A New York Times Editors’ Choice
"The Big Crowd is nothing short of a modern masterpiece." — Steven Galloway, author of The Cellist of Sarajevo
Tom O’Kane has always looked up to his brother, Charlie, latching onto him as a surrogate father as soon as he arrived in America from County Mayo. Charlie is the American Dream personified: an immigrant who worked his way up from beat cop to mayor of New York. But what if Charlie isn’t as wonderful as he seems?
More than a decade after Tom arrives in New York, he is forced to confront the truth about Charlie while investigating the mysterious “suicide” of Kid Twist, Charlie’s star witness against the largest crime syndicate in New York. As Tom digs deeper, the secrets he uncovers throw everything he thinks he knows about his beloved brother into question.
Based on one of the biggest unsolved mob murders in history, The Big Crowd brings the 1940s to indelible life, from the beaches of Acapulco to the battlefields of World War II, from Gracie Mansion to the Brooklyn docks.
“A masterwork of historical fiction.” — Parade
"
The Big Crowd is nothing short of a modern masterpiece. Kevin Baker brings the docks of New York and all their intrigue back to life in vivid detail, combining the historical and the human into a deeply affecting story that connects the past to the present in a way that many novels attempt but few manage."-
Steven Galloway, author of
The Cellist of Sarajevo "With
The Big Crowd, Kevin Baker earns the title of Best American Historical Novelist - heck, maybe best American novelist, period. This inspired, fun, serious, thought-provoking, page-turning book gives all the good, old pleasures: if you read it on the subway, be prepared to miss your stop. But Baker also raises the key questions about New York, about America, about who we are. Charlie and Tom O'Kane are characters for the ages."-
Darin Strauss, author of
Half a Life "A fluid writer with a clear grasp of history" --
Associated Press “[A] rewarding new novel…Baker’s writing is strong – energetic, precise and especially notable for a parade of wonderful metaphors and similes…The novel succeeds in creating a compelling imagined world…Best of all, the novel delivers on what the title promises, a detailed rendering of the relationships within that era’s power cabal. ‘A city like New York,’ Charlie tells Tom, ‘it’s got to have great men – not good men – to run it…We’re held together against the chaos by the grip of a few strong men, that’s all.’ Baker offers a vast array of secondary characters – cops and thugs, politicians, bureaucrats, clergymen, bosses and hangers-on – who grow increasingly vivid as they appear and reappear in the gradual recounting of various incidents, like the murder of Peter Panto, an upstart organizer on the docks. Actual historical figures, including Robert Moses and Cardinal Spellman, are served up unsparingly. I’ve read few other novels that portray in such a nuanced way the temptations of power, the complex division of control in a great metropolis and the perils of political deal-making in that environment. Baker doesn’t like the Big Crowd any more than Tom O’Kane does, but, fortunately for us, he understands its workings very well.” --
The New York Times
"Baker (
Dreamland, Paradise Alley, Strivers Row) takes another juicy bite out of the Big Apple, demonstrating once again that nobody does old New York—in all its glamour and its grit—better." —
Booklist
