Rating: 
Summary: A great insight to life in early Manhattan
Review: I truly enjoyed this book - it held my interest from beginning to end. It's one of the best books I've read in years. It deserves the full five star rating!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting start, but ...
Review: I was prepared to love this book, and at first, I did. Great start, as we get introduced to the first of the Turner family on their way to "Nieuw Amsterdam," and then get introduced to colonial New York and the state of medicine and surgery at the time. It's fascinating, and I rode along with it through the first several chapters. And then it's suddenly several years later, and now it's other people we're supposed to care about, and we're not told much if anything that happened in the intervening years. This is the way it goes the rest of the book, and the stars of the last chapter are bit players in the next. It seems to me that Ms. Swerling never quite decided where she wanted to go, or end up, or who's story she really wanted to tell, so we get a little bit of lots of different thing, but no really interesting story about any one thing. She could have focused on the role and development of surgeons, apothecaries, women in medicine, slaves in New York, bordellos and their owners, free enterprise in the New World, any number of things. It's the jack of all trades, master of none approach. It was still interesting, but I found the ending unsatisfying after the start of the story got me so enthralled.
Rating:
Summary: Could not put it down!
Review: I will truthfully say I bought this book at a dollar store. But I could not put it down. I would gladly pay full price to own this book. If a reader is even slightly interested in medicine or history this book will appeal to them. It tweeked at my patriotism also. You become enthralled by the characters in the story. I could not decide which side I was on so I decided to root for everyone. The goryness and truthfullness of the medical prcedures is not for the weak or immature reader. The sex scenes are also explicit but flow with the story. I felt the story would have held it's own without the detailed sex scenes but they were consistant with the story. I would definetly monitor younger readers with this book. I would not let my 12 year old read it. But I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: Worth the read...
Review: I'm reading this right now. It is a well-researched, interesting book written at a good pace and in language that flows ... places and characters are brought to life -- from the settlement of New Amsterdam/New York on. As one reviewer said, one drawback is that characters don't take as much time to develop as they could in a more character-driven tale -- , but it is an epic of several generations and well told. The book is most definitely told from a European-American point of view because it focusses on European characters -- the tale is told thru the voices of the characters but is critical of the attitudes of the time -- so this is not a drawback but rather something to be aware of. The characters are believably human, sometimes brave and sometimes otherwise. This is a real eye-opener of hsitoric fiction, and as someone interested in delving into the real American history I would recommend it. The fact that the main characters are surgeons/apothecaries develops an interesting tale of the burgeoning role of science as it confronts practices such as bloodletting -- a BIT reminiscent of Peter Hoeg.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Hist Fic
Review: If you have ever wondered what it must be like to perform a mastectomy without anesthetic, pick up this book. "City of Dreams" is chock-full of these sorts of episodes, guaranteed to appeal to the reader's sense of guilty fascination. There is some real eye-popping stuff here, all the more shocking because the real-life medical procedures were probably even more ghastly than author Beverly Swerling describes. Sally and Lucas Turner arrive in Nieuw Amsterdam in 1661. Brother and sister, Lucas is a barber-surgeon and Sally is an apothecary. Their hard lives have brought them especially close, so when a decision made by Lucas in the heat of lust tears them apart, they make very bitter enemies indeed. Their descendants carry the hatred on, even as each branch of the family carries on different philosophies and practices of medicine. There's a lot of interesting history going on in "City of Dreams"--the growth of the medical knowledge, the development of New York, and America's move toward nationhood. There's also a fair amount of bodice-ripping, lust, exciting locations, poignancy, and new information for most readers. It reminded me of some of those big, well-crafted historical novels of the fifties and sixties. This is not lofty entertainment, but it will keep you involved until, if nothing else, the next time a character pulls out a scalpel.
Rating:
Summary: Before it was the Big Apple...
Review: In the appropriately-titled CITY OF DREAMS, author Beverly Swerling describes the earliest settlement of a patch of mud that would become the metropolis of New York. That the grim place she writes about would develop into the capital of the modern world seems almost miraculous.
As the author reports, the Europeans who founded Nieuw Amsterdam had been, themselves, a harsh group who endured a grim little settlement in which the main activity was preparing for attack by the Native Americans.
This is a work of enormous scope... enormous imagination... enormous detail and enormous scholarship.
The story begins with the original Dutch settlement, c. 1660, and continues past the Revolutionary War. In fact, CITY OF DREAMS tells many stories against the spine of a single fictional family who had much to do with the founding of New York's medical system.
CITY OF DREAMS is a riveting, compelling, fascinating novel and Ms. Swerling is to be congratulated on both her vision and her scholarship.
Anyone with an interest in the City of New York and in the earliest colonial history of America, as well as curiosity about the evolution of the medical profession, will find CITY OF DREAMS to be extremely worthwhile reading.
Rating:
Summary: Soap opera-like plot. Authentic medical & historical detail
Review: Lucas Turner, a barber-surgeon and his sister Sally Turner, an apothecary, arrive in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam to start a new life in the year 1661. Lucas starts an affair with the butcher's wife. Sally is raped and impregnated by an American Indian. Lucas trades Sally as an unwilling bride to the Dutch physician Jacob Van der Vries for the money required to be with his lover...and so the soap opera and the family feud has started. City of Dreams follows their lives and the lives of their descendents up to the American Revolution, jumping through time in each new section of the book and switching the focal characters tied together through family, medicine and geography. Jennet, a colorful descendant of Lucas Turner, links previous and future generations. She is a young woman interested in medicine but forbidden to practice because of her gender. She marries a wealthy Jew whose secret occupation is running whorehouses and dealing arms. This part of the story exposes us to the seedy underworld and politics of historic Manhattan leading up to the American Revolution. The more serious and interesting topic of this fictional work is the evolution of the practice of medicine in NYC. The gains in medical science in the early days of modern medicine were won over public superstition with great sacrifice and suffering by the patients who were sometimes healed, sometimes guinea pigs and sometimes unfortunate victims. Operations appear in all there gruesomeness. This book is not for people who faint at the sight of blood. Descriptive passages walk you through amputations without anesthesia, the horrible conditions of the city's early hospitals, fatal abortion attempts, pox vaccinations and more. There is a keen edge to the surgeon characters, making them capable of inflicting unendurable pain in the name of healing. Contrasting the surgeons were the apothecary healers, administering medicine, or the physicians of the wealthy with their accepted practices like leeches. There is so much historical detail and as a person that has spent many years living in and around Manhattan, it is horrifying to learn that slaves were burned alive on Wall Street. But I also had fun imagining the entire island covered in trees and woodland paths with boats in the harbor. Visit www.cityofdreamsthebook.com to see great illustrations like the one of a horse drawn carriage on Broadway and Canal street where the Collect Pond was, or read the time consuming recipe for making soap that Roisin learned from her mother. As much as I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, I couldn't give it 5 stars because some of the plot seemed over the top, even for my entertainment tastes. But I totally enjoyed this book and wonder if the loose threads (treasure) will be covered in a sequel. I would be eager to read it. Quick paced, entertaining read with great medical and historical detail. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Not a "bodice ripper" but a first class historical novel
Review: Reading a brief review of this book would lead one to believe that it was the "bodice ripper" genre of historical fiction that so many middle-aged ladies write under multiple pseudonyms by the truckload, to be read in an evening by other middle aged ladies. Not so, this is a first class historical novel dealing with a time and place which I for one knew relatively little about - the City of New Amsterdam. This is the immigrant experience for the first wave of immigrants to these shores, who came to make money, not to pray. Not only is this book a gripping read, difficult to put down, but it details the early history of Lower Manhattan and the practice of medicine at that time. Certainly, the characters have sex lives, there would be no decendents to carry on the tale otherwise, but the heaving bosoms are kept to a minimun and the handsome hero has no mad wife locked in the attic. As the Diary of Samuel Pepys has now been placed on line, it is interesting to read a daily diary actually written at the time the beginning of this book is set, and compare the two. I would recommend this book to anyone with a couple of weeks to devote to a rattling good read. Take it on a long trip, take it with you for a rainy weekend in Wales!
Rating:
Summary: The Read of Your Dreams
Review: Similiar in style to Edward Rutherford's historical novels("London," "The Forest"), Beverly Swerling's book "City of Dreams" focuses on early Manhattan and more specifically, medical practices during the early colonization of Manhattan. "City of Dreams" is crammed with interesting characters such as "Red Bess" who runs the local apothecary; and fascinating descriptions of early medical procedures like the "stone cutting" (a.k.a. the removal of akidney stone) performed in all it's gory detail in the first chapter of the book. This is not a book for the squeemish as some of the medical procedures described require the holding down of patients or the biting on various objects against pain, as well as a lot of screaming, blood, slicing, oozing pus, et al, which was how medicine was practiced in the 1700's. However, I think Ms. Swerling did a great job in showing how truely miraculous it was that anyone survived during this time period and her descriptions of medical practices ring authentic to me. In addition, the book touches on the subjects of local indians, Dutch traditions, women's rights, and other topics relevent to this time period. This book is a really interesting read for lovers of historical fiction. I highly recommend it to all!!
Rating:
Summary: The Read of Your Dreams
Review: Similiar in style to Edward Rutherford's historical novels("London," "The Forest"), Beverly Swerling's book "City of Dreams" focuses on early Manhattan and more specifically, medical practices during the early colonization of Manhattan. "City of Dreams" is crammed with interesting characters such as "Red Bess" who runs the local apothecary; and fascinating descriptions of early medical procedures like the "stone cutting" (a.k.a. the removal of akidney stone) performed in all it's gory detail in the first chapter of the book. This is not a book for the squeemish as some of the medical procedures described require the holding down of patients or the biting on various objects against pain, as well as a lot of screaming, blood, slicing, oozing pus, et al, which was how medicine was practiced in the 1700's. However, I think Ms. Swerling did a great job in showing how truely miraculous it was that anyone survived during this time period and her descriptions of medical practices ring authentic to me. In addition, the book touches on the subjects of local indians, Dutch traditions, women's rights, and other topics relevent to this time period. This book is a really interesting read for lovers of historical fiction. I highly recommend it to all!!
|
