Paradise Alley (P.S.)

A sobering and well drawn historical novel about a shameful and shattering event in New York City history.

My favorite books contain historical settings and facts, and this book is a winner. It opened the door to a new understanding of the history of the irish in New York, and was a great read as a novel as well.

Among the aspects of "Paradise Alley" I enjoyed most was its success at making its many historical events tangible to the reader. In addition to the central episode--the New York Draft Riots--Baker covers, through flashbacks and asides, the Irish Potato Famine and the resulting, desperate emigration; the experiences, often horrific, of new immigrants to New York; the seediness and despair of the Sixth Ward and Five Points in lower Manhattan; the shanghaiing of men for maritime labor; the battlefields of the Civil War; the village of free blacks displaced by the creation of Central Park; miscegenation and racism in the North; and the twin iniquities of Southern slavery and fugitive slave catchers.