A Wall Street Journal Top Ten Fiction Book of 2017 * A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year * A Seattle Times Favorite Book of 2017 * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Kirkus Reviews Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year * A Library Journal Top Historical Fiction Book of the Year * Winner of the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and the Desmond Elliott Prize * Winner of … and the Desmond Elliott Prize * Winner of the New York City Book Award
“Gorgeously crafted…Spufford’s sprawling recreation here is pitch perfect.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
“A fast-paced romp that keeps its eyes on the moral conundrums of America.” —The New Yorker
“Delirious storytelling backfilled with this much intelligence is a rare and happy sight.” —The New York Times
“Golden Hill possesses a fluency and immediacy, a feast of the senses…I love this book.” —The Washington Post
The spectacular first novel from acclaimed nonfiction author Francis Spufford follows the adventures of a mysterious young man in mid-eighteenth century Manhattan, thirty years before the American Revolution.
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan island, 1746. One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat arrives at a countinghouse door on Golden Hill Street: this is Mr. Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion shimmering. For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge sum, and he won’t explain why, or where he comes from, or what he is planning to do in the colonies that requires so much money. Should the New York merchants trust him? Should they risk their credit and refuse to pay? Should they befriend him, seduce him, arrest him; maybe even kill him?
Rich in language and historical perception, yet compulsively readable, Golden Hill is “a remarkable achievement—remarkable, especially, in its intelligent re-creation of the early years of what was to become America’s greatest city” (The Wall Street Journal). Spufford paints an irresistible picture of a New York provokingly different from its later metropolitan self, but already entirely a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love—and find a world of trouble. Golden Hill is “immensely pleasurable…Read it for Spufford’s brilliant storytelling, pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, and gift for re-creating a vanished time” (New York Newsday).
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Excellent period piece centering around a mysterious young Englishman in pre-revolutionary New York. Written in an on-again off-again style reminiscent of writers of the period, the mystery is revealed in stages near and at the end.
Galley courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley.
An inventive tale of Dutch New York, with a cast of characters as rich as those of Charles Dickens. Brilliantly rendered and moving.
Interesting historical novel of old New York, with a plot twist.
Strongly researched and engaging historical fiction.
One of the best “pursuit by enemies” narratives I’ve ever read but the rest is turgid and boring. Gave. up half way through….
I tried to like it but the prose and dialog was too stilted and long-winded to be enjoyable.
Engaged me from the first page.
I took up this book with a sense of anticipation that was–almost–entirely rewarded. Set in New York–then a small city at the tip on the island of Manhattan–in 1746, its protagonist, Richard Smith, is a well-mannered and cosmopolitan young man. Versed in languages that extend to Turkish, the London stage, and conjuring tricks, he arrives bearing a letter of credit in excess of a thousand pounds charged on one of the infant City’s largest financial concerns, an amount that, if honored, is so huge that it will exhaust its cash reserves.
If honored. Much of the plot concerns the mystery–which our hero cultivates–as to his origins and intentions and New York’s consequent suspicions of his legitimacy. As the City awaits confirmation of the validity of the debt by the next ship from London, in a few months, Smith finds himself embroiled in a series of adventures and misadventures that will not be entirely unfamiliar to readers of Tom Jones. Or anyone who’s just seen the movie. Smith pursues a romantic interest in a well-born but difficult young woman, but consummates one with another man’s wife, with predictable results. In another episode he is saved at the last minute from certain death in a midnight sprint across the City’s rooftops. And speaking of last-minute escapes, he is twice spared the hangman’s noose.
Many reviewers refer to a startling plot twist. While there is an entirely unexpected fact dropped two-thirds of the way through, once it is revealed, you can see the “twist” coming from way up the road.
If I seem dismissive of the plot–and I’m not, to be clear; Spufford acknowledges his debt to the eighteenth-century novel– my admiration for the setting is unbounded. Spufford’s mastery of the detail of life in eighteenth-century New York is astonishing, and his learning is lightly worn. What he communicates most clearly is just how small, and how isolated, this largest of American cities was only thirty years before the revolution. It was a town huddled on the very edge of a hostile continent, separated from the imperial capital by three thousand miles of seawater. It was a scary place to be, and Spufford shows us that. Equally compelling is the sense of the chaotic and ad lib nature of political and commercial life–a Governor hanging on by his fingernails, business conducted in the currencies of the dozen other colonies, other countries, or just bartered goods. And some of the details are truly startling–just what “due process” meant three hundred years ago, for example, or the perils of a same-sex interracial relationship.
Though I didn’t think the book quite lived up to the hype, it is nevertheless richly rewarding and not to be missed.
Modern version of the picarsque novel. Awesome descriptive writing – you are completely immersed in the small town of New York in 1747. Full of fascinating characters, adventure, mystery and above all, breathtakingly good writing.
Historical fiction at its best! A mysterious main character, a touch of romance, action and adventure in colonial New York. Beautifully written with a series of surprises that keep the reader in suspense.