Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:
The Alienist
I have to confess – I remember almost nothing about this book – which I find weird, because I remember loving it when I first read it!
I read this book when it first came out, although it’s not really my thing. Actually, it is my thing – with the whole historical New York setting, which I love – and the serial killer plotline – which I love even more. I love any book about the psychology of killers (having just finished 2 books in a row on Leopold & Loeb … the theme continues) But it was one of those moments when you look around on the subway and you see EVERYONE reading the same book … and in general, I don’t read books like that. Not that I have anything against them, morally or whatever – but if everyone’s reading it, I probably will not be into it myself. At any given moment you can look around and see people reading Nicholas Sparks. Or Mitch Albom. I’m not reading those people. But they’re obviously massive bestselling authors – which is why you look around and see everyone reading their books – but I am not their audience. Just not. There have been a couple of times when my taste coincided with the zeitgeist moment – and The Alienist was one of them. I can’t remember why I picked it up – because i’m usually turned off by 100% agreement, as in: a neverending chorus of “you have to read this book!” What can I say. I’m contrary. The weird thing is, though, I can remember my experience of reading The Alienist (I could not put that book down. Total page-turner) – but I can remember almost nothing about it. I know there was a group of people who came together to solve the crime. I know that one of them was a woman. I remember loving all of the characters – and kind of wishing that I was back in time and part of the group. And the whole setting of New York in 1896 was SO well done – I truly felt like I was reading a novel that had been written IN the 1890s – it had such a breath of reality to it, and it made me look at the streets of Manhattan in a new way (especially Union Square – although I was unable to find the Union Square section this morning … so I’m wondering if that was actually from his second book Angel of Darkness?) Don’t know. I remember almost nothing about The Alienist – no plot points, nothing … But I do remember these elements very well.
I wonder why on EARTH it hasn’t been made into a film. It seems like it is MADE for a Hollywood movie treatment … it feels very cinematic to me, inherently dramatic – with a great cast of characters …
I liked the book so much I even read the second one in the series (which, I think, stopped at 2) – and that one I wasn’t so wacky about. But I think he should have kept going. I would have definitely kept reading. The main draw about the book was the group of investigators and their interactions – it was a pleasaure to read about them.
Anyhoo, I flipped thru the book this morning and was amazed by how much I didn’t remember. And I couldn’t find the Union Square section which I DID remember and wanted to excerpt … so here’s another excerpt I tripped over, that seems to capture the true time-machine appeal of this book.
Especially since I live here in New York – and I feel proprietary about the city – it’s MINE – I loved the sepia-toned landscapes in the book, with the different skyline – but some of the buildings are still there, buildings I know well. I love that.
Excerpt from The Alienist
True to Kreizler’s prediction, Harris Markowitz proved thoroughly unsuitable as a suspect in our case. Aside from being short, stout, and well into his sixties – and thus wholly unlike the physical speciment described by the Isaacsons at Delmonico’s – he was obviously quite out of his mind. He’d killed his grandchildren, he claimed, in order to save them from what he perceived to be a monstrously evil world, whose salient aspects he described in a series of rambling, highly confused outbursts. Such poor systemization of unreasonably fearful thoughts and beliefs, as well as the apparently complete lack of concern for his own fate that Markowitz exhibited, often characterized cases of dementia praecox, Kreizler told me as we left Bellevue. But while Markowitz clearly had nothing to do with our business, the visit was still valuable, as Laszlo had hoped it would be, in helping us determine aspects of our killer’s personality by way of comparison. Obviouslly, our man was not murdering children out of any perverse desire to attend to their spiritual well-being. The furious mutilation of the bodies after death made that much plain. Nor, clearly, was he unconcerned with what would happen to him as a result of his acts. But most of all, it was apparent from his open display of his handiwork – a display that was, as Laszlo had explained, an implicit entreaty for apprehension – that the killings did disturb some part of him. In other words, there was evidence in the bodies not of the murderer’s derangement but of his sanity.
I puzzled with that concept all the way back to Number 808 Broadway, but on arrival my attention was distracted by my first really clear-headed perusal of the place that, as Sara had said, would be our home for the foreseeable future. It was a handsome yellow-brick building, which Kreizler told me had been designed by James Renwick, the architect responsible for the Gothic edifice of Grace Church next door, as well as for the more subdued St. Denis Hotel across the street. The southern windows of our headquarters looked directly out onto the churchyard, which lay in a dark shadow cast by Grace’s enormous tapering spire. There was quite a parochial, serene feel about this little stretch of Broadway, despite the fact that we were smack in the center of one of the city’s busiest shopping strips: besides McCreery’s, there were stores selling everything from dry goods to boots to photographs within steps of Number 808. The single greatest monument to all thes commerce was an enormous cast-iron building across Tenth Street from the church, formerly A.T. Stewart’s department store, currently operated by Hilton, Hughes and Company, and eventually to gain its greatest fame as Wanamaker’s.
The elevator at Number 808 was a large, caged affair, quite new, and it took us quietly back up to the sixth floor. Here we discovered that great progress had been made during our absence. Things were now so arranged that it actually looked like human affairs were being conducted out of the place, though one would still have been hard-pressed to say precisely what kind. At five o’clock sharp each of us sat at one of the five desks, from which vantage points we could clearly see and discuss matters with one another. There was nervous but pleasant chatter as we settled in, and real camaraderie when we began to discuss the events of our various days As the evening sun dipped above the Hudson, sending rich golden light over the rooftops of western Manhattan and through our Gothic front windows, I realized that we had become, with remarkable speed, a working unit.
The author dated a high school classmate of mine, while she was still in high school. He was one of those twentysomethings who hangs around high school students. This somewhat colored my perception of the book.
Anne – hey you!!! How are you?
Really? So he was like that Matthew McConaghey dude in Dazed and Confused?? That’s a bit Ick, isn’t it?
A couple years ago – when his book on terror came out – the NY Times did a piece about him – and the old house he lives in – and he came off sounding like a total nutjob. Obnoxious, actually.
I’m very good, thank you. Back east now, and pleased about it.
Wooderson, ha. What is it? “I get older, and they stay the same age.”
I remember reading something about how when you’re 16 you think that your friend who is dating a 24 year old seems so cool and worldly, and then you get to be 24 yourself and you think, what the hell kind of guy my age hangs out with high school girls?
Yes – Wooderson! Just a classic character – I knew guys like that, too.
I, too, was bummed when he quit the series. I actually liked ‘Angel” better than ‘Alienist’.
There is a wonderful book you would like, in the same genre (19th Century New York) whose name I can’t remember right now. Let me consult the librarian spouse and Amazon.
I read somewhere that Carr’s dad was murdered. That might account for some things.
Your experience with this book echoes mine…I remember reading it, I remember loving it – and I barely remember why! I live in Detroit and there aren’t enough words in the world to describe the many different ways I LOATHE Mitch Albom…I should really do a post on in someday. I canceled our paper subscription and got the NYTimes because of him. I haven’t read his books but after experiencing his column I never will. Okay, he’s a sore spot with me…
Nicholas Sparks is the worst writer writing in America, bar none. I would read Danielle Steele before reading him.
Courtney – hahahahaha
You must do a post about Mitch Albom! Please!!
OK, I read this book too and, in the spirit of discussion, I HATED every second of it. I couldn’t stop reading it.
It doesn’t surprise me that the author of this book hung out with high school kids because there is something very juvenile at the core…
the man solving the crime is a GENIUS! the beautiful tough lady who is ahead of her time who is secretly in love with the GENIUS! the GENIUS is relentless in pursuing the killer, who would never be caught unless he was a character in a book being tracked by a GENIUS! the whole book is a whodunit and all sorts of characters are implicated and whodunit? not one of them. the GENIUS uses all sorts of methods carefully researched by the geek supreme who wrote the book but the crime is only solved in some rooftop chase that only occurred because the GENIUS got lucky.
but i read it nonstop over three days.
caleb carr seems like one of those guys who secretly hopes that Debate Club will supplant the NFL as America’s favorite sport. he is not happy being a geek so he has to inflate himself into what he supposedly despises.
i’m crazy.
Found it: “The New York Detective” by William Marshall (1990).
It’s got the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, sensational theater (you’ll like that), rat killers, whores with hearts of gold, Civil War veterans with secrets and a livery stable owner who’s Mae West’s dad.
When I googled, I found out that Marshall also wrote the wonderful ‘Yellowthread’ series. I’ll have to re-read ‘Detective’ just for that.
Which Glurge-fests did Ablom write- that ‘Morrie’ thing? Cotton-candy spirituality.
Bren – I remember having conversations with you about it at the time – that was when you all were in Park Slope, I think?? I can’t remember when the book came out – but I believe it was that time period.
I think you might be onto something – in your last comment – I really do – the article in the NY Times about him made him come off as a total dousche-bag- although the details of WHY escape me. (Kind of like the details of the book he wrote.)
he is the comic book store owner in the simpsons crossed with whoever wrote ‘bridges to madison county’.
Sal – I’m fine with what you call cotton candy spirituality. It obviously sells. Whatever, make a buck. I just think he sucks as a writer. Sucks, I tell you!
Don’t even get me started on that guy, Bren!!!
Also, Bren:
//but i read it nonstop over three days.//
hahahahahahaha
Isn’t that weird when that happens?
By the way, Bren – batting cage pictures are up now!
they are awesome, just checked ’em out. melody took cash school shopping at old navy yesterday and he did a fashion show last night. hilarious.
oh, now that you’ve written about ‘the alienist’ you HAVE to read ‘devil in the white city’. same time period, serial killer, etc. it is that story stripped of all the bull-oney.
caleb carr is a renaissance faire believer who came to rock music via ‘mr. roboto’.
Bren – Oh, I want to see his school clothes!!
Let’s talk this weekend – I miss you guys.
Bwahahahahaha! I’m loving Brendan cooking up a new insult for this poor guy.
Agreed on Albom. Saw (rather than read) “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.” It’s basically a feature-length greeting card. “Big Fish” was eleventy thousand times better.
“eleventy thousand times” hahahahaha Love it!!
I loved The Alienist too, and I’ve often wondered why it never became a movie. In fact, when I read books I almost never picture specific actors in the roles of characters, but for some reason I couldn’t shake the image of Christopher Lloyd as Laszlo Kreisler (the genius detective). For a long time, The Alienist was the top book on the list of books I annoyingly insist everybody read…but I haven’t really thought about the book in some time. I think it wouldn’t have slid into obscurity so readily had Carr written more in that vein.
Jaquandor – I really wish he had kept going. I think it could have been a highly successful and ongoing franchise – a la Sherlock Holmes.
It had all the elements – kind of a bummer, huh??
I have never “read” this book but I listened to the unabridged audio on cassette and it was AMAZING!!! I am so disappointed that this hasn’t been put out on CD and is only available on cassette. It is one of the most suspenseful audio book presentations I have ever listend to.