Why NYC is Called Gotham

public domain

When many people hear the name “Gotham”, they’re reminded of the Batman comics and movies. When I hear it, I think only of New York City, often wondering how it got that nickname. As it turns out, author and NYC native Washington Irving, of Icabod Crane fame, made the association over 120 years ago. 

Irving published a satirical periodical, Salmagundi, in which he wrote articles that poked fun at and lampooned the city and its more eccentric residents. He learned of a medieval English village called Gotham, meaning “goat town”, whose inhabitants conspired to keep a king from bringing chaos and higher taxes to the home they loved. An ancient folk tale called The Wise Men of Gotham likely served as Irving’s inspiration. While Batman’s Gotham is a dark, dangerous, and brooding place, Irving’s couldn’t have been more different.

The legend relates how, when King John planned to build a hunting lodge in their woods, Gotham’s residents greeted a planning visit from the king’s knights by feigning madness. They took turns doing things like trying to drown an eel in their pond and fencing in a bush to prevent a cuckoo from escaping. A man was seen carrying 2 bushels of grain on his back while leading his horse, telling everyone that the bushels were too heavy for the horse to carry. Madness being considered highly contagious, the knights soon left to advise the king to look elsewhere for a building site.

In 1907, Washington Irving adopted the name Gotham for NYC. New Yorkers embraced it, and it stuck. As for Gotham, which was originally pronounced Goat-um, that town has a Cuckoo Bush inn, Cuckoo Bush Mound, and a weathervane with a Batman figure on it.

Historical Fiction: All Will Be Well, by Amy C. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All Will Be Well is Amy Martin’s debut novel, inspired by her ancestor John Alden. Speaking generally, I can say that the book is well researched and competently written. Told in the neutral third person, it is in its first half that the story of the Mayflower passengers, in particular John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, really shines. The reader experiences the perils of a late fall Atlantic crossing in realistic detail, perhaps the best fictional description of the harrowing journey since that offered by Anya Seton her 1958 classic, The Winthrop Woman. The struggles to find a suitable location for the new settlement , survive the harsh winter with limited food and widespread illness, and finally , to contend with an appalling death rate makes for captivating reading. What could be a grim reading experience is lightened by the growing attraction between John and Priscilla and by a myriad of other diverting characters, especially Miles Standish. The author’s treatment of prominent Native Americans Squanto, Massasoit, and many others is fair, balanced, and inclusive. For once, their roles are not ignored. Indeed, the second half of the novel covers in detail the growing friction between the Europeans and the tribes.

All Will Be Well is a promising debut by a young writer to watch, and is recommended to readers who enjoy well presented historical fiction

Historical Fiction: The Boston Girl, by Anita Diamant

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ of 5

Addie Baum is the latest in a long list of strong heroines created by author Anita Diamant. We are introduced to her as she turns 85, about to begin an oral diary of her life at the request of her granddaughter. Born in Boston to a family of Jewish immigrants, Addie has anything but an idyllic childhood; her family is poor, but worse, her father ignores her and her mother is relentlessly, often cruelly,  critical of her. Addie is a dutiful daughter, and with the protection of a sympathetic older sister, and later, a few good friends, she learns to develop a sort of gutsy, hopeful courage that will serve her well as she navigates the tumultuous changes that occur throughout the 20th century. 

The Boston Girl is richly textured, glowing with warmth, humor, optimism, love, and heartbreak. Diamant knows Boston well, creating a setting that feels lively and genuine. She writes in the plain, straightforward language one would expect from someone like Addie and the many people from all walks of life that she meets. Emotionally resonant and ultimately satisfying, this novel places Addie Baum firmly within Anita Diamant’s company of strong, resilient women, Highly recommended.

Modern Lit: In Five Years, by Rebecca Serle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Five Years, a novel by Rebecca Serle, is more than a story. Reading it is an experience, with genuine emotional highs and lows. Protagonist Danielle Kohan is a 30-something woman who is the very definition of the type A personality. A corporate attorney living in NYC, Dannie is about to land her dream job and become engaged to long term boyfriend David, and life is going exactly according to plan, thank you very much. In five years, they will be married, living in Gramercy Park, and living large. Returning home from their celebratory dinner and awash in champagne, Dannie falls asleep. In her dreams, she finds herself exactly five years in the future, in a loft apartment not her own, wearing a different engagement ring, in the company of Aaron, a movie star handsome man she’s never met before. The calendar on the wall tells her it’s exactly five years in the future. When she awakens back in her own time and place, Dannie is shaken to her core, unsure about whether she’s had a dream or a vision. What if what she experienced is real?

Up until this point, early in the plot, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to continue reading what seemed to be a rom-com, but now I was hooked. Dannie attempts to follow her carefully constructed life plan, but she isn’t very good and dealing with uncertainty, and soon there will be other changes that will submerge her into depths of hope and fear, anguish and despair, confusion and anger and depression. Serle is a very good writer, but the center of the novel contained too many emotional elements that I simply prefer not to deal with anymore when reading fiction. But that’s my preference; many other readers, judging from their reviews, don’t feel that way. At the final third of the novel, Dannie’s dream comes back into play in a very interesting way, so the plot was redeemed, and I was glad to discover how Dannie would fare, even though I came to not like her very much. I didn’t enjoy the subject matter, but I can appreciate the skill with which this author can put together a story.




View all my reviews

What to Do With All Those Statues

One of the hottest topics during this most controversial and disquieting of summers has been what to to about all those statues of figures who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Many have been removed, but now what? IMHO it’s important to use these symbols to tell the unvarnished story of what they represented when first erected (decades after the war ended) and what they represent today. And boy, is that a loaded question in this era of red and blue states and renewed demands for racial justice. In my recollection, our country has not been this divided since the VietNam era, and our very future is at stake. It’s hard to find reasons to hope…..

This morning I came across an article in one of my favorite websites, Atlas Obscura, which every day posts a digest of the the unusual and often downright quirky places scattered around the world. What snagged my interest this afternoon is their article about what Germany, which has long had their own social and political controversies, has decided how to handle their own monuments that “symbolize racism, antisemitism, and other forms of violence and oppression”. Rather than destroying them, they have established the Citadel Museum in Spandau, in which to display them. There  aim is to use them “ to contextualize the past, putting uncomfortable realities on display in productive, educational, and sometimes challenging ways.“

 

The museum’s message is clear: A monument is not a descriptive account of history, but instead a historical artifact that tells a story about power. In a setting that invites scrutiny, visitors can study Berlin’s monuments to grasp more clearly who had power and how that power was used.

I love this idea, and now my hope is that we can do something like this in several American cities, north and south. These are issues we desperately need to talk about in a supportive environment.

The article goes on to discuss other ways German  people are working to confront their own history. Well worth taking a look at here.

 

It’s a Mystery: The Ophelia Cut, by John Lescroart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Ophelia Cut is a welcome addition to the Dismas Hardy series, which has recently laid somewhat dormant. I enjoy this series  because of the depth of the main characters, who grow and change with time, and who strive to maintain their integrity even in the most  trying of their personal conflicts and their legal cases. In Ophelia, Attorney Hardy faces one of his greatest  challenges both personally and professionally.  His niece and God-daughter,  Britney, has been raped, and twenty four hours later, her assailant is dead. The prime suspect is Britney’s father, Moses Malone, brother of Diz’s wife. Diz decides to represent Moses in a situation that could not be more fraught with ethical dilemmas. What father wouldn’t feel murderous toward the man who raped his daughter? The picture is complicated further by the fact that Mose has started drinking again, and Diz and their circle of friends/colleagues are worried that, while under the influence, he might betray a secret that would severely damage each and every one.

I don’t know another writer who can write courtroom drama as well as Lescroart.  The scenes are particularly effective in the audio version of the novel, in this case adroitly read by David Colacci. The tension builds slowly, chapter by chapter, and the reader, along with Mose’s family and friends, is never sure whether or not he is guilty, anticipating the verdict with as much trepidation as the they are. The novel could have ended at that point, but it didn’t, and the final scene is a shocker that I never saw coming. This is a book without a final resolution, leaving many of its ethical questions unresolved. Can revenge ever be justice? What is a lawyer’s obligation when he suspects his witness is lying? What if the prosecution failed to pursue alternative theories? And if you’re wondering what the title means, you’ll have to wonder till the final page.

Highly recommended, one of Lescroart’s absolute best. The followup novel should be really interesting.

View all my reviews

It’s a Mystery: X, by Sue Grafton

X by Sue Grafton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

X is for _____? Sue Grafton is famous for her alphabet series, with each letter standing for the particular crime being investigated by intrepid PI Kinsey Milhone. It seems that Ms. Grafton’s failure to choose an x word has disgruntled many of her fans. Actually, trying to figure out what it might be is part of the fun of reading X. It could stand for Xenakis, XLNT, X wife, and various other possibilities.

In Kinsey’s 24th case, she tackles 3 separate issues. The book opens with a phone call from a woman wanting her to track her son, recently released from prison for bank robbery. Kinsey takes the job only to find that the woman is an imposter who stiffed her on her fee. The second part of the case revolves around Pete Wolinsky, a colleague who factored in several earlier novels but was recently shot to death. Pete’s widow requests Kinsey’s assistance in organizing his tax documents in preparation for an audit. Before his death, he had been working on gathering evidence against one of his clients, who had a propensity for abusing women. Being Kinsey, she is compelled to finish this work for him. The third situation involves some new neighbors who raise Kinsey’s ire, and who are not what they seem.

Anyone who has written 24 successful novels featuring the same character must be good a devising plots, and Ms. Grafton certainly has that talent, weaving unrelated people and events into one cohesive tale. But these books, which rely upon continuity, are never redundant. Unlike some others, Kinsey remains true to herself and loyal to friends while growing from her experiences and relationships, and she is one of the most deeply moral characters in the genre. Best of all, ancillary characters are nearly as well developed, particularly those who play recurring roles. Each book has its suspenseful scenes that never go over the top, and in X, Grafton has provided the best stream of consciousness example of the experience of being suffocated that I’ve ever read.

Looking forward to Y, and hoping that Sue Grafton doesn’t retire from writing when this series reaches Z.

View all my reviews

It’s a Mystery: After I’m Gone, by Laura Lippman

After I’m Gone by Laura Lippman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After I’m Gone is Laura Lippman’s 20th novel, and her experience and finely developed skills sparkle in this seamless family saga that at its heart is a murder mystery. Set in Baltimore, the book opens in the 1960s with the whirlwind courtship of Felix Brewer and Bambi Gottschalk. Felix builds a shady but lucrative business involving strip clubs gambling, and while he loves Bambi and their three daughters, he suffers no guilt over his womanizing on the side. Bambi loves Felix, and is willing to live with his infidelities in order to enjoy the lavish life that he provides for her, which includes hobnobbing with Baltimore’s elite. The pivot point in their story occurs about a third of the way into the novel, when Felix goes on the lam to avoid a prison sentence. The rest of the book focuses on the lives of the five women he left in his wake – wife, daughters, and mistress, an exotic dancer with the professional name Julia Romeo. While the whereabouts of Felix are unknown, the real mystery emerges ten years later, when Julie vanishes, widely assumed to have joined her lover at his hideout. Until, that is, her body is discovered in Leakin Park in 2001.

Talented author Lippman has devised some winning characters, all imperfect, all too human, but all well developed and interesting. She is able to even-handedly make both wife and mistress strong and sympathetic, and even Felix and his complicit friends are not without their redeeming features. She knows the highs, lows, and in-betweens of relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, siblings and friends. And she can spin out the intricacies of a murder investigation with nary a red herring.

Beautifully composed, After I’m Gone stands out head and shoulders  in this very crowded genre.

View all my reviews

Great Nonfiction: Rebel Yell, by S. C. Gwynne

Tom Fool to Stonewall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thomas J. Jackson was an unlikely hero. Though after graduating from West Point he distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War, peace time turned him into a pedantic teacher at Virginia Military Academy. A socially awkward man with tendencies toward hypochondria, Prof. Jackson was baited by his students and called “Tom Fool.” His religious fervency, which he frequently expressed in words, further distanced him from others. (Hindsight is better than foresight, and today, some historians speculate that he may have had a form of autism.) At the start of the Civil War, he was refused a position of command. After his astonishing first campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, people began to view Jackson in a new way. After First Manassas, he and his unit, comprised of many of his former VMI students, became known as the Stonewall Brigade for their refusal to back down under heavy fire. Once Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, he was quick to recognize Jackson’s brilliant ability to manage and win battles, even when grossly outnumbered. If Jackson had survived the loss of an arm at Chancellorsville, who knows how the war would have played out. Imagine Stonewall Jackson vs. U. S. Grant. But when Jackson died, it had a profound effect on the South, where many viewed his loss as the beginning of the end.

Author S. C. Gwynne is a professional writer but not a trained historian, though you’d never guess it while reading his lively, often riveting account of Stonewall Jackson’s astonishing transformation and accomplishments. Gwynne covers each of his battles in detail, but it is in the study of the many facets, often contradictory, of Jackson’s personality and character that this book really shines. In battle, one singular trait, that of a ferocious, dauntless determination to win at any cost, utterly obscured the eccentricities and foibles that dogged Jackson at all other times. Many biographical accounts of military careers are factual but very dry in the telling, but in Rebel Yell, one never loses the sense of the presence of General Jackson as a man. His demands took a huge toll on his soldiers, and as is generally true of charisma, it’s difficult to grasp exactly why they bonded so strongly to their leader. But that bond held until the day he died.

P.S. Did you know that it was the Stonewall Brigade that devised the infamous Rebel Yell? “On one occasion during the Valley Campaign, while the Stonewall Brigade was in camp, one of its five regiments began yelling. Soon another regiment took it up, and then another, and another, until every member of the entire brigade was delivering the Yell at the top of his lungs. General Jackson came out of his tent, leaned on a fence, and listened. The cacophony continued for several moments and then began dying away. When the last echo had rebounded from the Blue Ridge, old Blue-Light, universally known to be totally tone deaf, turning toward his tent and said “That was the sweetest music I ever heard.” S. C. Gwynne provides a recorded reproduction of the sound early in the audio version of his book.

View all my reviews

Modern Lit: Flora, by Gail Godwin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Helen Anstruther has experienced a lot of loss in her young life. Her mother died when Helen was only three, and she has been raised by Nonie, her paternal grandmother, who dies shortly after the novel opens in the spring of 1945. Helen’s father is an unhappy, acerbic school principal who drinks too much, and when the school year ends, he takes a temporary job in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, doing secret war work. Because Helen needs looking after, he hires a distant cousin, the twenty two year old Flora, to be her nanny for the summer.

Helen is an intelligent, curious girl who has spent most of her time with adults, which is reflected in her speech and attitudes. She misses her grandmother terribly, and imagines hearing her voice when she needs advice. Helen is full of herself, and thinks she is superior, and Flora impresses her as a simple minded hick. Much of the novel centers on Helen’s “managing” Flora so she can have her own way. While Helen is often sarcastic and disdainful, Flora is unwaveringly caring and supportive. In July, Helen loses her two closest friends when one moves away and the other is hospitalized with polio. Though she regrets the situation, she rather cold-heartedly fails to contact either of them. When discharged paratrooper Devlin Finn, now a grocery delivery man, makes an appearance, both Helen and Flora are smitten. Their rivalry will bring about a tragedy.

The novel is narrated by Helen herself, now a successful, aging author. Part dialogue and part internal rumination, with occasional voice-overs from the adult Helen, the story of this fateful summer plays out slowly, as befits the warm, often sultry climate of the south. Just as the tempo seems unbearably stagnant, however, adult Helen drops a hint about things to come, which sharpens interest and causes a low, simmering sort of tension. The young Helen, of course, is mean because she’s bored and scared; abandonment is one of the books major themes. As the book draws to a close, adult Helen meditates on remorse and recovery. There were times “when I felt I had to keep from losing the little I had been left with, including my sense of myself,” she writes. “I thought I knew everything there was to know about her [Flora], but she has since become a profound study for me, more intensely so in recent years. Styles have come and gone in storytelling, psychologizing, theologizing, but Flora keeps providing me with something as enigmatic as it is basic to life, as timeless as it is fresh.”

Simple but tightly managed plot and well fashioned characters (even the house itself functions as a character!) make this novel a memorable one.

View all my reviews