Reading Guide
Dreamland
by Kevin Baker
This Wednesday, February 25, at 6 PM at Borders bookstore located at 100 Broadway in
lower Manhattan, the Gotham Gazette Book Club will meet with Kevin Baker to discuss his novel
Dreamland.
Below is some information that may be interesting to read before the meeting:
(You can also discuss the book in the meantime on our message board)
Reviews
Information About Kevin Baker
Dreamland's New York
Introduction
Dreamland is the first book in Kevin Baker's City Of Fire trilogy, a series
of historical novels about New York City. Set in New York City in the early 1900s, it
follows several first and second generation immigrants through their lives
in the city. The characters in the novel include several
actual historical figures -- Tammany Hall's Big Tim Sullivan, labor activist Clara Lemlich,
and European psychoanalysts Carl Jung and Sigmond Freud. Two famous New York
City blazes mark the novel's end - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the burning of Coney Island amusement
park Dreamland.
Paradise Alley, the second book in the trilogy focused on the Civil War Draft Riots.
Gotham Gazette's Book Club discussed
the book in June, 2003. Mr. Baker is currently working on the final book, Striver's Row,
which will deal with African-Americans in Harlem during World War Two. It will be published in
2005.
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Reviews
New York Times:
Excerpt of review by Thomas Mallon
Kevin Baker's jampacked novel of New York City circa 1910 rushes between lower Manhattan
and Coney Island like a wild amusement-park ride on a continuous loop. The author shanghais
all sorts of real-life Tammany pols, Bowery gangsters, factory girls and carnival attractions
to join his own inventions inside a book that teems with violence, humor, information and hustle.
"Dreamland" is historical fiction at its most entertaining and, in a number of spots, most
high-handed.
"Dreamland" is terrific fun, though ultimately something less than the sum of its gaudy
episodes. Its gangland and labor narratives tend to move in more predictable increments than
the action out at Coney Island. Baker manages to throw everything together for a fiery dual
climax -- Dreamland and the Triangle factory both burned in 1911 -- but the 500-page ride to
it provides a lot of bumps along with the thrills.
Read
the entire review
Washington Post
Excerpt of review by Carolyn See
I suppose this is a backhanded compliment, but 'Dreamland' is the first book I can think of
-- outside of John Hersey's Hiroshima -- that gave me a rip-roaring, terrible, authentic
nightmare. I found myself in a cold and dreadful wasteland, a landscape with nothing but a
subway stop, a ratcheted Ferris wheel that scratched the stars, a field of ferocious rats,
dozens of slouching boys I recognized as gangsters, and, sailing by on oily, fetid waves,
an enormous ocean liner. I was wretchedly lost and alone.
Baker's vision is dark, mesmerizing, grotesque. Dreamland is no sentimental evocation
of old New York. This is a place where gangsters poison peddlers' horses with oatmeal cookies
laced with strychnine. Where out at Coney Island a lot of people spend a lot of time figuring
out how to electrocute an elephant just for the 'fun' of it. Where, to make a living, young
men must resort to crime and young girls must either slave their days away in sweatshops
or live their short, sad lives as whores.
The characters here are no more than stick-figure stereotypes; the writing, more than a
little careless. Almost every song that's sung has 'nonsensical' lyrics. Almost every dancing
couple 'shuffles.' Almost every girl wears a 'shapeless' dress. But Baker's real subject is
nightmare New York, that smoking and twitching electrocuted elephant, those waves of rats
bent on killing a desperate terrier, that poisoned horse dropping in the street, that man
reduced in less than a second to a paraplegic, all for the sake of a bet. This stuff is
all true, and loathsome: It tells us a great deal about what it means, in the end, to
be 'American.'
January Magazine:
Excerpt of review by J. Kingston Pierce
Kevin Baker has done as fine a job as any author I know of in capturing that park's
garish excesses in print and superimposing upon them a comparably compelling and complex tale.
In Dreamland, Coney Island revels in providing some escape for Gotham's worldly or plain weary
masses, a spot nuzzled by ocean breezes, where competing wonders divert the eyes and the
fragrances of sawdust and roasting corn fill the nose. Lest you become nostalgic, though,
there's also a nightmarish aspect to Dreamland. Demonic dwarfs torment park-goers with
cattle prods to entertain other passersby. Men paw hungrily at women's breasts
on carousels. A new roller coaster careens off its track, killing passengers -- only
to draw even larger crowds thereafter, folks attracted by the keen risk of death.
Read the entire review.
Richmond Review
Excerpt of review by Amanda Jeremin Harris
Baker's fabulous characterisation is important because it gives humanity to a quasi-historical
account. I know historical fiction is a novelistic genre, not an academic one, but like Philip
Roth before him (the comparison is inevitable) Baker has allowed the voices of impoverished
nineteen-tens New York -- a sprawling mass of emigrants, union workers, corrupt politicians,
crime bosses, prostitutes, etc. -- to vivify one very particular moment in time.
Read the entire review.
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Kevin Baker
Kevin Baker was born in New Jersey in 1958 and raised in Massachusetts. He began writing
professionally at age 13 -- covering school sports for the Glouchester Daily Times.
He graduated from Columbia University in 1980 with a degree in political science, and
has earned a living as a writer since then. Dreamland is part of his City of Fire
trilogy. The second book, Paradise Alley
was published in 2002, and Baker is currently
at work on the third, Striver's Row.
Baker has written another historical novel, Sometimes You See It Coming, about the life
of baseball legend Ty Cobb. He was also the chief historical writer for Harold Evan's
celebrated book The American Century. In addition to writing books, Baker has worked
writing position papers for the Public Securities Association, and spent an 11-month stint working
in the Tweed Courthouse during the Koch administration, answering letters that constituents
had written to the mayor.
Click here to see Kevin Baker's
personal website, including information about his books, links to essays and columns
he has written, and interviews with him.
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Dreamland's New York
New York in the early 1900s was defined by the enormous amount of European immigration,
which changed the physical, social and political face of the city and the country.
Dreamland focuses on two parts of the New York City at this time -- the Lower East
Side and Coney Island. Here are several links about the real-life versions of the places
that appear in the novel.
Dreamland Amusement Park
Coney Island History
Interactive Map Of Coney Island, 1906
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Triangle Factory Fire
Gotham Gazette's online chat with David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: the
Fire That Changed America.
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Posted 2/23/2004
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