Dreamland: A Novel [Paperback]

Kevin Baker's Dreamland is the kind of novel that begins with a two-page list of characters and ends with a nine-page glossary. In between, this vast, sprawling carnival of a book takes in Coney Island and the Lower East Side, midgets and gangsters, Bowery bars and opium dens, even Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. It is, in short, a novel as big, lively, and ambitious as Gotham itself, and if you can stomach some of the more garish local color, it's every bit as much fun. Set at the turn of the century, in a New York as polyglot as any city on earth, Dreamland opens with an act of misplaced--and very stupid--compassion. Eastern European immigrant Kid Twist intervenes when villainous gangster Gyp the Blood is on the verge of murdering a young newsboy for sport. But surprise: that's no street urchin--that's Trick the Dwarf, self-proclaimed Mayor of Little City and a Coney Island tout, who dresses up as a boy, he says, as "a way I had of leaving myself behind." Trick hides Kid Twist in the hind parts of the Tin Elephant Hotel; Kid Twist meets Esther Abramowitz, impoverished seamstress and labor agitator, then falls in love; Trick woos Mad Carlotta, a three-foot beauty who thinks she's the Empress of Mexico; and Freud and Jung sail for America, where they squabble about psychoanalysis. There are also a few subplots involving police corruption, Tammany Hall, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire--but who's counting? Suffice to say that it all really does come together in the end, and you won't be bored for one step of the way. Baker served as chief historical researcher for Harold Evans's The American Century, and it's clear that he put his time there to good use; Dreamland is full of vivid historical detail, from Lower East Side slang to the lyrics of popular songs. If this is middlebrow entertainment, it's middlebrow in the same way as Dickens: extravagantly plotted, elegantly written, and compassionate to the core. --Mary Park --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Taking place in turn-of-the-century New York City, Baker's splashy novel features gangsters, midgets, feminist strikers, the Lower East Side, Coney Island, Freud's trip to America and the infamous Triangle Factory fire. It's a powerful, deeply moving epic, an earthier, rowdier, more inclusive Ragtime that rings beautiful changes on the familiar themes of the immigrant experience and the unfulfilled promise of the American Dream. Baker juggles subplots that reflect different ethnic and cultural realities: resilient, independent-minded sweatshop seamstress Esther Abramowitz rebels against her caustic Russian-Jewish ex-rabbi father to become a union organizer; Irish-American state senator Big Tim Sullivan, a corrupt Tammany Hall boss, rules the city through bribes, gangs and cops on the take; hoodlum Gyp the Blood (aka Lazar Abramowitz), who is Esther's estranged brother, puts out a hit on her boyfriend, Kid Twist (Josef Kolyika), an Eastern European refugee who arrived as a stowaway on the same ocean liner that, in this scenario, brings Freud and Jung to New York on a trip to promote psychoanalysis. Meanwhile, over in Dreamland, the vast Coney Island amusement park, the philosophically minded Trick the Dwarf courts another sideshow attraction, Mad Carlotta, a midget who thinks she's the Empress of Mexico. Baker, author of the baseball novel Sometimes You See It Coming and chief researcher on Harry Evans's The American Century, gives readers amazingly vivid renderings of the criminal underworld, prostitution, machine politics, Jewish immigrant life, the nascent women's rights and labor movements. Cultured Old World elitism comically collides with raucous democratic America as Freud gets lost in Harlem, has bizarre erotic dreams, falls out with Jung and has a nasty adventure in Dreamland. The churning subplots do get creaky (e.g., Esther's implausible love for a gangster), the colorful seediness often seems like gratuitous crowd-pleasing and the novel walks a tightrope between romantic sentimental fantasy and hard-boiled realism. Nevertheless, one is tempted to call this grandly entertaining saga some kind of populist masterpiece, as Baker gauges the myth of the egalitarian American melting-pot against the corruption, economic exploitation and racism of a cutthroat society. 100,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo; audio to HarperAudio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

This intricate, retro nightmare vision of turn-of-the-century New York City is reminiscent of a Fellini film, full of picaresque, somewhat cardboardish gangsters and sideshow performers in place of clowns and grotesques. Narrator John Rubenstein successfully exudes all the excitement and unpredictability of the era that author Baker imaginatively conveys. The story is all the more interesting because good does not prevail and social progress is not assured. The effects of chaotic, unbridled change on a city and its people are the underlying theme. The abridgment works well in conveying the unstable, edgy quality of the novel; production values are high. Recommended.AMark Pumphrey, Polk Cty. P.L.., Columbus, NC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Before movies came along, New Yorkers flocked to Dreamland at Coney Island, where they could find every kind of marvel and amusement: freak shows, gondola rides, miniature replicas of famous disasters, even a hotel in the shape of a circus elephant. In this remarkable novel, Baker meticulously re-creates the splendor and seediness of turn-of-the-century New York--especially the street, where immigrants, politicians, grifters, and prostitutes all desperately mingled, playing their new roles. Like Doctorow's Ragtime, Baker's novel uses some historical figures as characters, such as Freud and Jung visiting on a lecture tour, but at its heart are Baker's fictional characters looking for love: Trick the Dwarf, who thinks he's found his queen; Esther, a sweatshop worker whose precious free hours are torn between the struggle for workers' rights and the thrill of her first lover; and Kid Twist, an expelled member of the Jewish Mob who literally risks his neck for romance. Baker clearly enjoys the tale-spinning, driving the story forward at just the right pace, yet confidently pausing at times to revisit key scenes from his characters' pasts; meanwhile, Freud and Jung debate passionately about influences on the psyche. Baker was the chief researcher of Harry Evans' The American Century , and the number of fascinating facts contained in Dreamland is extraordinary. Baker-the-storyteller, however, never forgets that his facts are only the footlights and props for showcasing the emotions at center stage. Masterful and moving, this novel can transform a reader's relationship with our history. James Klise --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Compelling...Dreamland is a wild ride...paced like a police thriller." -- -- USA Today

"Compellingly powerful yarn, rich in character and language." -- Toronto Star --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A dazzling masterpiece of literary historical fiction, Dreamland delivers a sweeping yet intimate portrait of immigrant New York in the early part of the twentieth century.

The critically acclaimed novel Dreamland established Kevin Baker as "one of America's best new writers" (Boston Herald). Now, with Paradise Alley, he emerges as one of the most important voices of his generation. Currently at work on the third volume of his "City of Fire" trilogy, Mr. Baker is also the author of the novel Sometimes You See It Coming and served as chief historical researcher for the nonfiction bestseller The American Century. He is married and lives in New York City.