I read this book on-screen in my down time at work. It's set in late 19th-century New York, from what I gather, which is what attracted me to it, as I'm in the midst of a long documentary on New York. I don't know that I would include the book among my top 10, but I like it very much. The language is absolutely delectable. I want to eat it and hug Crane for writing it. His language is crystal clear; he constructs sentences in such a way to emit a vivid visual experience from between the words. His adjectives are active; he uses colors as verbs. The book ends with the sun's "ghastly cheerfulness," ghastly in light of the story's grim events--grim in the particulars of the story's characters and of the larger setting in which they live.