My relationship with this book changed as I read it. From the first page it was clear I was going to become immersed in the reality of parochial Dutch- English New York, a cosy city of some 6000 souls where everone knows everyone. Here was 18th century America made real, even down to the choice of language. And yet, as I admired it, I found I wasn't truly engaged, and I wanted to finish the book. Which I did, a week ago. And now I find myself remembering it, reflecting on it, and deciding that yes, to get the best from it, I must read it again.

A certain Mr. Smith lands in New York fresh from England, and in need of exchanging an order for £1000. Such a phenomenal amount of money makes him the subject of much gossip, and an assured place in society. But all does not run smoothly. Pick pockets, a shrewish woman whom he nevertheless falls for, dissenters, bankers, churchgoers all rollick through the narrative. There are roof-top adventures, river trips, gaols, long mornings in coffee houses. Surprise tumbles in after surprise, though the biggest one of all is kept till last. I'm glad I read it. I repeat. I must read it again. ( )

It's a rainy evening in the fall of 1746 when Mr. Smith arrives in the bustling little city of New York. He's immediately a man of mystery: he arrives at a counting house on Golden Hill street with an order for a thousand pounds, an almost unimaginable fortune in the Colonies. Is he a fraudster? An eccentric, wealthy businessman? What is his business in New York, and why is he so hesitant to talk about it?

I can't quite remember how this book got on my radar (a conference speaker some years ago, perhaps?), but I'm glad I finally got to it. The ups and downs of Smith's trip to New York and the mystery of his business there kept me intrigued the whole way through, as well as the turbulent, spiky romance between him and Tabitha, daughter of the counting-house on Golden Hill. I did guess at one of the twists from a dropped clue, but was still generally surprised at how things turned out. The book does have some flaws -- for one thing, the narrator is revealed at the end, but that person would have had no way of knowing about certain conversations and events that are recorded. Smith is also amazingly forward-thinking and tolerant for his time. The audiobook narration is likewise good but flawed, with a couple of mispronounced words and a few awkward bits of phrasing where the last word of a sentence gets tagged on as an afterthought. Still, I'd recommend both the book and the audiobook to readers who enjoy historical fiction set in this era. ( )

What a joy this book was. It's on my list of best books of 2024 - the first and hopefully not the last - because it is a rollicking, swash-buckling, super-hero like, action packed story of Mr Smith landing in New York with a promise for money, and people not sure whether to believe him or not. £1000 in sterling was a lot of money in 1745 and because Manhattan was so small, word soon spread with the community divided about whether he had forged the promise or not. The tension is then built because he won't say what the money is for, and so of course that excites the gossips even more.

This then is the story of what happens to Smith in the days waiting for confirmation that the note of promise is true and what an exciting time he has. There is a naked woman, sex, acting in a play, spies, a duel, jail, a love interest with the most shrewish of women and a brilliant chase scene. Smith is either building bridges or burning them and so the story is a roller-coaster of excitement without ever losing sight of the fact that we are in the 18th century. This is helped by the nod to the grammatical constructions and vocabulary of the time, particularly in the chapters that are letters.

I can see this book as a series for Netflix, not just because of the action but also because Spufford has conjured the time and place so well.

Smith had instructed his brain to ignore the information of his nose - schooled reflex of the city-dweller, in the face of stinks - and it took a little time for his brain to take the news that there were few stinks to ignore. The vapour from the scalps remained the worst of New-York's bouquet. A little fishe, a little excrement: guts here, shit there; but no deep patination of filth, no cloacal rainbow for the nose in shades of brown, no staining of the air in sewer dyes. A Scene of City-Life, his eyes reported. A Country-Walk, in a Seaside District, his nostrils counter-argued. No smells; also, he realised, no beggars. He had been strolling the city's densest quarter for minutes, and yet no street-Arab children pepper-pointed with sores had circled him round, no gummy crones exhaling gin had plucked his sleeve, no mutilated men in the rags of uniform had groaned at him from the ground.
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Brilliant to tell us what New-York was like by what it wasn't and a wonderful way to contrast it with London.

There is a twist or reveal at the end of the story, one which has been built up to the whole time - why does he want the money? But then there is a second - a much slyer one that slipped by unnoticed and one that is much more egregious to the people. This is after all America, and America was built on such things.

Questions for book club discussion

The ending seems to fall off a cliff. What happens to Smith? Were you satisfied by the ending or not?

There are several references to novels in the book and of the narrator interrupting the story to comment. What do these tell us about the purpose of a novel and its limitations?

Is there a significance to the title Golden Hill?

How well does the book show us the menace that lurks behind New-York's daily life?

Does anybody know anything about the play Cato? (I don't) How is it relevant to this story? ( )

Difficult to review this without reference to the major (and to me, unexpected) plot twist at the end. Mr Smith arrives in New York in the mid 18th century and presents a bill for payment to a merchant for a huge sum of money. It is due at next quarter day, which is Christmas. And so Mr Smith spends the next 2 months in New York. His position is very unclear, as we're not told what he is there for, or in what capacity, is he merchant, trader, conman or there for political ends? He meets those in charge at the time, and a motley crew they turn out to be. Then there is the mixed Dutch/English merchant and coffee house classes. He suffers the issues of the newly arrived, in finding his feet, but, in one sense, fails to help himself by remaining a bit of a mystery - what is he there for? That all becomes clear at the end and was not at all what I was expecting. It is a quite astonishing sleight of hand that pulls this particular tablecloth out from under your nose.
For a lot of this I wasn't sure what to make of it, and I'm still not sure that most of the rating isn't down to the final 20% of the book. Part of me wants to read it again and see if there are clues I missed. ( )

This book hit all of my favorite reading zones: historical fiction, mystery, adventure. It opens with Mr. Smith's arrival in New York from London, and two basic questions: how does a 23 year-old come by a bill for 1,000 pounds (about $200,000 in today's money), and what does he plan to do with all this cash once he has it in hand? These questions simmer and build among the citizens as Mr. Smith adventures around New York, never far from their prying and gossiping tongues. For me the questions often slipped to the background as one after another heart-stopping moment bubbled up; at times I was racing through passages because if I lingered the tension would have killed me. We are never very far from the start, however - suddenly readers are given tantalizing glimpses into Mr. Smith's mind, and we are urgently swept right back to those two original questions. ( )