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Like many others, one of Gothamist's favorite books about turn-of-the-century New York City is The Alienist by Caleb Carr. A novel about finding a cruel serial killer, The Alienist also had wall-to-wall details about what life was like in the city, with a particular grittiness that escaped film depictions. And we always liked how Carr would discuss in interviews that while people fret and worry about New York being crime-ridden, the kinds of horrors happening during the turn-of-the-cenutry were even more depraved; of course, this started our Carr mini-obsession. So we were excited to see the NYT Home and Garden feature about Carr and his upstate NY house which had more details of Carr's youth in Manhattan:
He talks about his block, 14th Street between Second and Third.Gothamist wonders what Carr thinks of the current state of 14th Street and thereabouts: The revamped Kiehl's, the Whole Foods and DSW, the gentrified East Village. The article also discusses the effects of being the son of Beat founder/catalyst Lucien Carr."While we were there, it was named the single worst block for drugs and prostitution," he says. He laughs. "I saw my first person stabbed to death when I was 11, right across the street, over a drug deal. Friends was just two blocks away. The first thing the principal said was, 'Don't ever go to 14th Street.' I thought, I've got a problem."
Carr has just written a new Sherlock Holmes book, The Italian Secretary by at the request of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate. And back in 1994, we were obsessed with thinking about who could play all the characters of The Alienist in the movie version (which will probably never happen).
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If you like turn-of-the-century accounts of big-city serial killers, also check out Devil in the White City by Erik Lawson. About the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and a murderer operating at that time. An excellent read and history lesson.
"DitWC" actually focuses on H.H. Holmes, another killer, over whom the narrator's grandmother in "The Alienist" spends all of her time fretting. Good in its own right.
Matthew Pearl's "The Dante Club" is another Alienist-like effort, though not as good and set in Boston.
For another good book from the period, check out Kevin Baker's Dreamland. You can read a transcript of Baker discussing the book with Gotham Gazette readers here.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/books/dreamland_transcript.php
Thanks for the suggestion about DitWC - I'll pass it along to our Chicagoist team as well. And I did read The Dante Club and was disappointed...it's clever, but, I dunno, kind of hollow.
And I'll definitely check out Dreamland - thanks thanks.
The stuff in the article about him having to build a separate staircase since the "very young girls in stilettos" he apparently enjoys wouldn't be able to navigate his spiral staircase? I loved Alienist but info like that gave me the creeps.
The stuff in the article about him having to build a separate staircase since the "very young girls in stilettos" he apparently enjoys wouldn't be able to navigate his spiral staircase? I loved Alienist but info like that gives me the creeps.
He did come off skeevey in that whole profile. I thoroughly enjoyed The Alienist and Angel of Darkness. His book Killing Time, however, might be one of the single worst novels I have ever read. Seriously, I would have thrown it away halfway through but it was like watching a gruesome car wreck of literature that I was compelled to finish. Avoid at all costs.
i think everyone in the city of chicago has read devil in the white city by now. it's awesome. combines my two of my favorite things, history & a crazy criminal mind
Baker's Paradise Alley is also excellent. Slightly earlier time period, but great story.