New York

by Edward Rutherfurd

Her world seemed bathed in a sunless light that left the landscape uncertain.

Humiliation, for the proud princes of Ireland.

Sarah loved Brooklyn. If you came from Brooklyn, you belonged there always. Partly, perhaps, it was the basic geography of the place. Ninety square miles of territory, two hundred miles of waterfront—no wonder the Dutch had liked it. There was something about the light in Brooklyn, it was so clear. The English might have come and called it Kings County. Huge bridges might link it to Manhattan—in addition to the Brooklyn Bridge, there were the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges now—along with the subway. Seventy years of growth might have covered much of its quiet, rural space with housing—though huge parks and leafy streets remained. Yet on a quiet weekend morning, walking along a street of brownstone houses with their Dutch stoops, you could still almost think, in that limpid Brooklyn light, that you were in a painting by Vermeer.