Synopses & Reviews
Elizabeth Gaffney's magnificent, Dickensian
Metropolis captures the splendor and violence of America's greatest city in the years after the Civil War, as young immigrants climb out of urban chaos and into the American dream.
On a freezing night in the middle of winter, Gaffney's nameless hero is suddenly awakened by a fire in P. T. Barnum's stable, where he works and sleeps, and soon finds himself at the center of a citywide arson investigation.
Determined to clear his name and realize the dreams that inspired his hazardous voyage across the Atlantic, he will change his identity many times, find himself mixed up with one of the citys toughest and most enterprising gangs, and fall in love with a smart, headstrong, and beautiful young woman. Buffeted by the forces of fate, hate, luck, and passion, our hero struggles to build a life just to stay alive in a country that at first held so much promise for him.
Epic in sweep, Metropolis follows our hero from his arrival in New York harbor through his experiences in Barnum's circus, the criminal underground, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and on to a life in Brooklyn that is at once unique and poignantly emblematic of the American experience. In a novel that is wonderfully written, rich in suspense, vivid historical detail, breathtakingly paced, Elizabeth Gaffney captures the wonder and magic of a rambunctious city in a time of change. Metropolis marks a superb fiction debut.
Review
"[A]n engaging and suspenseful work and required reading for anyone interested in urban affairs or simply in need of a good, stick-to-the-ribs escape from today's sociopolitical realities. Highly recommended." Library Journal
Review
"[A] rip-roaring, agreeably ungainly, outrageously entertaining tale." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] thick, scrappy book with no fear of anachronism or of anything else, for that matter. And Ms. Gaffney gives it the unstoppable vigor of a weed in concrete, one that shoots up where it shouldn't and branches out in any way it pleases." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Synopsis
A brilliant novel of epic proportions, Metropolis tells the story of a young man's struggle to find love and create a life in late 19th-century New York.
About the Author
ELIZABETH GAFFNEY is an advisory editor of The Paris Review. In addition to teaching writing at New York University, she has translated from German The Arbogast Case (Thomas Hettche), The Pollen Room (Zoë Jenny), and Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (Ika Hugel-Marshall). Her short fiction has appeared in North American Review, Colorado Review, Brooklyn Review, Mississippi Review, The Reading Room, and Epiphany. Metropolis is her first novel. To learn more about Elizabeth Gaffney, please visit her website at www.elizabethgaffney.net
Reading Group Guide
Elizabeth Gaffney’s magnificent, Dickensian
Metropolis captures the splendor and violence of America’s greatest city in the years after the Civil War, as young immigrants climb out of urban chaos and into the American dream.
On a freezing night in the middle of winter, Gaffney’s nameless hero is suddenly awakened by a fire in P. T. Barnum’s stable, where he works and sleeps, and soon finds himself at the center of a citywide arson investigation.
Determined to clear his name and realize the dreams that inspired his hazardous voyage across the Atlantic, he will change his identity many times, find himself mixed up with one of the city’s toughest and most enterprising gangs, and fall in love with a smart, headstrong, and beautiful young woman. Buffeted by the forces of fate, hate, luck, and passion, our hero struggles to build a life–just to stay alive–in a country that at first held so much promise for him.
Epic in sweep, Metropolis follows our hero from his arrival in New York harbor through his experiences in Barnum’s circus, the criminal underground, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and on to a life in Brooklyn that is at once unique and poignantly emblematic of the American experience. In a novel that is wonderfully written, rich in suspense, vivid historical detail, breathtakingly paced, Elizabeth Gaffney captures the wonder and magic of a rambunctious city in a time of change. Metropolis marks a superb fiction debut.
1. The hero of Metropolis remains nameless for the first part of the book, and tries on different names that are each rejected in turn. Why are names important, and why do you think Gaffney chose to complicate her main character’s identity in this way?
2. Beatrice O’Gamhna does not initially appear to be the nicest of heroines — when we first meet her, she is involved in pickpocketing and kidnapping. How did you feel about her character, as your read? What is her appeal?
3. Although the main character is a man, the strongest characters in the book are arguably the women — Mother Dolan, Beanie, Fiona. Issues of women’s suffrage, violence against women and women in professions such as medicine also come up in the story. What sort of point is Gaffney making? How much do you think society has changed in its attitudes toward women since the nineteenth century?
4. Harris is dogged by bad luck in the book, but also has his share of very good luck, and there are any number of serendipitous or coincidental events that occur. What role does luck play in the story? Are characters held responsible for their actions?
5. Harris did not commit the particular crime of arson that he is suspected of, but he is not purely innocent either. Is his sense of guilt appropriate? Is he responsible for the things that happen after he is conscripted into the gang? Does old guilt that is not absolved carry over into his present?
6. Most of the characters have complicated moral situations — they are good people, and yet they are criminals; or they are criminals, but there is some explanation for how they fell into a life of crime. In certain cases, characters appear to be good, but they are in fact deeply corrupt. In what sort of moral universe do the characters of Metropolis live? Are any of the characters purely good or evil?
7. There are two main villains, Dandy Johnny Dolan and Luther “the Undertaker” Undertoe. Why do you think Gaffney wanted two villains in the story, and how do they differ?
8. The Whyo gang has a complicated secret language and uses a profit-sharing scheme according to which funds are collected according to ability and distributed according to need. They treat women considerably better than do other gangs of criminals; at the same time, the gang is also extremely violent and corrupt. What did you think of the Whyos, in the end, and for what reasons? Is it possible to imagine a “good” gang?
9. Several of the characters in the story — Harris, Beatrice, John-Henry, and Luther — lost their mothers early in their lives, and Johnny grew up without a father. How do these formative events impact them, and how do the different characters each handle the difficulty of growing up with this loss?
10. There is a large cast of secondary characters in Metropolis, as well as many side stories and digressions from the main narrative, on topics such as street paving, sewer building, underwater caisson excavation, women’s health and bacteriology. Why did Gaffney choose to include all these characters and themes, and do you think they contributed to the main story?
11. Is there a sense in which the city of New York itself is more than the setting for the novel? Could the city itself be seen as a character in Metropolis?
12. Occasionally, the narrator’s voice intrudes on the story to comment on the action. How does this change the experience of reading the story? Would you say Metropolis feels like an old-fashioned novel, or were their aspects of it that marked the book as a product of the 21st century?