Gilded Age – Dr JoAnn LoSavio

Wicked City: Stories of Old New York by Clifford Browder

Oooo! What a slick collection of grimy, gruesome peeks under the golden veneer of the Gilded Age! The prose and tales in Wicked City are as smooth as the criminal characters in its pages, which is to say, if you, Reader, are a fan of urban grit and historical fiction, then this is the collection of stories for you. Wicked City reads like a literary revision of The Gangs of New York, but instead of Daniel Day Lewis, the lead is a very chic Edith Wharton — if Edith had a side hustle as a brothel Madam and if the brothel was run out of the Waldorf Hotel.

Make of that what you will. (I love Edith Wharton’s refined snark and the grubbiness of Gangs of New York.)

The stories in Wicked City are historical, but some things have been updated since the actual Gilded Age. Many of the tales are infused with modern sensibilities, that is, there are more enlightened notions around race, racism, class, and gender in these pages than perhaps there were in history. For example, Browder includes tales from Chinatown and addresses interracial marriage. Jingoism and nativism abound and are present, but Browder does justice to history by highlighting the non-White version of events in his fictions.

Many of the stories interweave, though some of the connections are subtle; there is a sense of dispersed, urban community woven throughout the collection. True to Browder’s work, this is an homage to New York and its history.

Butcher’s Work: True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness by Harold Schechter

The premise of Schechter’s Butcher’s Work is intriguing enough to entice any fan of true crime to pick it up: Serial killers and murder are nothing new, why have we forgotten some crimes and remembered others? And, more curiously, what are those cases which we have forgotten? The easy answer is that they weren’t horrendous enough, disgusting enough, criminal enough to earn a place in our long, collective memory. But the cases in Butcher’s Work dismisses that possibility quickly; the crimes highlighted in this work are all that and more chilling. The fact that they have disappeared from our remembrance is itself quite a horrific notion.

Butcher’s Work is divided into four sections: Butcher’s Work, The Poison Fiend, Lady-Killer, and The Ragged Stranger. As their titles suggest, each one focuses on a particular method or victim of murder. There is a featured case of each, but interspersed within the pages of the chapters are cameos of other criminals employing the same method. Collectively they form a creepy landscape of crime, where trusting another human being is something to fear. Lady-Killer was one of my favorite sections. Marriage and murder form the central focus here, a gendered violence perpetrated by men against women. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but DANG, how did these men get away with this? Oh, right, but still!

Schechter is a marvelous story-teller. The prose flows, as compellingly as the stories and characters. And, as a researcher myself, I deeply appreciate the depth and details Schechter has excavated in this work. The result is not only a focused, historically rich, and keen archival piece of work; Butcher’s Work is also a nuanced landscape of American life in the 19th century. Schechter brings to the reader’s attention how it is not only the ambition of the criminal, but also the systems and structures of society that permit and foster these crimes. How else might a man such as Hoch in Lady Killer commit bigamy and murder so successfully and remain for so long undetected? What gave him the confidence to believe in his own acquittal? Of course, the criminals here were apprehended, so there is a more optimistic ending. We can rest knowing the authorities — police, witnesses, lawyers, courts, etc — did succeed in forcing them to confront their crimes. But, I could not help but wonder how many others got away with it altogether? The idea is spine-chilling.

Butcher’s Work is a fantastic read for any fan of true crime and 19th century American history.