Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (translated review)

This text originally appeared in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter on 13th October 2012. The critic was Jonas Thente.

The police and the bad guys. Explosive history novel about New York

Every time I've been to New York there has been a debate about the NYPD. The first time it was related to the riots in Tompkins Square Park. Or rather: the police forced the less armed locals out of the park that lay next to the realtors' development areas for the fashionable, nouveau-riche middle class.

Last time it had something to do with a send-off of a retired chief of police, resulting in the newspapers publishing photos of policemen clad in only their uniform caps harrassing citizens in various ways.

New York Police Department. Even if the force has yet to reach the same level of bad guy status as its Los Angeles colleagues, the distrust between the citizens and the police force is both mutual and deep-rooted in New York.

It's a distrust that has been present since 1844 and is now even more alive in spite of all the crime shows and films, the heroism during 9/11 and tearful Irish songs to a deceased colleague.

A Marxist analyst has pointed out that the divide is class related, which is correct. "New York's finest" were originally recruited to a large extent from the masses of Irish immigrants, who had the choice between this and other less sanctioned incomes.

An author could have written a novel about how it all started, because it is a fascinating story.  Lindsay Faye has done just that and her new novel Gods of Gotham (Swe: "New Yorks gudar") is published in Swedish this week.

This is not non-fiction. It's a novel and that works in its favour. The protagonist is called Timothy Wilde and is 27 years old. When the oyster bar where he works is burnt down to the ground along with a couple of other blocks on the very tip of Manhattan island in July 1845, including his own flat, he is left without a job and his savings. The silver dollars he had kept for a future  marriage all melted in the fire.

During his convalescence his disorderly brother sets Timothy up with a new job. Up until May 1845 crime fighting in New York had been an affair for more or less respectable vigilantes. One of the more discipled groups was lead by George Washington Matsell and he was appointed the first NYPD chief of police.

The same year - 1845 - the by now almost mythical Irish potatoe famine ravaged Ireland.

Lindsay Faye succeeds formidably in weaving together historical facts with fiction. Sometimes you get the feeling that she isn't quite sure what sort of a novel she wants to write - a history novel, a crime novel or a sociorealistic novel - but it actually contributes to the atmosphere. Sometimes novels benefit from this ambivalence, especially when they take place in such a strange place and time as the explosive New York of the mid-19th century.

Gods of Gotham is a novel full of atmosphere, mostly reminiscent of Charles Dickens' London.