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New York: The Novel

4.02 of 5 stars 4.02 · rating details · 8,321 ratings · 1,277 reviews

The bestselling master of historical fiction weaves a grand, sweeping drama of New York from the city's founding to the present day.

Rutherfurd celebrates America's greatest city in a rich, engrossing saga that showcases his extraordinary ability to combine impeccable historical research and storytelling flair. As in his earlier, bestselling novels, he illuminates cultural,...more

Hardcover, 862 pages

Published September 2009 by Doubleday (first published January 1st 2009)

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Mar 17, 2010 Tracy rated it 5 of 5 stars

New York the Novel is a fantastic piece of work that follows several families through the transformation of New Amsterdam to the New York City of the present-day. Each generation is relatable, developed, and interesting, a feat that few writers of multigenerational historical works have been able to do. Each character fits into his or her respected time period so neatly in place, it is like a piece of a puzzle taken out of the whole for a quick viewing. For example, take Dirk vanDyke, the Dutch...more

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Feb 20, 2010 Sean Kennedy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like reading somewhat trashy historical family sagas, but I was expecting a little more diversity in this book following four centuries of the history of New York and the people who lived in it. After all, New York is a hubub of multiculturalism, but this book ends up being overwhelmingly Anglocentric. The African-American family disappear halfway through the story, the Italians get a few chapters and then only a few cameos, and the Puerto Ricans just a few appearances as the 'friends' of the...more

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Jan 02, 2010 Jim rated it 2 of 5 stars

It's a good book. But don't expect diversity in the story. Rutherford tailors his narrative pretty closely to the experiences of the Masters-to the detriment of the other families. Rutherford has chosen to avoid aspects of New York (Five Points/the Harlem Renaissance/the infant film industry/Broadway)that could have been mined for fascinating reading. It's the narrowness of the focus that really is the most frustrating aspect of the book. It's a good book, but it's not diverse.

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Dec 01, 2009 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed most of this book. It's for anyone who likes novels that provide great history along with fiction... this novel traces the history of New York... my problem is that he dropped the storyline for the African-American family story line without much ceremony as if African American families didn't have a role in modern New York.

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Jan 21, 2010 Jennifer (JC-S) rated it 4 of 5 stars

‘New York is the true capital of America.’
This novel begins, in 1664, with a tiny Indian village and Dutch traders. It ends in 2009 with an epilogue. In between, the journey through the generations of the fictional families Mr Rutherfurd has created traverses many of the major events in the history of both New York and America.

From New Amsterdam as a Dutch trading settlement, through the period of British colonisation, and the War of Independence, the creation of the American nation, and the Ci...more

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Apr 21, 2010 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

30 CDs. I think this is the longest audiobook I've ever listened to! I was trying to remember how long the Harry Potters were, but I think this one wins.

And, ohhhh, it was good. I love me a good epic, and Rutherfurd always delivers. This looooong adult novel covers the history of New York from the natives on Manhattan island to the fall of the World Trade Center. Several families are followed along the way, and the intertwining of them all makes the epic fascinating to follow. This kind of book...more

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Nov 06, 2009 Debbie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting for someone who has no knowledge of New York history.

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Feb 27, 2013 Ariadna73 rated it 4 of 5 stars

07-21-2011: Finished it. The last couple of pages are the best of all the book. It is obvious that the author worked very hard in those. It also helps that the 9-11 events are closer to the readers than any of the other events described in the novel. But the way he describes the last journey of the wampum belt. At that point the reader realizes that all this novel was written to tell was the story of that little piece of art; that symbolizes the love and devotion of a daughter to her father; the...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Those Interested in New York City History and Historical Fiction

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Suzanne Dobbins

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, novels

My first Rutherfurd work was Sarum, his novel telling the story of the history of England by focusing on five lineages down the centuries in the area around Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. The style wasn’t anything special, even clunky at times, and with almost 9,000 years of history to cover, few characters ever felt fleshed out. It was a novel more broad than deep; it was historical fiction, almost more dramatized history text than stories with history as a backdrop. All of that can also b...more My first Rutherfurd work was Sarum, his novel telling the story of the history of England by focusing on five lineages down the centuries in the area around Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. The style wasn’t anything special, even clunky at times, and with almost 9,000 years of history to cover, few characters ever felt fleshed out. It was a novel more broad than deep; it was historical fiction, almost more dramatized history text than stories with history as a backdrop. All of that can also be said of New York: the Novel which tries to encapsulate about 350 years of the history of New York City, mostly by following one family of English descent, the Masters, who early on married into one of the founding Dutch families, but as with Sarum, the effect is cumulative, and I found myself completely engaged through its 860 pages.

I’m a native New Yorker, and as such so much of this book in the very beginning was irresistible. The book starts in 1664 when the population of New York City (New Amsterdam then) was only 1,500 people. I had a blast seeing all the Dutch Colonial origins of the name places around my city, some of which I knew (Wall Street, Canal Street, Harlem, Broadway, Manna hata, Bronck's land) and some not (Jonkers, Bouwerie, Pearl Street). The book, although focused on the Masters, also includes cameos by such historical figures as Peter Stuyvesant, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, J. P. Morgan, Enrico Caruso. The chapters are almost more connected short stories than one united narrative with decades sometimes passing between them. I found among the most striking the early chapters, “New York” and “New Amsterdam” (Margarethe de Groot featured there was among the strongest female characters in the book), “The Patriot” and “Vanessa” which skillfully depicted the growing divide between the colonies and Mother country, “Draft” about the 1863 Draft Riots, “Old England” where an Irish family reinvents its past.

Some reviewers complain the portrait of New York City isn’t diverse enough. I think that’s a casualty of Rutherford’s formula of trying to follow the history of the city through just a few families from the beginning, and particularly putting such emphasis on the Masters. I do feel Sarum did better in interweaving the various lineages over the centuries. Early in New York there was a thread about a family of African Americans. One early chapter was even written first person from the point of view of a slave in that family, but the African American story in the novel petered out and disappears after the Civil War. Irish and German immigrants don't come into the novel until after a good third of it has passed and Italians and Jews not until well after the half-way mark. Even though Rutherfurd mentions that there had been Jewish families in the city from the days of the Dutch, the novel doesn’t really deal with Jewish life in the city before the 1950s. I felt Rutherfurd missed an opportunity not making one such family a thread in his tapestry from the beginning, though I imagine he worried that might make things too unwieldy. He could have kept the Native American thread going too. Not many of the original Lenape are still here, that's true, but until recently there was a community of Mohawks in Brooklyn for over a century; a lot of Mohawks were involved in building our skyscrapers. No Asians are even mentioned until very late in the novel--there's nothing here about Chinatown at all. Centering the narrative on one family isn’t the best way to view such a dynamic, changing city. So many New Yorkers came from somewhere else, and few of us have roots that go deep: my father was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where his family had been for ages, my mother in rural Puerto Rico.

My family’s own intersection with the city would only cover the last 150 pages of this multigenerational saga. It’s in the last chapters from the 1970s on where I can speak from personal experience I found weakest, that I thought rushed and where parts didn’t ring true. It’s a small thing, but he got wrong the details about the top three public high schools students could enter through competitive examination. Hunter high school would have still been an all girls school at the time his character Juan Campos could have attended. The three magnet public high schools in the sixties and beyond a boy could attend were Stuyvesant, Bronx Science--and Brooklyn Tech, not Hunter. I went to one of those schools--much later than Rutherford’s character would have, but no I can’t imagine Puerto Ricans being discouraged from trying or attending the way Rutherfurd presented it--not by that time anyway. There was nothing about the homeless problem that hit New York City in the 80s that was such a shock to me when I first saw it in my youth. (I recently read New York City is home to 14 percent of the national homeless population.) Nothing about how AIDs hit the vibrant gay community in New York (Gays and lesbians are almost invisible in this massive novel. There's just a brief mention in one of the last chapters of someone in one of the families being gay and of the Stonewall riot.) And Rutherford had only this to say about the Dinkins years: “Mayor Koch had been succeeded by Mayor Dinkins who, as an African American, had been perceived as more sympathetic to the troubles of Harlem and the other deprived areas.” Nothing about the Crown Heights riot that took place during those years that were a watershed for the city. Rutherford devotes a chapter to the 1977 blackouts, but not one line about what was, I think, as much a shock to New Yorkers. Mind you, it’s still a bitter, still a controversial event; I realize that. Dealing with it and its repercussions in New York City would have taken guts. But what else is fiction for?

There are so many sides, so many strands to New York I pity anyone trying to tell our story. There was a lot in the book (including African American aspects) of the history of the city I never knew, so even a native like me felt I learned a lot. And a lot Rutherfurd got so very right. I couldn’t help smiling when John Master tells off a Thomas Jefferson determined to move the capital that, “New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God we always will.” What proud New Yorker would disagree? In his introduction Rutherfurd called New York “a much-loved city.” His affection and respect for my city definitely came through.(less)

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Oct 31, 2012 Jeanine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

Recommended to Jeanine by: My husband and my cousin

Thank you amazon for the review.

Amazon.com Review
Edward Rutherfurd on New York

Strangely, I suspect it was Viking ancestors who drew me to New York.

For centuries my father's family lived on Britain's biggest tidal river, the Severn, on which there was a huge trade with the interior, and through the port of Bristol with America. In the nineteenth century they were in shipping from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and on the great rivers of Europe--the Rhine, the Danube, even the Russian River Dnieper....more Thank you amazon for the review.

Amazon.com Review
Edward Rutherfurd on New York

Strangely, I suspect it was Viking ancestors who drew me to New York.

For centuries my father's family lived on Britain's biggest tidal river, the Severn, on which there was a huge trade with the interior, and through the port of Bristol with America. In the nineteenth century they were in shipping from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and on the great rivers of Europe--the Rhine, the Danube, even the Russian River Dnieper. I myself was born beside a river--the Avon in Sarum. So when I first encountered New York's great harbor and the Hudson River as a teenager, and came to understand their historic canal and railroad links to the vast spaces of the Midwest, I felt both the thrill of a new adventure, and a deep sense of homecoming.

I first considered writing New York in 1991. I'd been in the city for a decade, was married to an American wife and sending my children to New York schools. I was even on the board of a coop building. But I wasn't sure how to organize such complex material, and for many years I put the project aside.

It was kind encouragement and old-fashioned editing from William Thomas at Doubleday that finally persuaded me to try again. And soon I was hooked.

New York's gift to the storyteller is magnificent: Indian and Dutch beginnings; larger-than-life historical characters like Lord Cornbury, the transvestite British Governor, the socialite Mrs. Astor, and the titanic J.P. Morgan; huge events from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War--when New York threatened to secede from the Union--to the Crash of '29 and the tragedy of 9/11. But it's the ordinary people I discover in my research--African slaves, Irish laborers, society ladies and sweatshop workers--whose lives move me most, and who provide so many of my plots and characters.

My own personal experiences also helped. I descend from both Philadelphia Quakers and Carolina colonists whose families were separated by the Revolutionary War. That helped give me insight into the agony of Patriots who, until the British government denied their claims, had always, like Ben Franklin himself, thought of themselves as free-born Englishmen. One of my closest friends since university is an Italian immigrant. Understanding the poverty and humiliations of her childhood helped me create the book's Caruso family who came through Ellis Island and lived in Little Italy.

I also love discovering how things work. It was as fascinating to study the history of Wall Street banking--and how financial crises always repeat themselves!--as it was to learn how the Empire State Building was constructed.

But above all, what I love about New York is that people have always come there in search of freedom, and usually found it. I was lucky to be born beside Sarum's Avon. But I'd like my New York children to scatter my ashes in the Hudson. --Edward Rutherfurd(less)

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Mar 19, 2013 Tiffany rated it 3 of 5 stars

The thing with 'New York' is that it tries to capture New York city through many, many narratives in one book which I find is the central issue to the book. This is the kind of story that needs to be in a mini series because of the history and the amount of people who helped build New York to what it is today. I really dislike the fact, that the moment you get into one story - it suddenly jumps to a new story. The author does not give you enough time to get into each character and learn how New...more

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May 11, 2010 Eileen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, public-library

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Feb 01, 2010 Alison Merle rated it 4 of 5 stars

My dad gave me this book for Christmas and I am very glad he did because I'm not sure I would have picked it up on my own but I really enjoyed it. The story traces the lives of members of the Master family and a few other families who become connected to them beginning in the mid-17th century and continuing through to the present.

I literally couldn't put this book down, I was totally immersed in it and carried it with me everywhere I went for weeks just so I could read it whenever I had a minute...more

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Dec 04, 2009 Katherine Coble rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was only my love for Edward Rutherfurd in general that kept me slogging through this book.

Sarum was the book that converted me to a Rutherfrudite; it's still one of my all-time favourites.

That book was clearly more personal than New York, because Rutherfurd gave it both a strong sense of time and place that kept me riveted. His characters were part of the fabric of their time and place, and the story was memorably strong.

New York, on the other hand, feels like a publisher's mandate to an a...more

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May 31, 2010 Ashley rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 05, 2010 Steven Cassidy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have always thoroughly enjoyed Rutherfurd. His Sarum was a seminal book and captured my imagination. This one is just as long and goes from New Amsterdam all the way to 9/11. The early chapters are very enjoyable and one of them shows a slaves view of early New York which was fascinating.

If I have any quibbles only that characters do tend to exit off stage. I wanted to know what happened to the flawed Margaretha De Styl, the Dutch merchants character who did the dirty on the elderly slave - bu...more

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Apr 29, 2011 Regina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fantastic; thoroughly enjoyed this book and made me want to go out and get his other ones. I love history and have had a fascination with New York since I was a little girl. The author weaves the stories of his fictional characters against the backdrop of all the major events in New York's past so easily, it's almost impossible to tell you're getting a history lesson at the same time. I will definitely be exploring Edward Rutherfurd's other books.

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Jan 22, 2012 Fibrelady rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Fibrelady by: Myrna

Well, I'm glad I've finished it - I can get on with my life. A wonderfully written book that grabs you from the minute you pick it up. The history of the building of a modern city from a village right through 9/11 kept me wanting to keep on reading. It was fascinating to follow the same families through their generations as they settle in the city. The story of a lot of greed, some entitlement, compassion, drive and stamina to survive through the roller coaster of New York as a financial hub.

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Apr 12, 2013 Steven Z. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Over the years I have grown more impressed with the historical novels of Edward Rutherfurd. Beginning with SARUM years ago to the present novel, NEW YORK: A NOVEL I read the last page of each book with a feeling of satisfaction that I have just completed a remarkable blend of historical license and impeccable research. In his latest effort Rutherford presents another "Michneresque" type journey, this time through the history of New York City from the 17th through the 20th century. What drew me t...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

The history of NYC from the 1600s when it was New Amsterdam up to 2009. Good refresher course on US history. Learned the Brits were really nasty to our soldiers during the Revolutionary war (I would probably know this if I had seen the John Adams miniseries), the current financial crisis that we are experiencing now has happened numerous times before (you'd think we would have learned by now) and it wasn't really all that long ago that people discriminated against people from various ethnic back...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

It feels like an accomplishment to have finished this epic novel! This book reminded me why I like historical fiction. I enjoyed imagining what New York was like throughout the decades, through the eyes of the various characters. I loved imagining Broadway as an ancient Native American hunting trail, and Ellis Island as immigrants passed through. The book follows a few families and their descendants, and I enjoyed observing the chance encounters of two characters whose grandparents had also been...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Maria Comings rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-historical-fiction

Edward Rutherford's New York is an engaging journey through the history of one of the world's great cities as told by the families that lived there. From its early history as a trading post, to the tragedy of 9/11, I found myself engrossed in the stories of her residents; their challenges, their loves, their biases, and tribulations. In a work of this length you will naturally gravitate to some characters more than others, but I found Rutherford generally successful in creating engaging characte...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Sistermagpie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

I've read a couple of Rutherford's books. My first was London, which remains my favorite. Unfortunately a lot of the things that were so fun for me in that book didn't really translate to New York. What I liked in London was the way he introduced different families representing recognizeable London types and had them pop up at different periods of history as both the same and not the same as the originally had been. So there was a sense, looking at a modern person, of the historical people--the...more I've read a couple of Rutherford's books. My first was London, which remains my favorite. Unfortunately a lot of the things that were so fun for me in that book didn't really translate to New York. What I liked in London was the way he introduced different families representing recognizeable London types and had them pop up at different periods of history as both the same and not the same as the originally had been. So there was a sense, looking at a modern person, of the historical people--the sea captains who came from Vikings, etc.

New York concentrated mostly on one family, the Masters, which was a bit like if the book London had been dominated by the Bull family. Sure the wealthy members of the 400 are a part of New York's history, but they're not always the most interesting. By contrast the other families seemed to just kind of show up on cue to demonstrate the ethnic type (the Irish family spins their drunk father into a gentleman after making money with Tammany Hall in the 19th century, the Italian family sacrifices all for the "special" son while eating good food in the early 20th century, the smart Jewish girl spends the sabbath with her family in Brooklyn in the 50s etc.) And in the end we're back with the Master family (married to the Irish family, but her personality's pretty much like his except she's smarter, as most of the Master wives are), now serving on co-op boards on Park Avenue obsessing about whether they can donate as much as the other families to the private school. I live in New York and can't relate to it at all. There is one Master who has ties to the more artistic sides of the city, but he still can't really bring it to life. Often I just felt like I was hearing a lot of lecturing on history that was shorthand for character, so the characters themselves didn't really come to life. I know that's part of the trade-off of this story structure--characters are made to be summed up by their actions. But I was still left feeling like the book has a whole didn't have much personality, which is the opposite of what I think about New York. Like, where were the nuts?(less)

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Jun 30, 2012 Shawn Thrasher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Whenever you read a big, thick vast historical epic, you have to invariably compare it to the master of big, thick, vast historical epics, the late great James A. Michener. I love Hawaii, Centennial, The Source, Poland, and The Covenant, and occasionally re-read them because they are so dang good. Since Mr. Michener isn't around to write juicy historical novels anymore, no one has risen to the top to take his place like Edward Rutherfurd. I've read all his novels but one (alas, Russian history b...more Whenever you read a big, thick vast historical epic, you have to invariably compare it to the master of big, thick, vast historical epics, the late great James A. Michener. I love Hawaii, Centennial, The Source, Poland, and The Covenant, and occasionally re-read them because they are so dang good. Since Mr. Michener isn't around to write juicy historical novels anymore, no one has risen to the top to take his place like Edward Rutherfurd. I've read all his novels but one (alas, Russian history bores me), and he's a worthy successor to Michener. Like Michener, he follows fictional families down historical paths, putting both well known and little known people, places and events in their way. New York is no exception. The first three-fourths of the book are meaty enough to satisfy all Michener-philes. I not only enjoyed reading about the Master family and all the other various immigrants to New York who intersected with them, but I learned a few things (cross-dressing governors! Secessionist New York mayors!) and I also ended up wanting to return to New York (just like Hawaii made me want to go to Hawaii and Centennial made me want to go to Colorado; The Covenant and Poland, however, did not have the same effect).

I really lost patience with the last fourth of the book though, and maybe this is the inherent problem with all big, thick juicy historical epics. While they have to eventually come to an end, history keeps chugging along. Maybe it chugs along like the little engine that could, and maybe it roars by like a freight train, but history doesn't end. Once Rutherfurd reached the 1950's, I was a little bit bored, mostly because I felt like he was a little bored with his subject as well and didn't know where to stop. His last few chapters felt both flat and rushed, and his Twin Towers chapter felt really, really forced. It's like he knew that he had to end, but he just didn't know how. Michener's ends (the inevitable comparison again) never felt rushed or flat or uninteresting, but I think they had similar problems as well -- too open ended, the reader is kind of left dangling in the air -- especially if you are reading a book like Hawaii fifty some years after it was written, you think "what happened next..." Maybe you're supposed to make up your own story at that point. And obviously not everything had a nice, tidy, neat ending. But I think that for myself, as a reader, I like a neatly wrapped package at the end, and New York certainly didn't deliver. By all means, read the book - it's worth it, particularly if you are taking a trip to New York - but be prepared to be bored (or skim) the end.
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Apr 17, 2012 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people interested in history, American history, historical fiction, NYC

Wonderful historical fiction work all about New York City, stretching from the Dutch/Native Americans to post-9/11. It teaches so much information but it is never a dry, boring read or textbook-like. I live in NYC now, and it provided so much information about many of the street, neighborhood and family names you see in NYC all the time now, plus how things came to be in the city and (slightly fictionalized) info about the politicians and historical figures that helped mold the city.

If you could...more Wonderful historical fiction work all about New York City, stretching from the Dutch/Native Americans to post-9/11. It teaches so much information but it is never a dry, boring read or textbook-like. I live in NYC now, and it provided so much information about many of the street, neighborhood and family names you see in NYC all the time now, plus how things came to be in the city and (slightly fictionalized) info about the politicians and historical figures that helped mold the city.

If you couldn't tell, it is VERY long, but worth it. I bought this in paperback at Target originally, but it was so big and bulky to carry around. Once I got a Nook, I read it on there and it was so much easier than lugging this around. The format actually makes it feel more like several short stories tied together (chapters are usually pretty long and stick to a particular year/set of years). There are also really nice maps at the front to help provide some visuals.

I loved that it followed one family through decade after decade. Sometimes, I would get particularly attached to a certain family member or generation and so one hard part was having that person or group of people go from being the focus to being secondary characters to the next generation. (For me, this particularly happened with the family right around the American Revolution time period, especially because these characters were the focus of several chapters and there was so much going on historically around them at that time.) One downside: the author likes to jump forward several years at a time, and sometimes it feels a bit abrupt, especially when you jump to the next generation in the family. I like that the writing sometimes doesn't say everything that has happened and leaves you to draw your own conclusions or fill in the blanks.

If social studies/history classes were like reading this book, I would have loved the classes because it created a vibrant world full of rich characters and a through-narrative. I recommend for anyone interested in (American) history, historical fiction, or NYC in general.(less)

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Feb 17, 2012 Elizabeth Reuter rated it 3 of 5 stars

New York spreads over about 400 years, half the time of many of Rutherfurd's sweeping tomes. As usual, we see the lives of rich and poor, and our every-day heroes meet the famous figures of their day, giving readers a unique look at men and women we know only from history books.

New York is strong in most areas. We see the forces that shaped lives, how Americans were thrust into the Revolutionary War when many didn't want to fight; how treatment of African Americans and American Indians shaped ou...more New York spreads over about 400 years, half the time of many of Rutherfurd's sweeping tomes. As usual, we see the lives of rich and poor, and our every-day heroes meet the famous figures of their day, giving readers a unique look at men and women we know only from history books.

New York is strong in most areas. We see the forces that shaped lives, how Americans were thrust into the Revolutionary War when many didn't want to fight; how treatment of African Americans and American Indians shaped our economy and the chaos caused by emancipation (interesting passages deal with whites panicking over how free blacks will "steal our jobs"); how immigrants set up their own sections of New York and struggled to navigate their new world. The characters are mostly interesting, and the tide of history is made exciting through their excitement.

I think the only passage Rutherfurd failed on was the Revolutionary War. While events leading to the War kept me breathless, once the War began Rutherfurd tried to put in every detail he could, resulting in choppy writing that abandoned characterization in favor of textbook-style fact listing. Thankfully, once that was over, we went back to solid storytelling.

I felt Rutherfurd glossed over a few things. While exposition made the horrible treatment of slaves and Native Americans clear, our heroes were enlightened, kind people who never acted cruelly themselves. A few had prejudice, but we never saw the consequences. Many of the men also cheated, as men of these times were expected to do, but we saw little of the toll this took on women. I was particularly bothered by the portrayal of women who give up their rights in marriage or to be mistresses living happily while harpy mothers/wives who scream about keeping their rights are shown as evil, scheming, heartless bitches. C'mon, Rutherfurd coudln't have given us one look at a woman who'd been used and then left to starve on the streets by one of his "heroes," as he made clear happened, or at a wife who'd given up all her rights to marry and then had no recourse when something bad happened?

Oh well. Overall, New York is both entertaining and instructive, what a historical novel should be. It doesn't quite reach the heights of The Forest, but it's good, and well worth a read if you like long novels or history.

*

-Elizabeth Reuter
Author Demon of Renaissance Drive(less)

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Jun 18, 2011 Mel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who enjoys history

Shelves: history-and-historical-fiction

This is my first read of anything by Edward Rutherfurd, and I enjoyed it a good deal. A little exposition-heavy, but it's woven in with just enough skill to avoid being clunky. It's easy to spot the formula at work, but I picked it up as an entertaining way to brush up on American history, and it does a good job of bringing the past alive.

I would caution one thing: a lot of summaries make this sound like a ensemble cast, so to speak, of all different kinds of Americans, but the primary focus (an...more This is my first read of anything by Edward Rutherfurd, and I enjoyed it a good deal. A little exposition-heavy, but it's woven in with just enough skill to avoid being clunky. It's easy to spot the formula at work, but I picked it up as an entertaining way to brush up on American history, and it does a good job of bringing the past alive.

I would caution one thing: a lot of summaries make this sound like a ensemble cast, so to speak, of all different kinds of Americans, but the primary focus (and the bulk of the word count) is on a family of well-off white dudes - for the most part moderate conservatives, more inclined to compromise than revolution against the status quo. They're fairly shameless opportunists, to boot. But more often than not, they're also humanists, which tempers the fact that their thinking often runs counter to modern sensibility.

I actually don't think this prevents a fair telling of history - Rutherfurd manages the trick of letting us see through a narrator's own limitations to the 'truth' pretty nicely. There is a slight impression that their perspective is the 'reasonable' one, and I can't decide if this reflects the author's own thoughts, or if it's the result of commitment to the (rich, white, male) point-of-view character(s).

There are brief detours into minority points-of-view that I thought were quite good – but they only whet the appetite for more, and he almost never delivers. It occurred to me that they were Rutherford's safety net for making sure we understand that he isn't ignorant of his character's white male privilege; often, we're shown how a minority character is struggling with their circumstances, then shown how the well-off white dudes are ignorant of their plight. It seems like a little bit of bet-hedging.

All that makes it sound as if I didn't enjoy the book, but picking apart authorial intent is honestly part of the fun for me, and I enjoy it more when it's honestly hard to say whether something is accident or genius. And because I prefer to come down on the generous side of that, I don't mind so much that the book is about rich white guys – for better or worse, they're the demographic that had a large role in shaping the events he describes. Also, following a family of moderates proves to be a good vehicle for showing the complexity of events, and contemporary opinions that get lost in our history lessons.
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Mar 12, 2011 Addie Capaldi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 52-books-in-52-weeks

Sometimes I walk down streets or through the park and try to imagine what things looked like hundreds of years ago. New York takes you on a seriously epic journey through hundreds of years of the city's history and does (as the cover promises) make history fun to read. I coincidentally read the chapter that included the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire the same week that I went to the Tenement Museum with my students. There are a lot of fun moments like that where you can connect the city in the...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Greg Zimmerman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Edward Rutherfurd's New York: The Novel delivers what it promises: A sprawling historical fiction that links generations of characters through significant events of the city's rich history. Beginning in the 1600s with the original Dutch settlers, we work our way through the Revolution, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Depression and into contemporary times. The cornerstone characters are the "old money" Master family, who trace their roots back to the original Dutch and English sett...more Edward Rutherfurd's New York: The Novel delivers what it promises: A sprawling historical fiction that links generations of characters through significant events of the city's rich history. Beginning in the 1600s with the original Dutch settlers, we work our way through the Revolution, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Depression and into contemporary times. The cornerstone characters are the "old money" Master family, who trace their roots back to the original Dutch and English settlers on Manhattan island. Over the centuries, though, the story brings in tangential characters from all walks of life that range from slaves to Italian immigrants who land at Ellis Island to a middle-class Jewish family.

But much of the joy of this book is the little-known nuggets of historical fact, and how Rutherfurd relates these episodes to his characters. For instance, did you know that to quell the Panic of 1907, when widespread unscrupulousness in investing and banking practices nearly brought down the entire financial system, President Theordore Roosevelt handed $25 million to JP Morgan and basically said, "Save us"? And he did.

These bits of trivia (Wall Street is so-named because it at first literally was a wall that protected Dutch settlers from Indian attacks) are the take-aways from the book because looking back, it's tough to remember which Master character made a narrow escape from the 1863 New York Draft Riots or the name of the Italian immigrant who helped lay bricks for the Empire State Building as it went up during the Depression.

But that's okay, because this is an event-driven novel. For the most part, the characters are simply the vessels through which Rutherfurd allows his story of New York to flow. They're there to be representatives of their time and as a way to interface with the historical events. In a novel that spans 400 years, there's not time to give these characters a full emotional range.

That said, it's also worth mentioning that Rutherfurd's style can be a bit grating at times. Even during the longer sections that span a few hundred pages and several years with the same characters, Rutherfurd writes in page to page-and-a-half sections, which gives the narrative a bit of a choppy, start-and-stop feeling. James Michener, who invented this historically hefty genre, writes better than Rutherfurd does, in my view.

The book winds up telling the stories of Gorham Master, a rich Wall Street banker, and his wife Maggie O'Donnell, a lawyer and descendant of the Masters' 19th century poor servants from Five Points. Though it takes more than 800 pages to get to the one part of New York's story that will really resonate with readers, Rutherfurd does a very commendable job of fitting his characters into a dramatic and harrowing 9/11 narrative. The wait is worth it for this part.

Overall, if you're a fan of the Michener-esque long historical novel, you'll probably enjoy this. I'd give it 3.9 out of 5 stars (yes, just slightly below four stars). I learned a lot from this book and, for the most part, enjoyed the three weeks I spent with it. It also was a lot of fun to read this book before, during and after trip to New York — and then visiting Battery Park, Wall Street, Trinity Church, the Empire State Building and other historical landmarks, all which figure prominently in the story. So if you have similar plans, that'll probably bump up your enjoyment of the book as well. (less)

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Feb 15, 2011 Cassandra rated it 4 of 5 stars

It took me over a year of reading a page here and there before bed to finish this book. Such is the life of having a baby, I suppose. I feel like reading this book over such a long period of time actually fit. By the time I got towards the end, the beginning, which took place hundreds of years earlier, really felt like such a long time ago.

I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me of Forever, of course, in that they both take place in New York City over hundreds of years. I spend the day after...more

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About Edward Rutherfurd

Francis Edward Wintle, best known under his pen name Edward Rutherfurd, was born in the cathedral city of Salisbury. Educated locally, and at the universities of Cambridge, and Stanford, California, he worked in political research, bookselling and publishing. After numerous attempts to write books and plays, he finally abandoned his career in the book trade in 1983, and returned to his childhood h...more

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“You can do what you like, sir, but I'll tell you this. New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God, we always shall.” — 17 people liked it

“Don't you know that there's another bubble as well An expectations bubble. Bigger houses private planes yachts ...... stupid salaries and bonuses. People come to desire these things and expect them. But the expectations bubble will burst as well as all bubbles do.
Come to my gallery and I will sell you beautiful things at a more reasonable price. But the point is that they will have value. Things of real beauty things of the spirit.” — 5 people liked it

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