A German immigrant with a shadowy past is wrongly accused of torching Barnum’s circus, resulting in a nationwide manhunt. I really wanted to like this book, and am only writing so much criticism because I was so disappointed.Īs an author who has written about New York’s seminal street gangs, I found the premise of Metropolis irresistible. The amount of violence perpetrated by Undertoe was also disturbing and, I felt, unnecessary. Noe, and John-Henry all lacked character development and personality, and seemed to be plot devices to communicate the larger agenda. While I thought the characters of Beatrice, Fiona, Johnny Dolan, and Mother Dolan were relatively well-developed, complex, and interesting, I found Harris to be simply boring, and as a result somewhat unlikeable. Ultimately, it seemed the plot and character development were sacrificed for the messages she was trying to convey. This could have been a great, suspenseful story, but every time the author started to build suspense, she defused it and moved on to another subplot, so that the story lacked coherence and became dogmatic.

It also seemed the author had multiple agendas beyond telling a good story - all noble but detracting from the suspense - such as the depiction of women's lives during the time period, the inclusion of heroic women of the time, the depiction of conditions of working class and immigrant life, theories about collectives and racial and class equality, etc. My biggest complaint is that the storytelling and narration were woefully inadequate and often boring, and the author seemed to make the mistake of 'telling' rather than 'showing' the events of the story. I also initially liked what seemed to be suspenseful historical fiction, reminiscent of Fingersmith (Sarah Waters).īut as the book progressed, my criticisms were many.

I really liked the beginning, especially what seemed to be the premise of exploring a character whose fate rests upon inaction rather than action (and who seems to be like a blank slate - upon whom others project their fears, anxieties, needs).

Metropolis by elizabeth gaffney