Edward Rutherfurd specializes in multi-generational epics that trace the entwined lives of several fictional families in one location, from early settlement down to the present. The place is the main character, more than any of the people. Most of his novels are set in the UK and Ireland, but New York, obviously, is not. I read it about a year ago and made note of a few things:
It is not so epic as his other works -- but that is understandable, since he begins at the point of European arrival, which gives the story a span of only 400 years instead of the 2000+ of London, my favorite. Different scope.
He offers a well-nuanced rendering of political division within families during the American Revolution. Many Americans assume that they would have been patriots had they been alive at that time, but independence was not necessarily the obvious choice for a lot of Americans-to-be; the outcome of the war was not a foregone conclusion and loyalty was a murkier question than some modern patriots like to imagine. New York illustrates the complexities nicely.
The Native American family whose story is picked up with the others at the beginning of the book fades out of the picture rather quickly. An artifact passed on to a European family in the first chapter is traced instead. This is probably an accurate reflection of the city's demographics, and the symbolism may even have been intentional, but I wish this family's thread had been developed as much as the others, or that the author had taken the opportunity to begin the story with this group of people before the Dutch showed up. Can I praise the author for historical accuracy in some areas and condemn him for writing from the victor's perspective in others?
Looking forward to Paris in April.
It is not so epic as his other works -- but that is understandable, since he begins at the point of European arrival, which gives the story a span of only 400 years instead of the 2000+ of London, my favorite. Different scope.
He offers a well-nuanced rendering of political division within families during the American Revolution. Many Americans assume that they would have been patriots had they been alive at that time, but independence was not necessarily the obvious choice for a lot of Americans-to-be; the outcome of the war was not a foregone conclusion and loyalty was a murkier question than some modern patriots like to imagine. New York illustrates the complexities nicely.
The Native American family whose story is picked up with the others at the beginning of the book fades out of the picture rather quickly. An artifact passed on to a European family in the first chapter is traced instead. This is probably an accurate reflection of the city's demographics, and the symbolism may even have been intentional, but I wish this family's thread had been developed as much as the others, or that the author had taken the opportunity to begin the story with this group of people before the Dutch showed up. Can I praise the author for historical accuracy in some areas and condemn him for writing from the victor's perspective in others?
Looking forward to Paris in April.
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