Blasts from the Past: Dreamland by Kevin Baker (1999)

This is the latest in a series of occasional posts featuring books I read years ago about which I was wildly enthusiastic at the time, wanting to press a copy in as many hands as I could.

I have a rather tattered proof of Dreamland which I’m pretty sure was given to me by a rep in my last bookselling year. I remember being enthralled by it right from the start, despite being wary of its chunkster proportions.

Largely set in the eponymous Coney Island amusement park, Kevin Baker’s novel takes its readers into New York’s underworld at the turn of the nineteenth century with observations from bemused onlookers, Freud and Jung, occasionally thrown in which really shouldn’t work but it does. Russian stowaway turned gangster Kid Twist makes a big mistake when he takes a shovel to Gyp Blood’s head. Gyp is driven by hatred, ruthless and well-connected. When Kid falls for Esther, a fire brand trade unionist, he unknowingly compounds his error: Esther is Gyp’s sister, up there on a pedestal as far as her brother’s concerned. Kid and Esther’s story is set against a background of corruption so deep that no one can make a move without catching the eye of gangster politician Big Tim Sullivan, controller of every brothel and racket in the Bowery.

Baker deftly keeps control of the many threads which run through this ambitious, sprawling excellent novel many of whose characters are drawn from New York’s history. I don’t think I’ve ever come across another book by him since this one, despite being on the lookout for years. Sadly, it looks like Dreamland’s out of print in the UK but if I’ve whetted your appetite, I’m sure you can pick one up online.

What about you, any blasts from the past you’d like to share?

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