"Extraordinary…Rich
in color and drama…Successful… ambitious…[Baker
is] a skilled ringmaster…a simultaneously a richly imaginative
fiction writer steeped in historical fact and a meticulous historian…a
master of momentum… Without ever slowing his novel's pace
or letting us lose sight of any of his characters, the author
takes the reader on a careering, kaledioscopic tour of their world.…Baker's
itinerary encompasses ravaged Ireland and the carnage at Fredericksburg,
as well as New York's lower depths…We visit places most New
Yorkers know nothing about…As convincing a portrayal of how
things were in our city that terrible summer and as a compelling
fictional vision of how things might have been, as well, ‘Paradise
Alley’ is twice a triumph."
—Geoffrey
Ward,
The New York Times Book Review
"Ambitious…Vivid…forceful…Baker
has carried out his research with extraordinary dedication, familiarizing
himself with every imaginable aspect of the Draft Riots…he
achieves a hallucinatory realism packed with sensory detail…[Baker]
brings home the violence of the Drat Riots with remorseless vitality."
—Adam
Bresnick,
Los
Angeles Times Book Review
"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.…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.…Baker is
a master at charting the conflicting political, social, and religious
currents as they course through the city.…Once again, [Baker
has] lit a fire under American history and made it burn with a
roar."
—Ron
Charles,
The Christian Science Monitor
"Vivid…[Baker]
gives us the stench of the slaughterhouses, the claustrophobia
of the tenements and the menace of the dingy saloons…Even
Ireland’s famine is rendered with such gruesome veracity
that, more than 150 years later, you’ll be outraged that
nobody lifted a finger to help."
—Soren
Larson,
Time Out New York
