Paradise Alley

City of Fire #2

by Kevin Baker

At the height of the Civil War, word spreads through the poorest quarters of New York City that a military draft is about to be implemented -- a draft from which any rich man's son can buy an exemption. The outrage this inspires escalates into the worst urban conflagration in American history.

Down in the waterfront slum of Paradise Alley, three women -- Deirdre Dolan O'Kane, Ruth Dove, and Maddy Boyle -- struggle with their private fears as they wait for the storm to descend upon them. Deirdre, devastated by the news that her husband, Tom, has been wounded at Gettysburg, must turn for comfort and aid to two women she has always judged as morally depraved -- Ruth, married to an ex-slave, and Maddy, a hard-living prostitute.

Kevin Baker's acclaimed masterpiece is an unforgettable portrait of three women who come together to protect their homes and families from the brutality of a city -- and a nation -- gone mad.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Civil War, New York, 19th Century, Novels, American History

676 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Kevin Baker is the author of the New York, City of Fire trilogy: Dreamland, Paradise Alley, and Strivers Row. Most recently, he's been writing about politics for Harper's Magazine and the New York Observer.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

It started when the new Draft Law was announced. All able-bodied men, ages twenty to forty-five, married or single, are now eligible to be drafted into Mr. Lincoln's army, and shipped south to the war. There to be fed on wormy hardtack, and saltpork, and butchered by incompetent generals while their families try to subsist on begging and government relief. Unless---and, ah, there's the rub!---they have three hundred dollars to buy themselves a substitute. An easy enough thing for any man of means---but two years salary to an Irish hod-carrier from the Five Points.

On three sweltering summer days in 1863, a mob ran rampant through the lower wards of New York City, causing probably the worst civic disturbance in the history of the United States. Baker's formidable novel mixes fictional characters with real life heroes and villains, and tosses them into the dark and horrifying hours surrounding the draft riots. With almost one million souls, packed down into the tail end of Manhattan Island, tensions were running high, and the unfairness of the Draft Law was the final straw. The alcohol-fueled mob sought revenge on police, politicians, the wealthy, and mostly, on the city's black citizens.


The Burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum

First comes a wild flutter of refugees, driven before the mob like so many flushed doves. Negroes and women, mostly, but also whites, entire families --- citizens of an American city---running for their lives. They nearly break our ranks in their panic. Desperately toting whatever possessions they were able to salvage, their little handcarts and wheelbarrows bouncing over the paving stones.

"Hold, men, and let them pass!" Carpenter orders---the policemen parting to let them through, their faces paling at the sight.

But there is no time to panic. Right behind the refugees comes the mob. They are swaggering now, full of confidence, filling all of Broadway for as far as the eye can see. There must be at least ten thousand of them, shouting and jeering as they come. Waving their crude clubs and stones and knives; their poles and grappling hooks, muskets and pistols---even a few swords they have stolen from somewhere.



The action essentially takes place over just the three days of the riots, though there are interminable flashbacks. The hopping around in time may drive some readers batty, but I was down with it. The author tells a compelling story, and the only reason this book took me so long to read was its stupid, floppy paperback format - difficult to hold in any position. I recommend reading this one in hardback or ebook.

I do NOT, however, recommend this for the fainthearted - there are extremely graphic descriptions of both the Irish potato famine and the consequences of the mob's violence. Many passages are upsetting to read, particularly since this is based on real events. To say that the crowd behaved like animals is an insult to animals. Even the most vicious creatures do not torture and set fire to their victims. Perhaps most disturbing is the thought that, given how supporters of a certain political candidate have behaved recently, it seems quite possible that something like this could happen again.

[Carol Storm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basically this Civil War novel is GANGS OF NEW YORK, told at a very slow pace with way, way more sentimentality. Have to give it 2 stars just for historical research, but beyond that, strictly meh.

You have to feel sorry for this author. If you're Kevin Baker, how do you write a novel about the Draft Riots without making the Irish immigrants look like the bad guys? This was the worst race riot in American history, and it lasted for over a week. More than that, after the riots were over the Irish who did all of the killing got a stranglehold on New York City politics and the police and fire departments for the next 100 years at least. Who says crime doesn't pay?

Kevin Baker fights back against these embarrassing facts with a wonderfully inventive mixture of sentimentality, pathos, wishful thinking, Irish chutzpah and shameless hypocrisy. His handpicked cast of Irish characters are a beguiling combination of losers, failures, dreamers, whores and Virgin Mary wanna-be's who are guaranteed to blow your mind. Never guilty of racism (what's that?) these very special individuals make a gruesome tale of race hatred and successful violence into a poignant family melodrama filled with self-pitying monologues and lachrymose regret. They are always victims, never victimizers.

Let's meet the cast of PARADISE ALLEY:

"DANGEROUS" JOHNNY DOLAN. A knuckle-dragging psychopath with a heart of gold, Eugene O'Neill's Hairy Ape minus the genuine anger and anguish. Johnny's not an evil man, he's just confused. He joins the Anti-Draft mob not because he hates the blacks (no one in this book hates the blacks) but just because he wants to pummel, rape, and brutalize his ex-wife Ruth, and her children. And he needs to get back his cabinet full of magical odds and ends!

RUTH "I'M A DOORMAT" DOLAN. A limp, sniveling stick figure of a woman, Ruth escaped the Irish Potato Famine by serving Johnny Dolan's every need. Now she's sort of happily married to a free black man named Billy Dove, but spends all her time looking over her shoulder for the return of her brutal ex-husband Johnny. Never a whiner, Ruth believes in quiet despair and passive resignation. Why anyone would have married this woman in the first place is one of the book's most intriguing mysteries.

BILLY "EVEN MY NAME IS NON-THREATENING" DOVE. No Bigger Thomas he! Mild-mannered Billy escapes from slavery in a dashing Sinbad the Sailor type fashion, yet upon arriving in New York he immediately becomes a pitiful, weak-willed chump who marries the world's most boring white woman and drinks to forget the fact that the used to be a skilled ship's carpenter. The point that the docks are closed to blacks is valid, but the way the black hero folds is patronizing and inauthentic. Note to Billy: The Nantucket whaling fleet is hiring. Tell them Ishmael sent you!

DEIRDRE "GOD'S HOLY HOUSEWIFE" O'KANE. This is one character I really, really hated. She's Dangerous Johnny Dolan's sister, and she's . . . perfect. Not just a good Catholic, but the perfect wife, mother, and upwardly striving Irish-American. She loathes her brother's ex-wife for marrying a black man, but when the riots start she does a dramatic 180 degree turn (for no reason that makes any kind of historical, ethnic, or religious sense) and becomes Baker's Magic Bullet. Deirdre's sanctity is obnoxious because it's a transparent attempt to tap-dance away from ANY kind of Irish accountability for the riots. "I have no idea what those men think they're doing. No idea!" (The lady doth protest too much.)

THOMAS "THE HEN-PECKED HERO" O'KANE. Deirdre's husband, he joins the Union army and fights at Gettysburg, then arrives home just in time to save his old neighborhood from the rioters. Nothing wrong with that, but just to keep things real he has to take the usual Irish cheap shots at Abraham Lincoln, Horace Greeley, and "the simpering Yankee gentry." Why he's so impressed with Deirdre's piety is never really explained, she's more sanctimonious (and less believable) than a whole barrel full of Greeleys.

Along with the main family group, we have a childlike whore, (who acts hard boiled for the first 100 pages then completely falls apart the minute the riots start, just so Deirdre can "protect" her) and an upper class twit, who serves chiefly to take more cheap shots at Lincoln and the government. We also have a crooked Irish politician named Finn McCool who stirs up the anti-black mob (Baker keeps referring to him as "the goblin" as if to suggest he's some sort of changeling, i.e. not really Irish at all), and a couple of Catholic clergyman who keep saying "the church is not to blame" every time the mob hangs a black man or mutilates an Irish officer. Defending the church seems to matter a lot more to Kevin Baker than explaining why the riots happened in the first place. Clearly he'd like to blame the whole thing on Yankee abolitionists like Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley . . . but then that's what the mob did at the time. So the most Baker can do is make everyone a victim, and keep reminding us that pure, chaste, Irish women are incapable of racism, cruelty, or meanness of spirit.

I guess he's never read any Mary Gordon!

[Jody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ran across this book by accident, and I am very glad that I did. Kevin Baker does an amazing job of bringing historical fiction to life. This novel takes place during the Civil War draft riots in the 19th century, and examines the events from a variety of perspectives. There are numerous storylines which intertwine at different point, and there are numerous characters that are developed. My only criticism was that it was difficult to follow the many different characters at first, but after a few chapters I was thoroughly hooked. Baker followed this book with two other novel in his "City of Fire" trilogy, Dreamland (which looked at New York City around the turn of the 20th century) and Striver's Row (which detailed the beginnings of a young Malcom X in Harlem in the 1940's). They are all three great novels.

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin Baker is quickly altering the landscape of American historical fiction. His first novel, Dreamland, burst into flames three years ago — a hypnotic portrayal of Coney Island designed to parallel the chaotic city of New York in 1911. His latest, Paradise Alley, stays on Manhattan, but it moves back to the Civil War, rescuing from national amnesia the worst riot in US history.

Baker's descriptions of New York City could be more pungent only with scratch 'n' sniff inserts. While Dreamland rose into the lurid surrealism of the carnival, for this more grounded history, Baker has only to follow the ghastly imagination of the rioters, whose deeds he unearthed in contemporary newspaper accounts. Indeed, this mammoth book threatens Cormac McCarthy's position as the country's most violent novelist.

The enormous story burns for just three days, but it generates so much heat that I expected the pages to disintegrate into ash as I turned them. "Day One" opens on July 13, 1863. A new law has made all able-bodied white men "eligible to be drafted by lot into Mr. Lincoln's army, and shipped south to the war. There to be fed on wormy hardtack, and salt pork, and butchered by incompetent generals while their families try to subsist on begging and government relief." For the thousands of poor Irishmen who've recently escaped starvation, the suppression of Southern rebels seems a distant irrelevancy.

What particularly galls them, though, is the law's provision that any man can buy his way out of military service for $300. The builders, craftsmen, butchers, street sweepers, gasmen, longshoremen, clerks, and unemployed drunks — that is, virtually all the able-bodied men who can't afford to buy substitutes — complain that Lincoln has placed a price on their heads considerably lower than the value of a single Southern slave.

With a million people packed into the tail end of Manhattan, enduring sanitation closer to the first century than to our own, "all that's needed is a match," the narrator notes. Already suspicious in a Protestant country with strong anti-Catholic prejudices, the men collecting nervously in bars and on street corners have no reason to doubt the incendiary rumors from the front:

"I hear the abolitionists is puttin' all the good Irish men in the front lines," one says.

"I hear they're bringin' a hundred thousand freed slaves to the City, to take their jobs."

Those rumors aren't quelled by the fact that men who enlist voluntarily are shipped out in chains to keep them from escaping and returning to collect another signing bonus.

Everyone feels the tension in the air, the static electricity ready to ignite social unrest in a city already charged by strikes and uncontrolled inflation. City government flees, sensing the impending explosion, leaving 2,300 policemen — almost all Irish — to deal with whatever trouble may come from their fellow Irishmen.

Meanwhile, the city's 6,000 firemen, also Irish, serve on a collection of viciously competitive teams. (Sometimes, men from five or six different fire houses fight for hours over an available hydrant while the building they've come to save burns to the ground.)

When the city's toxic fumes of resentment and fear finally ignite, it's a ghastly conflagration, captured here in all its consuming savagery. Baker's extraordinary talent � even beyond his capacity to uncover such a mountain of grisly detail — is his ability to organize this chaos and dramatize it in a way that's sensible to us. Amid this hellish encyclopedia of mob crimes, he manages to run the story through the lives of a small collection of characters spread throughout the city.

Much of the storytelling falls to Herbert Willis Robinson, a blindingly self-righteous writer for the New York Tribune, who hopes to raise himself to the level of real literature by bearing witness to the city's immolation. That grand task, though, is interrupted by his concern during the riots for Maddy Boyle, a prostitute on Paradise Alley, whom he's engaged in a grotesque Pygmalion fantasy.

Maddy lives alongside Ruth Dove, a white woman married to a black man who finds himself trapped at the other end of the city when rioters begin lynching anyone they can find. His efforts to wend his way home through this furnace of hate � while trying to hide more than 200 black children from his employer's orphanage — provide some of the novel's most harrowing and heroic scenes. His wife, meanwhile, remains holed up in her house, trying to protect their own children not only from the mob but from her ex-lover, Dangerous Johnny Dolan, an engine of unstoppable vengeance who's returned to New York after 14 years.

These various voices and perspectives, so sensitively drawn, allow Baker to swing between cool history and pot-boiling melodrama. Despite its length and complexity, the story moves clearly from battle to battle, around the city but also around the world and through the pasts of these characters — including gut-wrenching scenes of the potato famine, the Civil War front, prison life, and back alleys of prostitution and crime. Baker is a master at charting the conflicting political, social, and religious currents as they course through the city. Everywhere in his vision of the mid-19th century lie the expressions of slavery � some far more subtle than the South's "peculiar institution," but all hideously degrading.

The brave survival of New York on Sept. 11, 2001, places the chaos of this black week in particularly sharp contrast. Baker's breathless tragedy of the city in flames can't help but inspire a profound appreciation for the progress we've made in everything from plumbing to racism. But the little crevices of kindness and self-sacrifice he discovers amid this holocaust are a reminder of the best qualities in the human heart. Once again, he's lit a fire under American history and made it burn with a roar.

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm only about halfway through this book and not sure I want to finish. I read Baker's "Dreamland" and liked it, so decided to try this one, too. I guess I just cannot stomach books that are so relentlessly grim and dark. I am enjoying some of the chapters, and I like learning about history through fiction. But I need to be able to trust that the fiction is based on fact, and, having read the Wiki page about Johnny Dolan, I am thinking that Baker has included more gore than necessary and has, in the process, perhaps sacrificed reality for sensation. Evidently, Johnny Dolan was a real gangster in NYC at the time and was convicted and hung for murdering Mr. Noe. However, the Times never mentioned any eye-gouging or other sensational cruelty. That seems to be legend, not fact. To me, this detracts from the story and makes me not want to pick up the book. Also, Dolan had a mother, wife, and sister, so the book fictionalizes his life story, too. I can forgive that, as a way to tell depict the horror of the Irish famine. But I think reality was horrible enough without making it worse. It just makes me wonder how much I can trust this author's research. And why I should read about such horrific events if it is fiction.

I have been plugging along, trying to finish this book. I just decided to quit. I simply hate this book. I tried to like it, due to all the good reviews and the fact that I liked Baker's Dreamland. But I cannot stomach the descriptions of torture, cruelty, depravity, despair, desperation, mob violence. We need to understand the depths to which desperate people can sink when they decide that others are the enemy, or not quite human. But I see no need for such detailed descriptions of horror in fiction. I got to page 472 out of 676; I wish I had not read one page. I will not read another of Baker's books.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt the need to start this book on July 12th, since the events take place between July 13 - 15 in 1863. It was about as hot now as it was in the book.

Reading historical fiction, I know I always say this, but it reminds me of how good we have it today. No matter what the hardships we may suffer today -- it can't be nearly as bad as it was before our time. Even today's homeless have much more resources at hand than folks did before. I'm not talking from experience (I've never been homeless) but I cringed all through the book to see how these people lived throughout the slums of NYC. And when times were tough, there weren't many options available to seek relief.

So this book did a good job of describing life in the city during the Civil War, and the horrible tensions between the Irish and the government and the African Americans. I've heard briefly about the draft riot in NYC, but never knew its extent.

I was not a fan of the writing style at first, but eventually I got used to it. It's multiple character perspectives, and constant back-and-forth timelines, as it dips into the past for backstory and slides right back to present. It's not confusing, just annoying. But the further I got into the book, I realized that this style kind of works, for the story being told, and the character development in a tale spanning 3 days.

All in all, I enjoyed this book, and I look forward to reading more of Kevin Baker. In fact, I just got Dreamland in the mail, and added to my TBR.

[Jo-Ann Murphy]

Brilliant! Mr. Baker weaves a compelling story I found hard to put down. His descriptions of the potato famine in Ireland and hte poorest of the poor who came to this country to live in the slums of New York city are truly wrenching. I think this book is very relevant today and all those who wish to do away with our government should see what it was like when chalk could be sold to the poor as milk because there was no government regulation. A time when there was no help for soldier's families so that men went off to war and the women were left to struggle to feed the children at home. A time when there were no equal rights for women or people of color. The attrocities that were committed during the insanity of the New York Draft Riot in 1863 are heart-breaking. It gave me a new understanding of the challenges faced by the poorest of the poor in our greatest city. It gave me a greater admiration for my Irish ancestors and the American Civil War veterans in my family. I have a greater respect for government and the role it plays in our safety.

[Carl R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hot with fervor over Kevin Baker’s Dreamland I moved on to Paradise Alley. Even though much of Dreamland revolves around Coney Island, Baker’s attention is never far from the Lower East Side. And it is on the lower east side that Paradise Alley is located, though we’re moved back in time thirty or forty years for this one--the 1863 New York riots in response to the Civil War draft.
Paradise Alley is a small street populated by a mix of economic and racial folks. We’re concerned with three households: 1) Dierdre and Tom O’Kane, she an Irish immigrant (nee Dolan) who escaped the famine somehow, he a native of wastrel ways rescued from such by his devout wife.
2) Ruth Dove an Irish immigrant who did not escape the potato famine (“Year of Slaughter” is what Baker entitles the chapters set there). In fact the back story of her meeting her cruel and criminal “husband” (Dangerous Johnny Dolan, Dierdre’s brother) and wandering through the devastated countryside. has the feel of a science fiction post-apocalyptic novel. The brutal Dolan is later replaced at Ruth’s side by her true husband and father of her children, escaped slave Billy Dove. and 3) Maddy Boyle, a not-quite-all there prostitute kept in her house by her “gentleman,” Herbert Willis Robinson, a reporter for Horace Greeley’s Tribune and sometime “paperback writer” of lurid tracts and tales.

O’Kane is in the army, recovering from a Gettysburg wound when the riots begin, leaving his family vulnerable to the marauders. Ruth and her mixed race children are natural targets, also left unprotected when husband Billy is trapped uptown as the violence begins. She is also threatened by the rumored return of her violent lover of yore, come back for revenge from an exile Ruth helped arrange. Maddy is naturally in the crosshairs of the faux-moralists of the neighborhood, but the moreso because she includes black men in her clientele. Thus, the riots become an excuse for the violent expression of hostilities that would otherwise be contained, and which have nothing to do the ostensible issue of the draft. Thus does Baker create a great lesson in how to draw the reader into the personal side of a political issue.

Baker ranges far and wide in both geography and time in the nearly seven-hundred pages of Paradise Alley, and we are treated to almost separate novels on each of these characters. As in Dreamland, we see seemingly disparate stories eventually merge, and it’s a marvelous bit of tale-telling Baker creates as we turn page after page wondering when and how these characters will connect.

Wonderful, too, is the depth of history. I knew a bit about all this before I started. Or thought so. As it turns out, I didn’t know anything much. I didn’t know the depth or intensity of the racism that lay behind the riots. I knew you could buy your way out of the draft for $300. I didn’t know that one of the mottos of the rioters was “Sell a white man for three hundred, a nigger (price of a slave) for a thousand.” I knew nothing about the intense competition among the early fire-fighting companies and how they formed the social, economic, and political core of the Irish community. I knew nothing about the literally underground communities that inhabited the NYC sewers. Probably, they still do. Remember Ellison’s Invisible Man? I knew nothing about Seneca Village, the small black community that was among the real estate entities torn down to make way for Central Park. I knew nothing about the exhibit of plaster dinosaurs that dominated much of the early park. And, as the commercial says, much much more. All of which Baker weaves into the story without the slightest feeling of textbook information dumping.

What keeps me from giving Paradise Alley the ringing endorsement I accorded Dreamland is its bulk. Although much of the backstory is fascinating, much of it interrupts the flow of the immediate problem--those riots. Who will to escape the random ire of the mobs and who won’t and how? It’s only Baker’s extraordinary skill that keeps the present from getting completely swamped by the past. Furthermore, I have a disagreement about the ending. There’s a logic to it that my head wouldn’t argue with, but my heart is with characters other than those to whom Baker directs our last gaze. So, in the end, I put Paradise Alley on a high plane. But if you have to choose, go to Dreamland.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to describe how much I enjoyed this novel, as well as how shocked I was to have done so. There are many elements of the book's paratext I found off-putting. It comes with a cast of characters and a glossary of potentially unfamiliar terms. It is historical fiction, a genre I rarely gravitate towards. Yet despite such "shortcomings," this books was so compelling and masterful I found myself fully engrossed in its massive 665 pages from very early on (much to the detriment of other things I should have been doing this week). What's unique about this account of Draft Riots is the lens through which Baker makes history come alive. Rather than account events, he gives us characters, as diverse as they are unique. He constructs the narrative (which takes place in a mere three days) around these characters, jumping forward and backward through their individual histories to demonstrate the impact the Civil War bears on individual lives. His descriptions of suffering, both in wartime New York and famine infested Ireland, are particularly terrifying, but he balances such gore with accounts of tenderness and affection that feel equally affecting. From reading this book alone, I feel compelled to overlook my prejudice toward historical fiction. At the very least, I hope to check out the volumes that bookend this one.

[Anna Engel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed "Dreamland," but thought "Paradise Alley" was better. His research into the time period was thorough and fascinating. For those who gave up or are thinking of giving up on "Paradise Alley": Be patient. It's a large, heavy book, but it's worth the time and energy.

Organized by character (similar to Game of Thrones, but actually Irish rather than pseudo-Irish), each chapter follows a particular person over the course of the 1863 draft riots. The stories are overlapping and interwoven, sometimes as far back as the Old Country. Each character has his or her own voice: Herbert is slightly snooty and is well-educated; Ruth is simple but resourceful; Deirdre is proper and angular. Each person is real, complicated, and completely believable.

Baker's research on the period is amazing. Not only does he capture the overt racism and the anti-draft fervor, he describes the widely varied home lives of the characters living on Paradise Alley itself to the upper class neighborhood Herbert lives in. His descriptions of Ireland during the famine are horrifying. He weaves the history into the story adeptly and mostly seamlessly, an ability rarely found among historical fiction authors.

[Adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an enjoyable and very compelling fictional look at the NYC riot that took place when the civil war draft was beginning. The book is written from maybe a dozen characters' views, and each chapter is labeled with a name so you know who is the main character - all are written in the 3rd person with the exception of the character who is a journalist and I guess therefore gets to write his own part :) His name is Herbert Willis Robinson and all of his chapters go very slowly and talk much more about the historical stuff and I would highly recommend reading this book and skipping all of his chapters, the main story would not suffer.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this historical novel to be well-written and carefully researched. The characters were interesting, and their intertwined stories very gripping. There were so many details that I had never been aware of from this time in history. I still can't believe that the people of New York City, even 140 years ago, lived in such horrific conditions. Baker pulls you into the city, and the story, by giving you a complete vision of the time period. For any person who has an interest in history, and a good story, this is the novel for you.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not like this book very much. I kept reading it because it was interesting from a historical perspective, but I found it hard to really relate to any of the characters and the book seemed repetitive. Lots and lots of descriptions of the horrible things that people do to each other. And then some.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing about the draft riots before I read this book. It was amazing that this part of our history isn't something we learn in school. This novel is an exciting, fast paced, engrossing read.

I also LOVED the description of the Irish famine, it was horrible and vividly real.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up in northern NJ and have always lived and worked in the NJ / NY / CT area. Historical fiction is one of my faves. So... I found this book to be especially interesting. What was NYC like in the mid-1800’s? Impressive depiction and a good story as well. Informative and enjoyable.

[Kendyl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting history, but very tedious and some frustrating characters.

[monsieur · Rating 1 out of 5]

Loathed it. Well-researched, but lacking in human feeling. Misogynistic and bleak without nuance.

[Bérénice · Rating 3 out of 5]

If it was not for the length of the book i would give it 4 stars, but not more. The book is overall about 7 characters, 3 of them who originally came to ireland, who live in NYC during the 1863 draft riots.

The first 400 pages of the book are about Ruth, an irish girl, who came over to the US with Dolan (a brute she met over in ireland and who saved her life). His entire family died during the potato famine of the 40s and he's going to NYC where his Sister Deirdre lives. She is married to Tom who ends up going to war on her request. All those characters live on the same street, Paradise Alley. Because Dolan beats Ruth constantly, she finds a lover who cares for her, his name is billy dove and is black, which makes the affair all the more secret. On paradise alley also lives Maddy, a prostitute whose favorite customer is Herbert, a reporter for the NY tribune.

So these are the main characters, and their lives are told for 400 pages, i'm not going to give any more details because they are boring, just like the first 400 pages are. It drags on and on and has nothing to do with the riot. It is indeed important to know the past of characters to understand why they behave certain ways, but 400 pages was way too much, 50 would have been enough.

The author uses each chapter to talk about the lives of each characters. That's not a bad idea, some of the events are told several times through the eyes of different people. However, there is no chronology, the author keeps going back and forth in time constantly for no reason. When there is a chapter that actually gets exciting and suspensefull, the author stops it just as something is about to happen and comes back to it 300+ pages later. That's not a good way to build suspense, it's frustratin more than anything else.

If it was not for the last 200 pages, this book would get 1 star. The last 200 pages are wonderfull. They describe the riots in great details, through the eyes of a journalist and also through the eyes of Billy Dove, a black man in the city trying to escape white's people's rage against his race. The details can be very gruesome and disturbing, the author spending several pages describing the torture of an irish soldier among other horrible events. It will make you sick to your stomach.

While i was ready to stop reading the book after page 400, i'm glad i kept going. You wont' be able to put the book down until the end after then. Along with the description of the riots, you witness what happens to the main characters as their stories all come together in a terrible fight between neighbors.

If you don't mind long readings or just love to read anything about life during the mid 1800's, this book is for you. If not, read a summary of the first 400 pages, and read the last part.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bakers diligent research, and writing prowess brings an intricate narrative weaving of truth and imagination that completely immerses the reader in the fight for survival in 19th century New York City.

While there are an infinite array of threads to this story, the major character focus is on the three women of the saga, all residents of the waterfront slum called Paradise Alley. Having survived everything from the Irish famine to slavery and prostitution, they find themselves once again struggling through difficult times to protect themselves and their loved ones from the insanity that is running rampant in the city.

Any reader with a taste for history, who enjoys a good Dickensian style novel, will be captivated by this story and find themselves flying through the nearly 700 pages of this novel.

If you are a lover of historical fiction, this book will definitely not disappoint.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baker does a fine job capturing various character perspectives of this historical (fictional) account of the 1863 urban conflagration during the unrest of the Civil War. The horror of a mob is captured completely as one watches people who are benign most of the time, suddenly become terrors without any sort of regret. And just as quickly, upon dissipation of the mob, these same people can go back to being incredibly humane.

Basically, the novel takes place over the course of a few days although there are varied flashbacks that serve to build the background stories of the characters who are caught up in the current horrific event. The character development manages to make each individual very distinct- marking their flaws as well as their strengths. For me, the final 150 pages were outstanding and truly nail-biting.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker recounts three days of terror in New York City during the 1863 draft riots that forced the government to recall Union troops from the Civil War to restore order. Three Irish immigrant women living in the filthy Fourth Ward recall their beginnings and their struggles. Under the cover of mayhem, they are targeted because of their relations with African Americans, the scapegoats of the anti-draft movement, and their men's voices are added to Bakers large cast of characters. Meticulously researched and vibrantly colorful, the story meanders somewhat due to the use of so many voices, but ultimately makes the book a richer experience.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay: started slow, got much more exciting, and ended leaving some storylines dangling, although it summarized the period philisophically. The historical detail was captivating and the characters were complex; as the tale moved along, I changed my views about two of the characters (Robinson- went from liking him to hating him and Dangerous Johnny Dolan - went from hating him to pity). Sometimes the story seemed a little wordy; it was much better when there was some action, or when it was focused on what had happened back in Ireland during The Hunger.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a tough read. It wasn't bad or boring I think it was just tedious because there was so much detail. If you liked the movie "Gangs of New York" & it left you w/ more questions then this would be a great book for you. It is based on historical facts & has woven the emotional element into a history lesson. Each chapter reveals the main characters in more depth each time they are highlighted. You gather their perspectives & have a private view into their thoughts & worlds. It's exciting & at times tearful.

[Paul Gaya Ochieng Simeon Juma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paradise Alley is a novel by Kevin Baker. The book is quite long. However, it does not mean that it is not readable. It is interesting. The characters include Ruth, Johnny Dolan, Billy Dove, Deirdre, Maddy and Robinson. It about the American civil war during the reign of Abraham Lincoln. The effects it had on both races, that is, blacks and whites. Through the eyes of the characters we are transported back to the seventeenth century and all we can see is the brutality of the war.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't as good as the others in Baker's City of Fire series, I thought, because it dealt more with salacious violence than with the city itself. All the gory details and suspenseful action bored me, while the historical scene-setting that made Dreamland and Striver's Row enjoyable seemed slapped on in the form of cheap nostalgia in this one.

[Anne Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved reading this book. I liked the way each chapter was told from a different character's perspective and the way the stories wove together. I learned new things about the history of our country and it made me want to read more, particularly about Irish immigration. It was a long book 600+ pages and only covered 3 days in time but it never felt tedious or drawn out.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time great "accidental discoveries" when I worked in a bookshop. A fabulously readable story of Irish immigrants, freed slaves, and working class New Yorkers struggling to survive in the chaos of the city amid the violence of the Civil War Draft Riots of 1863.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't ever admit to being drawn to historical fiction...instead, I simply admit to liking good stories, better story tellers. So forgive me my T C Boyle...and this book....but this is one helluva book. I wept for the final 30 pages and I. Do. Not. Cry. Masterful story-telling broke me though.

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is brutal. I really enjoyed both Dreamland and Strivers Row, but this one centers on the Draft Riots in NYC, and consists of expertly written descriptions of extreme violence.

Baker is a terrific writer, but I couldn't wait for this one to be over.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not finish this clunker. Clumsy, clumsy writing.