Paradise Alley is a slum in New York City, and in 1863 it is the site of the riots that occurred when working-class men who were too poor to avoid military service through bribes were drafted into the army. The story is told from the ...

Kevin Baker's Dreamland is the kind of novel that begins with a two-page list of characters and ends with a nine-page glossary. In between, this vast, sprawling carnival of a book takes in Coney Island and the Lower East Side, midgets...