Metropolis

Zusatztext Rewarding . . . vivid tableaus and high drama . . . immigrant dreams and desires on the scrappy streets of Five Points. The New York Times Engaged with history! artfully structured! told with dashing wit . . . full of passions and perils! desire and deceit . . . Metropolis teems with imagined life! as a good page-turner should. San Jose Mercury News Brawny! old-school storytelling . . . a novel as strong and heady as the brew [Gaffney's] rakes and roustabouts swill by the pint. Newsweek Metropolis is more than a literary page-turner; it is also a coming-of-age story for a young and strapping New York. Vanity Fair Engrossing . . . fraught with suspense. Elle Informationen zum Autor Elizabeth Gaffney Klappentext On a freezing night in the middle of a New York winter! a young immigrant 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 to America! 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 woman. Buffeted by the forces of fate! hate! luck! and passion! our hero struggles to build a life-and just to stay alive-on an epic journey that is at once unique and poignantly emblematic of the American experience. Chapter 1 1. CASTLE GARDEN "Hot corn, get your hot corn! Her voice cut through the clamor of Broadway but attracted no customers as she made her way south through the teeming crowd, bouncing her basket on her hip. When she reached the gates of the old fort known as Castle Garden, where the immigration center was, she flashed a smile at the guard, entered the premises and quickly sold her corn, several dozen ears, to the usual cast of hollow-cheeked immigrants. The stuff had been dried on the cob in the fall and had to be soaked two full days before boiling, but even so, it had tasted good to her, five years back, after the unrelenting porridge of the passage from Dublin. Here and there, ears that had been stripped clean lay discarded in the dirt, kicked up against the pillars, along with every other sort of garbage. So she'd sold her corn, but it didn't earn her much, just pennies a piece. She didn't mind. Selling hot corn wasn't why she'd come. Hot-corn girls were notorious for rounding out their incomes by stepping into corners and lifting their skirts upon request, but that wasn't the sort of compromise Beatrice had chosen to make. She'd found another way to save up the money to bring her younger brother over, and to keep her dignity, too. That was fine, miss, said a boy, politely swallowing a belch. Have you got any more? He was just about her brother's age. Her voice had sounded that Irish when she had first arrived. Now it was more flexible; she could show her brogue or not, depending on the situation. She let her voice lilt just enough to tell him he was at home there, too, but her answer was no, and she didn't crack a smile. She had too much to do to linger with him. She and her friend Fiona generally hit the disembarking passengers together. They were good, the two of them, could make more money as a pair than the rest of the girls in the gang put together, not least because they had fun doing it. They'd never been arrested, not even once. The jobs they pulled brought in plenty of money, but half the take went to their boss, just for starters, and then they split the rest between them. It was better than piecework, but it was taking too long for her to save up enough for Padric's ticket. She worried about what would become of him if she didn't send for him soon. And so she had been pleased to...

Auteur

Elizabeth Gaffney

Texte du rabat

On a freezing night in the middle of a New York winter, a young immigrant 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 to America, 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 woman. Buffeted by the forces of fate, hate, luck, and passion, our hero struggles to build a life-and just to stay alive-on an epic journey that is at once unique and poignantly emblematic of the American experience.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1

CASTLE GARDEN

"Hot corn, get your hot corn!”

Her voice cut through the clamor of Broadway but attracted no customers as she made her way south through the teeming crowd, bouncing her basket on her hip. When she reached the gates of the old fort known as Castle Garden, where the immigration center was, she flashed a smile at the guard, entered the premises and quickly sold her corn, several dozen ears, to the usual cast of hollow-cheeked immigrants. The stuff had been dried on the cob in the fall and had to be soaked two full days before boiling, but even so, it had tasted good to her, five years back, after the unrelenting porridge of the passage from Dublin. Here and there, ears that had been stripped clean lay discarded in the dirt, kicked up against the pillars, along with every other sort of garbage.

So she’d sold her corn, but it didn’t earn her much, just pennies a piece. She didn’t mind. Selling hot corn wasn’t why she’d come. Hot-corn girls were notorious for rounding out their incomes by stepping into corners and lifting their skirts upon request, but that wasn’t the sort of compromise Beatrice had chosen to make. She’d found another way to save up the money to bring her younger brother over, and to keep her dignity, too.

“That was fine, miss,” said a boy, politely swallowing a belch. “Have you got any more?”

He was just about her brother’s age. Her voice had sounded that Irish when she had first arrived. Now it was more flexible; she could show her brogue or not, depending on the situation. She let her voice lilt just enough to tell him he was at home there, too, but her answer was no, and she didn’t crack a smile. She had too much to do to linger with him.

She and her friend Fiona generally hit the disembarking passengers together. They were good, the two of them, could make more money as a pair than the rest of the girls in the gang put together, not least because they had fun doing it. They’d never been arrested, not even once. The jobs they pulled brought in plenty of money, but half the take went to their boss, just for starters, and then they split the rest between them. It was better than piecework, but it was taking too long for her to save up enough for Padric’s ticket. She worried about what would become of him if she didn’t send for him soon. And so she had been pleased to learn that morning that Fiona was needed to help on another job, leaving Beatrice free to go out solo. A small lie or two when the gang did their weekly accounts would mean she could keep four times as much as on a usual day, bringing Padric over that much faster. The only problem was, it was also far more perilous, since it wasn’t just the cops she had to worry about, but the boss as well. He would break her fingers if he ever discovered she’d kept his cut for herself.

She took a sharp breath and stashed her basket behind a vast pile of luggage. The day was raw, and she was freezing. To do what she was going to do, she needed her hands to be warm and nimble. Her fingers fluttered in the dank harbor air, then vanished into her dress, leaving the sleeves of her overcoat dangling empty. Her hands darted past cheap gabardine and worn shirting and came …