading most literary fiction by white men. After indiscriminately tearing through the canon in high school and college, I felt like I'd earned a break from that sinking feeling of hitting the first description of a lady in a book and thinking "lord, here we go again." So probably the highest praise I can give The World of Tomorrow is that after you get through the very first section on the boat, most of the women in this book do feel like three dimensional, fully realized people with dreams and personalities of their own— one way in which this gorgeous period piece is refreshingly up to date.
Side note: To be honest, since getting my degree in literature a decade ago I've taken a long break from reading most literary fiction by white men. After indiscriminately tearing through the canon in high school and college, I felt like I'd earned a break from that sinking feeling of hitting the first description of a lady in a book and thinking "lord, here we go again." So probably the highest praise I can give The World of Tomorrow is that after you get through the very first section on the boat, most of the women in this book do feel like three dimensional, fully realized people with dreams and personalities of their own— one way in which this gorgeous period piece is refreshingly up to date.
June 25, 2018
Really enjoyed this debut historical novel! It’s not a short book—be advised that it will take some time to read—but the journey is well worth it. Mathews takes full advantage of his breadth of canvas. He does a great job of bringing NYC just before WWII alive, and the characters are wonderfully drawn; they live on in my mind like old friends even now, several days after I put down the book—and I suspect I won’t be forgetting them any time soon. If that’s not an indication of a well-constructed novel, I don’t know what is! I particularly appreciated the inner life Mathews has created for one of the characters, Michael Dempsey, which includes multiple visitations from the ghost of W.B. Yeats. To my mind this is a tour-de-force demonstration of one of the things fiction can do better than any other artistic medium. Because it unfolds primarily as refracted through characters’ minds, it’s a narrative art form uniquely good at pushing the outer limits of objective reality. Mathews does this, and much else, quite brilliantly. A highly recommended read.
June 8, 2017
A whirlwind of excitement and fun! What a beautiful, character and plot-driven story. I'm done reading but the story is living on in my mind. Read this if you liked DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY.
August 31, 2017
There is so much promise in Brendan Mathews’ The World of Tomorrow. There is a madcap caper driven by Francis who knows how to jump at a chance, fleeing prison during his father’s funeral and taking advantage of an accidental explosion to pick up some cash and new identities for him and his brother Michael. With Michael, we get a hallucinatory dream story, conversations with the ghost of Yeats. They sail for New York to their brother Martin where there is this family story, a marriage challenged by the conflict between responsibility and vocation. Then there is a grim thriller featuring hitman Cronin whose seeking these brothers on behalf of an IRA boss who imagines a grand political assassination. Then there is a comedy of manners featuring the Binghams, revealing the travails of privilege and gossip and the marriage market. With Lilly, we have a glimpse of the rising horror of Nazism and the coming Holocaust. This is a sprawling novel and I can’t help thinking that Mathews could not make up his mind what kind of book he intended to write so he wrote a bit of everything.
The general outline of the story is two brothers fleeing prison and the seminary for a safe house that was already occupied by some IRA bombers of less than stellar accomplishment. They manage to blow themselves up, leaving one brother wounded and the other one alert to the main chance. Grabbing the bomber’s money they head off to New York where their older brother emigrated and where they hope to escape into new lives. They go top class, taking on the identities of Scottish noblemen. An IRA boss dispatches a killer to capture one of the brothers and then sees an opportunity for a terroristic coup at the World’s Fair. Meanwhile, several other things are happening and every character down to the inconsequential get their day, their life history, their hopes, and dreams, are all shared in great detail, even if they barely impinge on the main story.
Meanwhile, several other things are happening and every character down to the inconsequential get their day, their life history, their hopes, and dreams, are all shared in great detail, even if they barely impinge on the main story. Perhaps the most egregious example is the doctor, van Wooten, who has an entire chapter devoted to his frustrated life of medical servitude to the Binghams. He could not exist and the story would not change one whit.
Evaluating a book is always a matter of taste and some people like books that sprawl all over creation. It’s not that I demand books be linear, but I like to think what is in the book is necessary. The long introductions to characters feel like those writing seminar exercises in imagining a character, it’s all backstory and tedious. It is all telling, no showing. Completely realized, fully drawn characters with nothing to do but wait for their stories. But this was not van Wooten’s story and he could have stayed on his index cards. As could a lot of the details on other characters.
The writing varies from imaginative to prosaic. Eyes and gimlet and rituals are arcane. That is disappointing, but when he ventures into more imaginative writing, Mathews can be excellent and then he can be downright silly. I kind of like comparing the first note on the violin to a starter’s pistol in a musical steeplechase, but in the same scene, the writing descends to parody of low-rent romance with Anisette’s pupils contracting and dilating to the music. It was so overblown and florid, I laughed.
I wish I had liked The World of Tomorrow but I did not. I was about two-thirds through the book and considered giving up, but hoped that at least the thriller plot would redeem itself. It did not. It was as anticlimactic and silly as anything. And then, to wrap it all up, we are given a summary of who did what bringing us up to near the present day in the most ridiculous final chapter ever. And now, I have to stop this review, because the more I write, the more I am reminded of what I did not like.
The World of Tomorrow will be released September 5th. I received an advance e-galley from Little Brown, the publisher, through NetGalley.
The World of Tomorrow at Hachette Book Group for Little, Brown and Co.
Brendan Mathews faculty page
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
The general outline of the story is two brothers fleeing prison and the seminary for a safe house that was already occupied by some IRA bombers of less than stellar accomplishment. They manage to blow themselves up, leaving one brother wounded and the other one alert to the main chance. Grabbing the bomber’s money they head off to New York where their older brother emigrated and where they hope to escape into new lives. They go top class, taking on the identities of Scottish noblemen. An IRA boss dispatches a killer to capture one of the brothers and then sees an opportunity for a terroristic coup at the World’s Fair. Meanwhile, several other things are happening and every character down to the inconsequential get their day, their life history, their hopes, and dreams, are all shared in great detail, even if they barely impinge on the main story.
Meanwhile, several other things are happening and every character down to the inconsequential get their day, their life history, their hopes, and dreams, are all shared in great detail, even if they barely impinge on the main story. Perhaps the most egregious example is the doctor, van Wooten, who has an entire chapter devoted to his frustrated life of medical servitude to the Binghams. He could not exist and the story would not change one whit.
Evaluating a book is always a matter of taste and some people like books that sprawl all over creation. It’s not that I demand books be linear, but I like to think what is in the book is necessary. The long introductions to characters feel like those writing seminar exercises in imagining a character, it’s all backstory and tedious. It is all telling, no showing. Completely realized, fully drawn characters with nothing to do but wait for their stories. But this was not van Wooten’s story and he could have stayed on his index cards. As could a lot of the details on other characters.
The writing varies from imaginative to prosaic. Eyes and gimlet and rituals are arcane. That is disappointing, but when he ventures into more imaginative writing, Mathews can be excellent and then he can be downright silly. I kind of like comparing the first note on the violin to a starter’s pistol in a musical steeplechase, but in the same scene, the writing descends to parody of low-rent romance with Anisette’s pupils contracting and dilating to the music. It was so overblown and florid, I laughed.
I wish I had liked The World of Tomorrow but I did not. I was about two-thirds through the book and considered giving up, but hoped that at least the thriller plot would redeem itself. It did not. It was as anticlimactic and silly as anything. And then, to wrap it all up, we are given a summary of who did what bringing us up to near the present day in the most ridiculous final chapter ever. And now, I have to stop this review, because the more I write, the more I am reminded of what I did not like.
The World of Tomorrow will be released September 5th. I received an advance e-galley from Little Brown, the publisher, through NetGalley.
The World of Tomorrow at Hachette Book Group for Little, Brown and Co.
Brendan Mathews faculty page
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
November 26, 2017
The story starts with Scottish Sir Angus traveling from Great Britain to New York on the Britannic, first class, of course. With him is his grievously injured younger brother, Malcolm. The purpose of their trip is to seek medical care for Malcolm. His fellow travelers are very impressed with him, and plans are made to see him further after arrival in New York. The only problem is that he is Irish, his real name is Francis Dempsey, he is an escaped criminal (for selling French postcards and the like), and his money is stolen from an IRA safe house that he accidently blew up with their own explosives. He is on the run and doing it with style.
Michael (Malcolm) was caught in the explosion and has suffered hearing loss and a severe concussion. The only one he can hear now is the ghost of W.B. Yeats, who spends a lot of time with him.
Meanwhile, oldest brother Martin (he has no fake Scottish name) emigrated to the US years before and has been making a living (albeit a poor one) as a jazz musician. In the middle of preparing for his sister-in-law’s wedding, he is assembling an amazing jazz band that will cross color lines – something not yet done in 1939. He is also out of a job as a horn player, something which has upset his wife very badly. She’s taking care of two toddlers in a rundown apartment and wishing for something more than constant drudgery. So when Francis barges into their lives, with money and problems, she doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing- but it’s probably bad.
Nobody kills IRA operatives and steals their money and gets away with it, no matter how far they run. An Irish gangster in New York finds Francis and gives him an ultimatum: do what I ask- a job which will no doubt be fatal to Francis- or his family will all be killed. Oh, and Michael, unable to communicate, has wandered off.
It’s a big, sprawling, book with numerous narrative streams. The characters range from the very rich to the very poor. There are gangsters, people who want to be EX gangsters, royalty, extremely neurotic people, artists, and every other kind of person. I enjoyed the story, although sometimes I had trouble remembering the narrative stream of one character after reading about others for many pages. Part of the enjoyment I found was the descriptions of everything that was happening in NYC at the time: the World’s Fair, the receding Depression, the burgeoning jazz scene especially in Harlem- NYC was alive with change. Four and a half stars.
Michael (Malcolm) was caught in the explosion and has suffered hearing loss and a severe concussion. The only one he can hear now is the ghost of W.B. Yeats, who spends a lot of time with him.
Meanwhile, oldest brother Martin (he has no fake Scottish name) emigrated to the US years before and has been making a living (albeit a poor one) as a jazz musician. In the middle of preparing for his sister-in-law’s wedding, he is assembling an amazing jazz band that will cross color lines – something not yet done in 1939. He is also out of a job as a horn player, something which has upset his wife very badly. She’s taking care of two toddlers in a rundown apartment and wishing for something more than constant drudgery. So when Francis barges into their lives, with money and problems, she doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing- but it’s probably bad.
Nobody kills IRA operatives and steals their money and gets away with it, no matter how far they run. An Irish gangster in New York finds Francis and gives him an ultimatum: do what I ask- a job which will no doubt be fatal to Francis- or his family will all be killed. Oh, and Michael, unable to communicate, has wandered off.
It’s a big, sprawling, book with numerous narrative streams. The characters range from the very rich to the very poor. There are gangsters, people who want to be EX gangsters, royalty, extremely neurotic people, artists, and every other kind of person. I enjoyed the story, although sometimes I had trouble remembering the narrative stream of one character after reading about others for many pages. Part of the enjoyment I found was the descriptions of everything that was happening in NYC at the time: the World’s Fair, the receding Depression, the burgeoning jazz scene especially in Harlem- NYC was alive with change. Four and a half stars.
June 27, 2017
DNF at 47%
I couldn't finish this book. I kept trying to stay with it but at 47% I was lost. From the beginning I knew it would be challenging because of all of the characters. I felt like I needed a character map to keep it all straight. There were too many people introduced too quickly, it made it very hard to follow. Sometimes the story would switch characters story lines between paragraphs which confused me as well. There needed to be more a distinctive change on the page to separate them. I also kept waiting for the story to maybe pick up or for things to start making sense but they just weren't for me. Maybe others have had other reactions to this book but it just wasn't for me.
I received this as an arc from netgalley in return for a honest review.
I couldn't finish this book. I kept trying to stay with it but at 47% I was lost. From the beginning I knew it would be challenging because of all of the characters. I felt like I needed a character map to keep it all straight. There were too many people introduced too quickly, it made it very hard to follow. Sometimes the story would switch characters story lines between paragraphs which confused me as well. There needed to be more a distinctive change on the page to separate them. I also kept waiting for the story to maybe pick up or for things to start making sense but they just weren't for me. Maybe others have had other reactions to this book but it just wasn't for me.
I received this as an arc from netgalley in return for a honest review.
May 14, 2025
After reading “Rules of Civility” I was in a pre-war New York fiction mood, and this certainly scratched that itch. The buildup is slow but the final third of the book was “can’t put down” drama. I appreciated an epilogue to help finish telling the story of the characters, though there were a few I was still left wondering about at the end. Good character development and just enough surprises to keep one on their toes while reading.
October 25, 2017
Not quite a literary heavy weight but certainly an engaging and well-written tale of adventure set in New York City circa 1939.
September 4, 2017
Find this review at Forever Lost in Literature!
The World of Tomorrow was an absolute breath of fresh air and I had such a fantastic time reading it. This book centers on three brothers during a brief period of time in 1939 New York. Though the events of the book only cover about a week of time, Brendan Mathews covers an extraordinarily vast and intricate amount of history, personality, and conflict throughout his telling of these events.
There is something so extraordinarily clever and unique about this book, but I can't quite place it. There's a heavy emphasis on family and loyalty, but also on independence and learning to live in the best way possible. Family, however, is always at the heart of this story. Mathews writes with a quick mind in a manner that drags you into the story and the lives of each character.
Speaking of characters, there is a actually decent-sized cast of characters, but I personally didn't find there to be too many characters, as I've heard others mention. The three brothers - Francis, Martin, and Michael - are the central figures of this narrative, but is a small abundance of others as well. There were a few very minor characters that I didn't feel needed to have their own chapters, but it hardly detracted that much from the story.
I really did enjoy getting to know this rather disjointed (dare I say dysfunctional?) family. Quick-witted, trouble-making Francis is a true adventurer and also a joy to follow throughout the story, Michael is troubled and dealing with his own personal internal struggles, and then there is Martin, who is in a stable relationship with a wife and child in New York City. We also have Tom Cronin, the man sent to assassinate one of them, and a character that I found myself quite fascinated by.
Each character was also treated with extreme care by Mathews. They were wonderfully fleshed out and created with unique personalities and characteristics. He also provides a rather length backstory for each character - this become slightly tedious at times, but I do believe that you could probably skim over it if that isn't your thing. I think Mathews writing was so lovely that I didn't want to skip over it, but it is something I would understand others doing.
It's the writing style, however, that truly stands out with this book, as the way in which Mathews crafts the thoughts and actions of each brother allows us to experience everything that they are struggling with and to be sucked into their own complicated story.
Overall, I really enjoy The World of Tomorrow and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a well-written, family-centered story of intrigue and adventure. Four-and-a-half stars from me!
The World of Tomorrow was an absolute breath of fresh air and I had such a fantastic time reading it. This book centers on three brothers during a brief period of time in 1939 New York. Though the events of the book only cover about a week of time, Brendan Mathews covers an extraordinarily vast and intricate amount of history, personality, and conflict throughout his telling of these events.
There is something so extraordinarily clever and unique about this book, but I can't quite place it. There's a heavy emphasis on family and loyalty, but also on independence and learning to live in the best way possible. Family, however, is always at the heart of this story. Mathews writes with a quick mind in a manner that drags you into the story and the lives of each character.
Speaking of characters, there is a actually decent-sized cast of characters, but I personally didn't find there to be too many characters, as I've heard others mention. The three brothers - Francis, Martin, and Michael - are the central figures of this narrative, but is a small abundance of others as well. There were a few very minor characters that I didn't feel needed to have their own chapters, but it hardly detracted that much from the story.
I really did enjoy getting to know this rather disjointed (dare I say dysfunctional?) family. Quick-witted, trouble-making Francis is a true adventurer and also a joy to follow throughout the story, Michael is troubled and dealing with his own personal internal struggles, and then there is Martin, who is in a stable relationship with a wife and child in New York City. We also have Tom Cronin, the man sent to assassinate one of them, and a character that I found myself quite fascinated by.
Each character was also treated with extreme care by Mathews. They were wonderfully fleshed out and created with unique personalities and characteristics. He also provides a rather length backstory for each character - this become slightly tedious at times, but I do believe that you could probably skim over it if that isn't your thing. I think Mathews writing was so lovely that I didn't want to skip over it, but it is something I would understand others doing.
It's the writing style, however, that truly stands out with this book, as the way in which Mathews crafts the thoughts and actions of each brother allows us to experience everything that they are struggling with and to be sucked into their own complicated story.
Overall, I really enjoy The World of Tomorrow and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a well-written, family-centered story of intrigue and adventure. Four-and-a-half stars from me!
October 19, 2017
The World of Tomorrow--so close to being really good. It should have been had Mathews had a strong editor to help him edit some of this out as the book is too long...with too many offshoots from the main characters and too often getting bogged down in the details to connect it to a specific period, forgetting the story. That said, I did enjoy the book for the most part and was caught up in the story of a trio of Irish brothers and their lives in NYC during the World's Fair...music, photography, IRA members, the long dead poet Yeats's ghost [something in the novel I didn't care for...too cute], all kinds of things went into this story, and as I said, Mathews tries to do too much.
September 23, 2017
Ultimately the book grew on me. I was pulled in with the beginning but soon felt the writing was a little clumsy, then I thought it picked up again. The ending was a little pat and rosier than reality might have indicated, but still what the reader, who was rooting for these people, would have wanted. As a record of Depression era life on the edge of criminality, more Dennis Lehane than Doctorow. A good story with likable characters competently (or somewhat better) told.
December 7, 2022
This is a very half-hearted three star review. Mathews has done a lot of research--about the 1930s, the IRA, the 1939 New York World's Fair, the situation in Europe, etc., etc. and it shows. But I don't mean that in a necessarily good way. The basic plot is about the Dempsey brothers whose father was a member of the IRA before his wife was blown, when he agreed with the side that allowed for the Irish partition. He and his sons moved to Cork. Eventually one brother, Martin, moved to New York, married, and became a jazz musician. His younger brother Francis was a scalliwag and eventually went to jail, while his even younger brother Michael, eventually became a priest to escape his father's house and his beloved who was contracted by her father to an older man. The Dempsey father dies, Francis and Michael are allowed to come to the funeral, where they run off from their respective lives, end up with a lot of IRA money and go to NYC, where Francis is eventually found by Gavigan, an old IRA man, who tells Francis that unless he's kills the king of England, when he and the queen visit the World's Fair, that his whole family will be killed. And that's not all. There are side stories about Lily Block, a photographer from Prague, who ends up caring for the deaf and dumb Michael (caused by the explosion at the IRA safehouse), various jazz musicians, the family of Martin's wife and her sister's wedding, the delights of the Plaza Hotel, etc. This book is engaging at times, but too much of loose and baggy monster, with an epilogue in which all the loose ends are tied up. And that's not to mention the magical realist addition of the ghost of Yeats, who only Michael can see and hear.
September 20, 2017
The year is 1939, and the world is on the brink of the second world war while the borough of Queens, New York hosts the World's Fair-themed in a futuristic setting, thus the title of the book, "The World of Tomorrow." From the rough ever green turbulent island of Ireland comes two brothers to New York City in search of their brother Martin who had left years previously to pursue his dream of becoming a famous musician. This book reminds me of the song David Allen Coe sings in which there is Mama, prison, a train, and drinking. This book also has it all too. IRA revolutionists, a Jewish woman who's work visa is about to expire, a visiting King and Queen, some high-bred society types to the Harlem's Jazz clubs with Negro players, a seminary student gone deaf and dumb, a prisoner on the lamb, the debutant sister unsure of her upcoming marriage while her sister struggles with her nosey landlord and her growing brood or the country lass who must part with her man when a gangster comes calling for payback of past deeds……. All are memorable characters that are well developed with side stories all their own. Written in a first-person repertoire that I found intriguing to jump from one person's thoughts and feeling's to another's. This book's layout was fashioned in an easy to follow manner with titled chapters by days in a calendar style using an art deco typography font that was carried over from the front cover.
June 29, 2020
The World of Tomorrow is a rather excellent novel marred only by the author's tendency to consistently diverge from the plot in order to explain a character's backstory. The book is ultimately about family ties. No matter how far they are stretched, they never break. It is also a story about redemption. Mathews's novel features a wide cast of characters and concepts ranging from IRA hit men, musicians, fleeing the Holocaust, mistaken identities, false identities, troubled marriages, and The World's Fair. While it sounds cluttered, it is not. Everything is tied together and none of it, oddly, every feels completely like fiction. The book is relatively long at roughly 550 pages. Brendan Mathews's style garners some great imagery and a real feeling for the time. My favorite aspect of his writing is how much he loves his characters. The way he writes, there really aren't good guys or bad guys. Everyone has a past, everyone has a reason, everyone has a life. Perfect nuances. There was not a single cardboard character in the assorted cast. Mathews never judges his characters and that shines through to create three dimensional, sympathetic human beings. The only complaint I have is that I sometimes found this strength to be a mild flaw. The fact that we as readers significantly get to know these people is because many pages are dedicated to them...to everyone...to every single character no matter how minor they might be. When the plot we are following down a pretty moderate page length continues to detour, it can feel like a slog. Did we really need to know the back story of the palm reader who shows up for less than 10 pages? With half of those pages dedicated to her past? Or Hooper and his wife Lorena? These come off as dead end tributaries off a wide fast river. They can be interesting to explore, but also unnecessary when there's plenty of river left to travel. This is a very specific complaint and some people may simply relish in knowing all they can about everyone. I however, found myself saying, "Let's get friggin' moving," when I reached page 300 and was still receiving new people and new histories. Despite this flaw, The World of Tomorrow is a great modern novel. I think any lover of books would find something to love in this one.
February 19, 2018
I started out really enjoying this: Irish 1930s NY was very much a people and setting that I could get into, but it became a real slog. Lots of details included that didn’t fill out the setting, characters or plot felt like the author just couldn’t let anything go unused. Perhaps if you are a fast reader who could get wrapped up in it and some of the more fantastic plot twists it would work but not for me. Three stars for effort and an Irishman named Martin.
Read
September 4, 2018I picked this up from the new fiction shelf at the library and thought I'd give it a go. I have a hard time immersing myself in a novel, but this one had me from the first sentence. Mathews' storytelling delighted me and I enjoyed my time with these characters. I was sad to see them go and I'm glad to have had the chance to experience a good read.
December 27, 2019
LOVED this book. So captivating, really well written, and featuring a fascinating cast of characters.
October 28, 2018
Received this book from the publisher in return for a review. I got lucky! A FC (“First Class” as in book) novel of the bonds that tie a family together despite misfortunes. Set on the brink of WWII, with NYC and the 1939 World’s Fair as the backdrop., the dream of American life and the energy of NYC comes alive. The future promises greatness but the present is fraught with racism, anti-semitism and ignorance. Characters are terrific and the pace is superb. Very much enjoyed the character of Lily, a gutsy young Jewish photographer caught between her desire to survive and her love of a man caught in the web of occupied Prague. Sometimes comic but tragic too, I thoroughly enjoyed this read.
March 18, 2023
I was engaged almost immediately and I loved where this book took me. It could have used a bit of editing but I’m not mad about that. It was a pleasure to read.
August 5, 2019
I read some other reviews about this book needing an edit and while I see their point, I am on the 'I loved every single backstory detour for every minor character' side of the debate. Well truthfully there was one, maybe two I glossed over but for the most part I loved this whole book. I simultaneously needed to know how it all played out/didn't want it to end.
December 2, 2018
3.5 stars
September 14, 2017
I was totally intrigued by the premise of this book but it fell short for me.
Way short, like I only got fifty pages in and then gave up.
I think with a book like this, the narrative needs to flow easily and not be so disjointed. Too many players, to much back and forth (chronologically).
I appreciate his historically accurate research for the setting but the writing style was not a success for me.
Way short, like I only got fifty pages in and then gave up.
I think with a book like this, the narrative needs to flow easily and not be so disjointed. Too many players, to much back and forth (chronologically).
I appreciate his historically accurate research for the setting but the writing style was not a success for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews