1906

by James Dalessandro

Now available in paperback, James Dalessandro's "riveting account of corruption, greed, and murder in the City by the Bay" ( Dallas Morning News ) was a best-seller in hardcover and production has begun on a major motion picture. Set during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, this page-turning historical novel reveals recently uncovered facts that forever change our understanding of what really happened. Narrated by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid picture of the Post-Victorian city, from the mansions of Nob Hill to the underbelly of the Barbary Coast to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera. Central to the story is the ongoing battle fought even as the city burns that pits incompetent and unscrupulous politicians against a coalition of honest police officers, newspaper editors, citizens, and a lone federal prosecutor. James Dalessandro weaves unforgettable characters and actual events into a compelling epic.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Audiobook, Crime, Book Club, Adult

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2004

About the author

James Dalessandro was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and started writing poems and short stories at age six. He attended Valley Forge High School, studied journalism at Ohio University, and screenwriting at UCLA Film School. After seeing a documentary on the Beat Poets, he packed his bags and hitchhiked to San Francisco, but upon his arrival, was told he was “10 years too late to be part of it.”

At age 23, he founded The Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ken Kesey; serving as its director from 1973 - 1977. At the time, it was the nation's largest annual literary festival, bringing together the likes of Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, and Gary Snyder to the seaside town of Santa Cruz, CA; breaking attendance records, with 2,000+ people gathering at the Civic Auditorium each night. Ferlinghetti later said, "James Dalessandro has given a rebirth to American poetry. He's one of the new breed of populist poets who has something to say, quite clearly, about life on the wild side."

He moved to Los Angeles in 1980 to pursue a career in screenwriting, selling his first screenplay to Motown while still a student at UCLA. He wrote more than 75 trailer campaigns, mostly for Columbia Pictures. After selling more than a dozen screenplays, and his first novel, BOHEMIAN HEART (St. Martin's Press, 1993), an update of the classic Noir San Francisco Detective Thriller, he returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995.

James has published four books: “Canary In A Coal Mine” (poetry); “Bohemian Heart; “Citizen Jane” (true crime), and “1906,” a novel about the great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.

In 2005, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution he wrote and proposed, on behalf of himself and historian Gladys Hansen, asking that the "official" death count of 478 people be amended to reflect the factually accurate count of "3,000 plus victims;” an event that made international news. On April 18, 2006, the documentary, "The Damnedest, Finest Ruins," which James wrote, directed and produced, was presented at the 100 year Commemorative, drawing more than 50,000 people to the streets of San Francisco. The documentary was picked up by KQED/PBS of San Francisco, and now airs on their Youtube.com channel, "TRULY CALIFORNIA."

In September 2009, the Hallmark Channel aired “Citizen Jane,” a film about the story of Jane Alexander, a Marin County, California woman who spent 13 years tracking down and helping to convict the man who murdered her 88-year-old aunt. Dalessandro wrote the teleplay and served as one of the films producers.

In 2010, “PLAYBOY” Magazine published his 7,000 word article, "PETROSINO vs. THE BLACK HAND," the true story of a NY Shoeshine boy who was drafted into the NYPD, to fight crime in Italian run neighborhoods; beginning what would ultimately turn into an astonishing 26-year-career on the force. James sold a mini-series based on the “PETROSINO” article, to the FX Channel, where he was hired to develop the Pilot episode and Series Bible, with the help of his friend Bobby Moresco, Oscar-winning writer of “CRASH” and “MILLION DOLLAR BABY.”

In April of 2015, the Digital/Kindle edition of “1906” was released on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes Books. Within two hours, it rose to #1 in Historical Fiction/Thriller/Suspense, and #2 in Literary Fiction. It remained in the Top 10 for several weeks, and Top 100 for more than two months. James is currently represented by David Saunders, co-owner and Head of Literary at the APA Agency in Los Angeles.

Dalessandro has lectured at the Cinequest Film Festival and the Screenwriting Expo in Los Angeles, CA. He formerly taught "Screenwriting as a Pro" at Fort Mason Art Center in San Francisco, CA. He currently teaches Advanced Screenwriting at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA.

James is married to the former Kathleen "Katie" Callies and has an adopted son, Jeremy

Reviews

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I thought I was getting here was a story of the earthquake. I thought it would be just an historical fiction narrative, perhaps in line with Howard Fast's first installment of his Lavette Family series, The Immigrants (which I quite liked, by the way). There is more historical fact in this one, and I was glad of that. A novel set in San Francisco in 1906 must be about the earthquake. This novel was also as much about the graft and corruption that personified that grand city at the time as the disaster that befell it.

There are three main parts to this, plus a prologue and an epilogue. All chapters are headed with a date and time stamp. The Prologue and Epilogue take place after the earthquake. The novel itself begins 3 days before the earthquake and continues sequentially. Sometimes one chapter follows just an hour or two after the preceding chapter. The first two parts establish and develop the characters. Some of the characters were fictional or composites of real people, but Dalessandro didn't shy from including real people. The third part is the earthquake and the fires and this part is all action.

Throughout the novel, I could easily see his lifetime in the movie industry, particularly his screenwriting ability. Sometimes I have read novels and used the word cinematic to describe them, where the author has allowed me to see sets. Dalessandro writes scenes. Who hasn't watched a movie with a brawl or one with a shootout? When you read such things on the page, there is no mistaking the film aspects.

In this, of course, there is also the chaos that erupted following the disaster. Though I'm not a fan of novels that are all plot, the action scenes were very good. They were even better for his having taken the time to establish the characters. I fully admit that these are screen characters - real enough, not fully developed, who do things in the chaos of disaster you'd expect screen characters to do.

In the beginning, I wasn't sure I was going to like this. And then I simply tore through the last 100 pages. This isn't literature and I cannot bring myself to give it 5-stars. That said, I've had this on my Kindle for over 4 years and I'm wondering what took me so long to finally get to it!

[Michael Schmicker · Rating 5 out of 5]

If high school text books read like James Dalessandro's "1906," nobody would sleep through history class.

The apocalyptic earthquake that levelled San Francisco on April 18, 1906 started at 5:12 A.M. Fifty–three seconds later, the “Paris of the Pacific” was a pile of rubble. A hellish three-day firestorm followed, cremating the ruins. Final toll: 5,000 dead, 29,000 buildings collapsed or burned to the ground; 80 percent of the city erased from the map.

San Francisco on the eve of its destruction wasn’t Sodom and Gomorrah, but you could see it from Telegraph Hill. Sin and corruption suited the city’s rough and tumble, gold-fever, get-rich-quick citizenry. City Hall was a cesspool of bribery; its infamous, red-light Barbary Coast was Satan’s crib – chockablock with whorehouses, saloons and gambling dens where you could get drunk get laid, get robbed and get shanghaied to China, all in one night.

Dalessandro’s sprawling, colorful novel fully exploits the reader-grabbing potential of both themes – humanity’s persistent vices, and the unfathomably destructive power of a 7.8 earthquake unleashed on a criminally unprepared city.

"1906" is big, bold, operatic historical fiction.

You viscerally root for the good guys, like the novel’s narrator, plucky muckraker Annalisa Passarelli, and the virtuous Brotherhood (a secret clique of ethical cops), as they attempt to take down venal S.F. Mayor Eugene Schmitz and the avaricious political machine which owns him (Schmitz isn’t fictional; in real life, President Teddy Roosevelt and federal investigators were preparing to nail him on the eve of the disaster).

The bad guys are soap-opera bad – Shakespearean villains you want to jump up and punch. Cartoon characters? Hardly. The Darwinian ethics and scandalous excesses of America’s ruling class and their muscle during America’s Gilded Age are shocking in hindsight. The rich owned the police, Congress and the court system. They did what they damn well pleased. The injustices inflicted by the powerful on the urban working poor at the end of the 19th century made a mockery of democracy. San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and other major U.S. cities were awash with vulnerable immigrants treated like animals, routinely cheated and scammed, living in horrific squalor. No safety net existed in 1906 – no Social Security, no food stamps, no Medicaid, no OSHA. If you lost an arm to a factory machine, you were tossed aside without compensation. Photographers Jacob Riis (1849-1914) and Lewis Hine (1874-1940) have left us a painful record of the era. Hine risked his life to document the nation’s child labor scandal – ten-year-old kids slaving away in noisy, dangerous factories 12 hours a day. Company goons threatened and harassed him every step of the way. Riis famously focused his lens on the over-crowded, fetid, fire-trap tenements of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Meanwhile, across the continent, San Francisco’s “Big Four” – Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Collis Huntington – vied to construct the largest, most lavish palace on Nob Hill. “Stanford built a fifty room palace whose entrance boasted a 75-foot high vestibule with the twelve signs of the zodiac done in black marble, a hothouse conservatory, indoor Corinthian pillars of Aberdeen granite, mechanical singing birds, a music room where a servant changed cylinders every few minutes so that a continual stream of classical music was piped throughout the house, and a miniature railroad.” (According to Wikipedia, “In the 1970s the student body of Stanford University voted to use "Robber Barons" as the nickname for their sports teams. However, school administrators disallowed it, saying it was disrespectful to the school's founder”). As wealthy Anson Hunter says in Fitzgerald’s famous novelette, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” Never more true than turn-of-the-century America. Dalessandro gets your juices flowing. As Passarelli and the Brotherhood close in on Schmitz and the city’s crooked nabobs, you’re passing the hang noose.

The novel brims with finely-observed period detail that snaps scenes into sharp focus. Ever ridden San Francisco’s famous cable cars? Here’s the ride Easter morning 1906: “The city’s only Negro gripman eased the brake lever and ratcheted up the hook that snagged the heavy cable underground. The six-ton car lurched forward, jerking and rumbling past the Victorian row houses. Within seconds the rising sun illuminated the entire bay and filled the cable car with blinding amber light.”

Pages are crammed with Michener factoids. Passarelli leans out her fourth-floor window at the Fairmont hotel and describes an Easter Day street march jammed with political and social protesters: “...pickets seeking higher wages for chambermaids, Industrial Unionism, shorter hours for carpenters, Suffrage for women, vegetarianism, enforced temperance, recruits for Socialism, and end to Imperialism. The Prevent Premature Burial consortium, the short-lived Committee for Improved Mastication (‘32 Chews to a Healthier You’), appeared to have lost steam to the point of near extinction, as had the Back to Africa outfits. A roller skater headed for the frightening plunge down Mason Street, almost taking one of the Temperance women with him.”

His research is impeccable. Dalessandro’s cinematic description of the horrific earthquake and firestorm fits the facts. The doomed city is destroyed, minute by minute, street by street, pretty much as history records.

The author’s storytelling skills are backed by a lifetime working as a screenwriter and poet. Together with his Beat Generation pals Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ken Kesey (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”; “Sometimes a Great Notion”) Dalessandro co-founded in 1972 the famous Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, then headed to Hollywood and UCLA film school. He wrote and sold a half dozen screenplays; penned the San Francisco noir thriller “Bohemian Heart” (1993); true crime “Citizen Jane”(1999 – subsequently a Hallmark Channel movie); and published "1906" two years before the centennial of the celebrated quake. Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks and Warner Bros. engaged in a legendary bidding war for the film rights before the novel was even finished, but the book never made it through the Hollywood meat grinder to become a movie. Instead, a decade later tinsel town regurgitated this summer’s flashy, but formulaic "San Andreas," now playing in a theater near you. Dalessandro is currently turning “Bohemian Heart” into a TV series with the help of his friend Bobby Moresco (2005 Academy Award winner “Million Dollar Baby”).

Meanwhile, "1906," re-issued in Kindle, made the Amazon Top 100 this Spring.

Geologists agree that San Francisco will inevitably be destroyed again. In 1989, the city shrugged off the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake, but the USGS estimates a 7 percent chance that the “Big One” (magnitude 8) will occur in California within the next 30 years.

For $2.99, you can get a preview of coming attractions.

[Taury · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like 3✨ is being generous. 1906 by James Dalessandro is about the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake that burned half the city. That would been a great story had the author told the story in modern times with a 1906 setting. I never felt I was being brought through the early 1900s. At anytime this could be 2020. Some facts some fiction but things didn’t fit. Felt too advanced to be 1906

[Robin Levin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found 1906 enthralling from beginning to end. San Francisco, at the time of the historic earthquake was in the grip of one of the most corrupt political machines we have ever seen in this country. James Dalessandro’s novel is as much about the efforts of brave citizens to end this corruption as it is about the earthquake.
If you were foolish enough to go to the Barbary Coast district of San Francisco at a time when ships needed sailors, you could easily be drugged by the bartender and find yourself far out to sea by the time you woke up. You would be put to work under threat of the lash. It was an equal opportunity form of slavery. Shanghai Kelly or some such scum would be paid $90 per able body.
Ships would dock at the Barbary Coast bearing cargoes of pubescent and pre-pubescent Chinese girls, destined for employment at Madame Ah Toy’s establishment-a life that would be nasty, brutish and short. Civic minded women would go to the docks to protest and picket this illegal commerce. Who did the police arrest? The demonstrators!
Dalessandro’s heroes are brave and stalwart. There is Byron Fallon, an honest cop determined to bring the corrupt powers that be to justice. He is assisted in his efforts to gather evidence by Annalisa Passerelli, who works as a theater and opera critic for a crusading San Francisco newspaper. Fallon is the leader of a brotherhood of honest policemen consisting of three families, two Irish and one Italian, and which includes his sons Christian, Anthony and Hunter. Hunter is a recent graduate of the Stanford University School of Engineering, a genius who is eager to apply modern technology to police work.
Dalessandro’s characters also include Enrico Caruso, who was in San Francisco the night of the earthquake singing in Bizet’s Carmen, Kaitlin Staley, a precocious fifteen-year-old runaway from Lawrence Kansas, her father, Sheriff Lincoln Staley who comes to San Francisco to try to find his wayward daughter and Ting Leo, a heroic twelve-year-old Chinese girl. There is even an Emperor Norton-like character.

1906 describes the earthquake and its aftermath in great detail, the heroism and the appalling mistakes that were made, as well as the effects of political corruption that made the situation so much worse. It is clear that the author has done a tremendous job in researching both the event itself and the political and social fabric of the city at that time.
The 1906 earthquake, with all its appalling destruction raises one of the most profound theological questions of our time: “If it’s true God spanked the town for being much too frisky, then why’d he burn the churches down and spare Hotaling’s Whiskey?”

[Beth Cato · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as part of my continued research on the Great San Francisco Earthquake. I've read a great deal of nonfiction, but I wanted a level of detail that can only be found in fiction. I found this book, published in 2005 not long before the centennial of the quake.

1906 struck me as extremely irritating and enlightening all at once.

To begin with the irritants: the perspectives of the story. It's a first person novel that uses omniscient third person to tell the tales of a broad cast of about a dozen. It head-hops from character to character, back and forth, within a single scene. This is considered a big no-no for writers, generally, and with reason--it can be extremely confusing and frustrating to track. At the end, the first person narrator, the gutsy journalist Annalissa Passarelli, justifies this by saying the narrative of "what really happened" is told in the style of her hero, Nellie Bly. That's all well and good, but there's probably a reason why modern readers read about reporter Nellie Bly rather than read her actual chronicles.

The novel is also morally heavy-handed. It actually reminded me of the 1930s Clark Gable movie San Francisco, which blatantly uses the message that San Francisco deserved to burn because it was an ungodly city like Sodom and Gomorrah and will be rebuilt as a godly modern wonder (yes, we can snicker now). There are very few nuanced characters in this book. I suppose it could be argued that since it's told by Annalissa, it's only right that the take is biased, but it just feels melodramatic and silly at times. Her love interest, Hunter, is about as paladin as you can get, complete with riding about on a motorcycle instead of a gallant white steed. The bad guys are very bad, though a lot of what they do is based on historical fact. Dalessandro just kind of compressed a full decade of wickedness into one book, complete with overwrought action during the earthquake that reminded me way too much of the silly escapades at the end of the movie Titanic.

Now, for the positives.

At the end, the author mentions that he spent six years researching the book. It shows. The attention to detail is astonishing, and he really does make San Francisco feel visceral and real, down to the perfume and vomit in the Barbary Coast. He also demonstrates a great intimacy with San Francisco, its streets, and its hills. I envy his knowledge, really. I found myself nodding along at several points as I recognized historical details he worked in that I've already encountered in other works. If anything, he crammed too much in, as it all added to the ridiculous, moral melodrama of the plot.

It's one of those books that I'm glad I read and I will keep it handy for research purposes, but overall I didn't like that much as an actual story.

[BJ Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend put this in my hands and said, 'You've got to read this.' I expected it to be about the big earthquake and the devastation that followed. Since I already knew that the corruption and incompetence in city government increased the destruction begun by the quake, I thought it would focus on events following the quake. Boy, was I wrong! The focus was on events before the quake, culminating in the death and chaos and panic of this historic event. This book is fabulously written and very-well researched, blending fictional & factual characters so seamlessly that the reader is taken unawares, as I was, to discover that some characters I thought were completely fictional were in fact more real than fictional.

[Jenna Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. You can tell James Dalessandro has put a lot of research and thought into the details and relationships of the novel. There are a lot of characters, but the way they interact with one another shows the incredibly diverse society of San Francisco at the turn of the century. There are so many interesting aspects to this novel related to the historical context: the police methods, the criminal world, the popular culture. All of this is back dropped against a monstrous natural disaster - there is something for everyone to enjoy and you won't be able to put it down.

[Heather C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel has a little bit of everything – early police procedural, action sequences, drama, shoot outs, natural disasters, love story – in essence, the whole nine yards. There is a little something for everyone here. The first half of the novel is significantly character driven. We come to know and love the men of the Brotherhood – some of San Francisco’s finest cops who are working to help take down the graft and corruption visible everywhere you turn. There is a core group of individuals who are putting all of the pieces into place for a final takedown of the members of the political machine. The second half of the novel is very much about the city of San Francisco and what happens to it and its people during the earthquake and subsequent fires. The whole novel covers a roughly 7 day period – 3 days leading up to the earthquake and the 3 days after it. The best way to compare the layout of the novel is to compare it to the movie Titanic. Here you have a disaster film – but the first portion is very character driven (so that you feel something for the characters when the worst comes), then you have the height of the disaster, and the subsequent wrap up and resolution of the disaster. It is very similar.

The characters were written in such a way that you were unable to pinpoint who was fictional and who was likely based on a real character or amalgamation of characters. This goes to show that the author had a great sense of his characters and how to set them into the world that they would inhabit. The city itself is also formed into a character. The author presents a fantastic visual layout of the city – complete with all of the areas of local character – Nob Hill, the Barbary Coast, China Town etc.

I am very confident that this book would appeal to a wide audience – the disaster junkie, the romance reader, the historical fan, San Franciscans, those who enjoy a little murder mystery/police procedural – men and women alike.

And did I mention…this is being made into a film? It was actually first written as a screenplay before he wrote the novel – can’t wait to see it!

The narrator did a fantastic job with this novel. She had a character for everyone – and there were a wide variety of types of characters presented – Italians, Chinese, Mid-Westerners etc. She sang a little bit in Latin when covering aspects of the Opera – particularly Carmen and La Boehme. It took a little while for me to get used to her voice and I can’t exactly pinpoint why. There were not any sound effects in this novel but I wish there were some. As I was seeing this play out in my head as a movie, a little dramatic music at the height of the disaster wouldn’t have hurt or some crackling fire flames.

[Karyl · Rating 3 out of 5]

We all know that in 1906, San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent fire. But what was new to me was the extreme corruption found in the city prior to the disasters, and which caused so much more destruction. Most of the book is taken up with the story of a few good men, trying desperately to take down the corrupt leadership of the city, but getting thwarted by every turn, usually by violence. The earthquake and fires don't even happen until the last third or so of the book. For some reason, I wasn't grabbed by this story. Yes, I read it -- but it didn't suck me in like I had hoped. I found it a bit difficult to keep track of everyone in the novel; the author uses a first-person narrator but frequently descends into third-person, which can be distracting and difficult. I understand he wanted to tell the story from the points of view of everyone who lived there, from the very richest to the poorest immigrants, but there was almost too much information. The storyline had real potential, which is why I am so disappointed. It fell so short of its potential.

[Jserdyns · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway and was very excited to start reading because I am a huge fan of historical fictions. Mr. Dalessandro did a great job of weaving the fictional story into the true events of the 1906 San Francisco disaster and corruption. The story starts off quickly and does not slow down with rich attention to details. As I was reading, it peaked my interest into the actual events, so I did some of my own research into the disaster and the people described in the story. It was neat to then read how Mr. Dalessandro interjected the actual accounts from real life into his story. You can tell the author really understood the depth of the situation and was able to create fictional characters that could then tell the story and provide a catalyst through the actual historical events. If you are a fan of historical fictions I would suggest reading this book.

[Gaelen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very little tolerance for the corniness of “noir”-style writing — and this work of historical fiction really wallowed in it — but the backdrop of 1906 San Francisco made it an entertaining read. The Big One doesn’t happen until maybe 3/4 through, so it ends up being a lot more about the politics and corruption of the time, but there are plenty of mentions of real political figures and local landmarks. Even Emperor Norton makes an appearance. If you’ve read a lot of local history, this fictionalized portrayal gives a nice bit of color to the mix.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the power of the Earthquake was beyond belief, the destruction of the city was caused by fires that burned for days, poor building construction, the futile attempts to stop the fires by dynamiting areas to create a fire break and failure of the water supply to stop the fires.

When reading this book I could not help but compare the devastation of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to the devastation of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. While the forces of nature are powerful and uncontrollable, the development of population areas and the corruption that often goes with it can and should be. Poor city planning, failure to heed the warnings of scientists and environmentalists and officials with their own monetary agendas can and should be controlled. In both cases, the failure of the infrastructures were the main cause of the destruction of both cities.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Take on the 'Quake

This book is about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It tells the primary story from the perspective of a female opera critic and journalist and follows other stories of people who had the misfortune to end up in San Francisco right before the quake. The book was fast paced and held my interest. It was an attempt to correct some misconceptions about the event. While not 100 percent historically accurate (as acknowledged by the author), it adhered to the spirit of the era, combining some real people into one and inserting fictional characters to support the storyline. It was an enjoyable reading experience. If you like historical fiction, I recommend it. The book is also going to be the subject of a movie soon, so it will be interesting to see how it is adapted.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

San Francisco is my very favorite place, so I really enjoyed reading this book about the earthquake and fire, and the city at that time. It was a little tough to get into the first few chapters, the author keep introducing new characters, it was confusing. But once I got into the story line I couldn't put it down. And in the end the author told you exactly who was a fictional character and who wasn't,(which saved me the time of looking them all up, which is what I was planning on doing). The book seemed to be researched fairly well which was really appricated

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started a little slowly for me. It deals with the story of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. I've read so many books about SF and the earthquake that all the background information was something I've known. However, when the two main characters, Hunter, son of the SF Police Chief and Annalisa Passarelli, a newspaper reporter, become involved in exposing the graft and corruption in city government, there is suspense and excitement. Dalesandro works the fictious characters along with actual people and events to make an interesting story.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book earlier this year and have only just got around to reading it. If I had realised how good this book was going to be, I would have put it towards the top of my pile.

I rarely write what a story is about for fear of spoiling for others. All I will say that this book is a story of corruption, romance and revenge, set during the time of the San Francisco earthquake and fire. A page turner and one that I can highly recommend.

[Vickie Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very fast paced book. Pay attention, are you might miss something! I really enjoyed this book. There were many characters to get to know. I have always wanted to learn more about the San Francisco earthquake. I found everything very interesting. The background story was amazing.

[NancyL Luckey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not just the earthquake

There have always been crooked politicians but the guys in this book were also murderers, helped along by their enablers.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Dalessandro's 1906 is a fictionalized account of the days leading up to and the aftermath of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Annalisa Passarelli, the music and arts reported for the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, leads readers through a rollicking recounting of the earthquake and subsequent fire - as well as her dealings with both the very cream of San Francisco society and its seedy underside of thugs and shanghaiers, pimps and prostitutes, and perhaps worst of all, politicians.

I really, really liked this book. It is well-written and fast paced; a chronicle of both disaster and corruption on the grandest scale. Murder and mystery seamlessly intersect with romance, and trust me, that's a rare quality. My only complaint, and it's a relatively minor one, is that the reader is introduced to a vast number of characters, some of whom simply disappear from the story. Although Annalisa offers a plausible explanation at the end - this is her first hand account of the earthquake, helped along by the occasional personal correspondence or diary - I felt a tad disappointed not to have a final glimpse at some of them, in particular the geology professor. This is but a minor quibble, though, when all is said and done.

While Passarelli, and her co-protagonist, Hunter Fallon, are Dalessandro's original creations, most of the other characters in his pages - from Enrico Caruso to Mayor Schmitz to Shanghai Kelly and Adam Rolf are either entirely true to form or based closely on real individuals from that time. Schmitz - who was indicted on corruption charges not long afterward (thank you, Wikipedia) - and his cronies fixed the death toll at 478, although the real toll was anywhere from 5,000-10,000. And if that weren't enough, the bad guys really did use the chaos and destruction of the disaster to exact revenge on their enemies, which is to say that Chicago in 1919 had nothing on San Francisco in 1906.

[Carter Aakhus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from the scene-setting of San Francisco in the early 20th century and introduction of the characters, I wasn’t really that into this until the earthquake finally happens in part three.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fiction and real life masterfully merged to reveal the long-hidden truth about the USA's biggest earthquake (for now...)
James Dallessandro has done painstaking research and crafted a highly readable, exciting novel to go with his recent film documentary, The Damnedest Finest Ruins, both of which reveal that much of the "official story" of what happened to the city of San Francisco early one mid-April morning over a century ago has been a deliberate fabrication. (You can watch the video for free on YouTube.) Basing his novel on actual public records and dogged investigative reporting by the late Ken Kesey, librarian Gladys Hansen and many others, Dallesandro contrives to put you right in the heart of actual events during the days leading up to, during and right after the massive earthquake and subsequent citywide fires that devastated most of the metropolis then known as the "Paris of the Pacific."

Mixing depictions of actual figures in the event with fictional characters of his own, all of whom leap to life in Dalessandro's prose, 1906 depicts in startling detail how human error, corruption and greed combined with willful disregard of warnings after previous quakes along the San Andreas Fault to cause the deaths of what we now know was at least 3,000 people, and likely many more, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to buildings and infrastructure. (The full, actual death toll will likely never be known, as the author points out, because so many bodies were entirely incinerated in the fires.) 1906 is more than worth the small price of a Kindle copy, not only for its entertainment value but also for its appalling revelations. One hopes and prays that San Francisco's present-day leaders have learned at least some of the lessons this historic catastrophe offers should the "Big One"—the massive quake Californians have feared for decades—finally strike.

This book was optioned by a Hollywood movie studio for a film version, which apparently died in "development hell." This would be prime material for a streaming TV series. (I can easily see Nathan Kane playing the great opera tenor Enrico Caruso, who was actually caught in the quake and is a significant character here.) How 'bout it, Amazon, Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max et al.?

[Jenn Raley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this fictionalized - though impressively accurate - account of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The author did a great job detailing the destruction wrought by the quake and the three days of fires that ensued.

The fictional characters employed by the author do a great job of providing perspective to the story, giving the reader someone to root for (and against) throughout the overarching drama. The story would be relatively generic and uncompelling if it weren't for the backdrop of the tragedy; indeed, it seems as though the purpose of the story is to frame the tragedy in human terms, rather than the other way around.

I particularly enjoyed the graphic descriptions of pre-earthquake San Francisco. The book does a great job of painting a picture of the corruption and debauchery the city thrived on. It's hard for a 21st century reader to believe that society could truly have been this way. The author does a good job of taking the reader into that world.

The tricky thing about "1906" is knowing which of the characters are real, historical figures and which ones are not - and knowing whether the characters in the book really lived as described in the story, or if the accounts are exaggerated. I appreciated the author's notes at the end of the book, which briefly describe where he has taken liberties and where he tried to be faithful to the true stories.

Overall, a really great read for those interested in understanding this period of San Francisco's history.

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rip-snorting action story that was shopped as an idea for a movie before the book was ever finished.
This novel about the SF Earthquake of 1906 is a fast-paced read that begins a few days prior to the earthquake and introduces us to all the characters and surrounding controversies and excitement that was San Francisco in the days leading up to the event. Some part first person narrative by young reporter Annalisa Passarelli, and at other times switching to a 3rd person narrator of events. In the epilogue which explains both the author and Annalisa's use of this device the novel is likened to the types of reporting done by the legendary Nellie Bly!
We see the corruption and the beauty of the city, the excitement over the arrival of Enrico Caruso and a token appearance by a very drunk John Barrymore. Drawing on numerous sources the author is really able to give us a fresh look at the earthquake and surrounding events, including the US Armies attempt to save the city by dynamiting most all of the city! Heroes and villains abound in this book and at times some of the plot action seems a bit rushed but there was a lot of action before the day of the earthquake and then the last part of the book deals with the actual day of the earthquake and how the devastation of the city developed and how those in power dealt with things.
Very fast read for me on my Kindle!

[Lynn Pribus · Rating 3 out of 5]

A different view of the great and devastating earthquake which I read for my bimonthly historical-novel review in MILITARY OFFICER magazine. (After about 50 reviews it's getting harder to find new historicals.....)

Starting 72 hours before the quake, 1906 deals with the overwhelming governmental graft of the time with fictitious characters standing in for the real crusaders of the time trying to catch the miscreants with the blessing of Pres. Teddy Roosevelt. Narrated by a female opera reviewer who is also spying on the bad guys. Cast includes Enrico Caruso, in town for performances, and John Barrymore.

Only the last quarter deals with the earthquake itself, with drama and historical accuracy.

My main complaint was that the dialogue was pretty contemporary, not portraying the more formal language of 100+ years past. Still, interesting. The only working hospital was the Army's at The Presidio and the Navy steamed several ships from Monterey to battle the blaze along the waterfront with their ships' hoses and pumps. (Facts I will, of course, mention in the military magazine review.....)

[Philip Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most interesting read mixing fact and adding some colorful characters, both scoundrels and heroes. As has been the case in many large cities in the relatively new country of America graft and corruption was a way of life to the benefit of the few and the detriment of the masses. The portrayal of some of these people adds color to the story of the devastation of the San Francisco earthquake of 18 April 1906, and the massive fire that followed. Following the personal lives of a few individuals, describing the days just before and the immediate aftermath keeps the reader absorbed in the novel. Descriptions of animal behavior prior to such events is well documented and adds further authenticity. Adding a few names of note further enhances the story. This may provoke thoughts of “things to come” as has been predicted by seismologists for as long as I can remember. Of interest to anyone wishing to indulge in a great story and looking back at a part of American historical events.

[Brandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was recommended to me at a bookstore in San Francisco as I was interested in reading fiction about the earthquake. Not literary fiction, but interesting and definitely holds your interest. I would like to read more into San Francisco pre-earthquake because it sounds interesting. I would have preferred if the novel had an narrative told from the third person perspective, rather than the first person. It was the only thing that really irked me throughout the novel and I'm surprised an editor did not make the same suggestion! The narrator doesn't really add anything and could have just as easily have been third person. Plus I found the explanation as to how she knew what was going on in all of the places she wasn't in unconvincing. It was really distracting. That was my only gripe. It definitely has "movie" all over it.

[Sterling Bollinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is beautifully written piece of historical fiction. This story puts human faces on one of the most horrific natural disasters to happen in the US. One of the most striking things about this book is the story that is created leading up to the earthquake, which doesn't occur until the last third of the novel. The story of murder, corruption, and society in early 20th century San Francisco is based on a collection of true events and characters creating a intricate atmosphere which allows the reader to really imagine what the magnificent city was like at the time. My timing in reading this book, which has been on my waiting list for a while, poignantly coincided with the the tragic earthquake in Japan. While the two events happened over 100 years apart and in different cultures the human impact is very similar. The audio version is extremely well done.

[Megan Reichelt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very interesting! I was in the mood for a nonfiction book, so when I realized it was fiction, I felt a bit disappointed. The author spends a lot of time investing in the pre-earthquake plot: a group of police and a female reporter trying to bring down a corrupt political system. However, it takes so long that you start to think, "None of this is going to matter because the city will be leveled. We will have bigger problems." It turns out the corruption and the earthquake are more intertwined than you would expect. I found myself focusing on the elements I was pretty sure were historically accurate, rather than the fictional characters, but it is a solid historical fiction and it made me want to learn more about the disaster.

[A Holland Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not heard much about the the story of the San Francisco earthquake but I enjoy history so I thought I would give this book a chance. I am happy to say that I enjoyed this book. You can tell that the author did his research when writing this book. The story kept me engrossed with the twists in the story line. There was not only history involved but adventure as well. The author did a good job in making the reader really understand what the people were going through during this time. I can't not imagine it. Another thing that I liked was how the story was told through the eyes of a female reporter. A very engaging story.

[Neil Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no question the San Francisco Earthquake was one of the greatest disasters in US history. Under a minute was all it took to level buildings, ignite fires, kill some 3,000 people, and destroy some 500 city blocks. In 1906, author James Dalessandro handily employs the earthquake as backdrop to a city rife with graft, corruption, and greed.

Dalessandro has done his homework. It's clear that his research on the quake and its aftermath is spot on. While parts of the novel read more like a film script, 1906 is still a captivating and thrilling read. If earthquakes aren't your thing, you lose nothing by passing this one over; if they are, though, this is probably a must-read.