Reviews of Metropolis by Elizabeth Gaffney

Media Reviews

The New York Times - Janet Maslin The pace and density of Metropolis are rewarding yet stubbornly unpredictable. The book's vivid tableaus and high drama are offset by close study of how urban planning, construction projects and contagious illnesses actually work. All this moves circuitously but firmly toward a finale that validates all the sprawl and unexpectedness of what has come before.

Booklist - Donna Seaman *Starred Review* In spite of the sense that Gaffney is working her way down a historical checklist, her fascination with technical advances, street life, social reform, and odd real-life events infuses this big, busy, imaginative, atmospheric, and compulsively readable historical novel (and remarkably capable debut) with a tantalizing energy. And given its array of irresistibly colorful characters, gritty romance, and labyrinthine plot, Gaffney's tale of old New York is pure bliss.

Kirkus Reviews Gaffney's first outing isn't as wonderful as it might have been some of its action is quite redundant, the seams of her formidable research clearly show, and her Trollopian habit of inserting loquacious authorial commentary at odd moments often unsettles the tone. But the narrative line is strong, and the text is enlivened by ... brilliantly imagined characters... Luther alone is worth the price of admission, but there's much more to like in Gaffney's rip-roaring, agreeably ungainly, outrageously entertaining tale.

Library Journal - Eleanor J. Bader Though one wishes that the author had occasionally injected dates to clarify the passage of time, this remains an engaging and suspenseful work-and required reading for anyone interested in urban affairs or simply in need of a good, stick-to-the-ribs escape from today's sociopolitical realities. Highly recommended.

Publishers Weekly While it never attains the narrative urgency of Doctorow's evocations of 19th-century New York, the novel's well-researched historical background, enlivened by descriptions of the criminal underworld and the off-beat love story, should ensure wide interest.

 Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever Elizabeth Gaffney’s Metropolis is vibrant, richly detailed, and compellingly plotted. The territory of her late-nineteenth-century underworld resembles that of Herbert Asbury’s The Gangs of New York or Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector–but the sensibility is all her own, and her characters are unforgettable.

 Anna Deavere Smith What an absorbing experience to visit Elizabeth Gaffney’s imagination while it shakes, shimmers, and sizzles with extraordinary storytelling against the backdrop of history.

 David Grand, author of The Disappearing Body A towering work of brilliant imagination, as exquisitely written as it is intricately constructed. Metropolis, with all its brawn and brains and heart, will no doubt find its way into the skyline of the greatest of the great New York City classics.

 Helen Schulman, author of P.S. and The Revisionist Trust the excellent Elizabeth Gaffney-–in her debut novel, no less–to use the best of both history and her own considerable powers of creation to construct this compelling tale of a young immigrant’s journey through the chaotic underbelly of post—Civil War New York. The star of Gaffney’s dazzling show may be male, but the true heroes are the crafty, clever, and resilient female cast members who, with their own nineteenth-century brand of girl-gang feminism, help to reinvent the world.

 Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Gaffney has engineered a thrilling Brooklyn Bridge of a novel, at once old-fashioned and utterly modern, grand and charming, elegant and massive, imposing and delightful, carrying us in inimitable style across the rich, rank waters of New York City’s history.

Reader Reviews

Books with similar themes

• Historical Fiction
  
• USA
  
• Mid-Atlantic, USA
  
• New York State
  
• 19th Century
  
• Debuts