Gotham might be a perilous place for most, but it’s the perfect spot for a writer in need of material.
A famous writer’s hunt for a blackmailer plays out against the corruption and colorful characters of turn-of-the-century New York City.
“My past is a locked book and I vow it will remain so,” declares William Sydney Porter, better known as short story master O. Henry, in Yagoda’s novel of the writer’s later years. Porter might want to keep his past hidden, but an anonymous blackmailer threatens to reveal it (Porter served prison time for embezzlement) unless he pays him the ungodly amount of $50 a week. (Yagoda notes that $1 back then would equal $36 today.) Though a fellow former inmate suggests he shouldn’t hide his past but instead write about the bad living conditions behind bars, Porter is worried that his secret will ruin his rising literary reputation. “The prison label is worse than the brand of Cain,” he says. “If the world once sees it, you are doomed.” The editor of an acclaimed edition of O. Henry’s stories for the Library of America, Yagoda brings his research skills, knowledge of the author, and love of the era to this tale of turn-of-the-century Manhattan, evoking its crowded streets, many vices, and colorful (and often dangerous) citizenry, not to mention the lucrative world of freelance writing at a moment when short stories reigned supreme. He weaves in a second story of a young artist named Anna, who struggles to support herself and gets enmeshed in the blackmail plot against Porter, who happens to live in the same building. With a dubious detective acting as a middleman between Porter and the blackmailer, the writer soon seeks help from a wide-ranging crew—including a street urchin named Bernie and legendary lawman Bat Masterson—to identify the malicious figure. What they discover provides a surprise twist reminiscent of any O. Henry story. And yet, the blackmail plot isn’t nearly as interesting or suspenseful as other aspects of the story, including, for instance, the convoluted (and heartbreaking) circumstances that landed Porter in jail, and the reason he hardly said a word in his own defense. Yagoda paints an interesting portrait of a rapidly changing metropolis of 4 million rife with opportunity, especially for a writer. “Each of the four million is a person,” Porter tells an antiprostitution crusader, “with his own sadness, aspirations, occasional joy or triumph. I want to do right by them.”
Gotham might be a perilous place for most, but it’s the perfect spot for a writer in need of material.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781589882065
Page Count: 279
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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