To those who hold history as an uncompromising and sacred art, Peter Quinn's novel, structured around local incidents in the history of New York City during the Civil War, adds a new and surprising dimension. While literary ability has frequently found its source of fiction in history, Quinn's book deserves special recognition as a historical pathfinder. In essence, he appears to have followed in the tradition of Dostoevski rather than Tolstoy. The latter tended to pontificate from a God's eye view; Peter Quinn, using a Dostoevskian tradition, has presented his historical narratives from the point of view of the participants and devoid of any claim to objectivity by the author.

This work has as it major theme the intense hatred which existed between Irish immigrants and African-Americans. The freed slaves who fled the South and came to New York inflamed the passions of the Irish who were particular victims of the notorious draft laws implemented by Colonel Noonan, also an Irishman. However, Quinn cannot be accused of being chauvinistic; he refers to "Paddy" in the words of a former Congressman from New York who said,

God bless his democratic soul, he is as pugnacious and resentful a creature as God put on this earth. And don't let the veneer of musicality fool you into believing otherwise. In his heart of hearts, every Paddy believes the same thing: that the Know-Nothing-Abolitionist-Protestant-Ascendancy has decided that in the contest between him and the nigger as to which would occupy the lowest station in life, Paddy must win.

A characteristic literary pattern, established by a number of Irish writers, appears in this novel. Quinn introduces as a prologue to each section, either a verse of poetry or an apt quotation. This reviewer applauds this format as an effective means to channel the reader in anticipatory fashion to related incidents.

Among Quinn's historical findings, which are both original and noteworthy, is the way the development of minstrel shows created a rivalry for the musical soul of New York, another sore point between the Irish and blacks. The music of African-Americans was much more popular than that of the Irish, who were frequently accused of turning musical only in their more drunken moods. Today we laud, justifiably, the musical genius of our African-American citizens; during the Civil War the music of the blues and the minstrels were already laying the foundation for the extraordinary talents of today's African-Americans.

The Irish in the United States have always been considered a diocese of the Vatican; however, the narratives dealing with religion not only give the distinct impression that many of the Irish women immigrants became prostitutes, but that they rose to the position of madams in a number of important New York brothels. Pungent observations in a similar vein are to be found throughout the book. Describing one Irish character, Quinn says of him. "He had the best training in the romantic arts that the young Republic could provide," and observes in another passage that "the women were given to amorous acrobatics that their counterparts in the East were incapable of." Certainly this is a new approach to the romantic reputation of the Irish!

Not all of Quinn's portraits are so unsparing. As a tribute to his alma mater, Quinn gives us a short note on the first president of Fordham University, one admirable Father Dunn who hailed from the Bronx, and was of course a descendant of Ireland. And one great Catholic stands out here: Archbishop Hughes, who spent many hours watching the building of St. Patrick's Cathedral: "A fine sight, Archbishop Hughes and his secretary wrestling in the mudhole surrounding the Cathedral while his coachman yells at him, 'Your grace, please stand back.'" This was the man who was wont to admonish those of his flock who insisted on participating in public mayhem, "Keep out of the crowd where mortal souls are launched into eternity … Ireland has been the mother of heroes and poets, but never the mother of cowards." He was referring to the hanging of African-Americans by the Irish during the Draft Riots.

Quinn has taken daring license in fictionalizing famous characters, from the Prince of Wales slumming in brothels during a visit to the City in 1860, to other real-life characters such as Stephen Foster, who apparently careened around the city creating disturbances; apart from his musical ability he was known as something of a nuisance. Even then New York was very tolerant of drunken musicians like Foster. Quinn quotes from a well-known theatrical figure: "The dancer, the singer, the balladeer, the minstrel, the thespian, whether comedian or tragedian, those of us who compose music and those of you who play it, we know no qualification but ability. We accept no distinction but talent!"

It has often been said that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. The author offers further proof. A comparison of the City today and of the Civil War era shows up many fascinating parallels. Gangs were as prevalent in those days as now and were just as flamboyant. They had names like The Plug Uglies, The Buckaroos, The Slaughterhouses, The Daybreak Boys, The Underswamp Angels, and so forth. Even Wall Street comes in for its fair share of attention: bureaucratic robbery, white-collar pilfering and similar varieties of middle-class roguery are described as the order of the day. In one instance a leading Wall Street pundit was guilty of a personal act of murder and managed to get away with it. In fact, it is in the area of comparison that this book tells so much. In painting so terrifying a picture of the City as it was then, one can only wonder whether the violence, murder and extraordinary absence of conventional morality as it exists now did not have their origin in what some people call "the good old days."

One particularly affecting incident is the execution of a young, innocent black woman while a great crowd of New Yorkers gathered around the City's gallows, which was located in what was then Potter's Field. The woman's name was Maria Rose Prior, born on 20 January 1840. The presence of this level of detail is indicative of the enormous research which the author has done.

In painting this often unflattering picture of the immigrant Irish, Peter Quinn does not suggest that they had any corner on the arts of greed. Many of his seamiest characters were themselves victim of oppression by other New Yorkers. This raises the question: against whom can we cast the first stone? Certainly the Dutch immigrants who landed in the City in the middle of the 17th century were as voracious as many of the later arrivals, including the Germans. The English, who were hated by the Irish, added their own brand of cupidity, even though they were but a small segment of the immigrant population.

As an Irishman reading this book, I felt not the slightest urge to take pride in my people; at the same time, I was delighted to find someone who was sufficiently honest, even in fictional narrative, to paint a portrait of the New World Irish with all their warts, all their dishonesty, and above all, their appalling enslavement to the bottle.

In short, this book is a formidable and yet fascinating read. The author sweeps the reader along on an ever-changing tide of people, places and incidents. He indeed proves that far from being a melting pot, New York City in the days of the Civil War was a seething mass of intolerant and warring tribes. What emerges triumphant, however, is a sense of the vibrant and vital contest between good and evil which has made this country what it is.

One thing must be added: the writing in this book marks a new voice in the annals of Irish literacy. It is dark and brilliant, fateful and forceful, unsparing in its evocations of brutality and tender in bearing witness to the travails of the innocent. In style it forges into the new space created by the belief in local knowledge and local meaning. There are no overarching explanations, no overarching narratives. The reader is left to create out of vivid rags and snatches the world of a vanished period and the cry of a banished race.