DIZZY CITY
HISTORICAL FICTION: DIZZY CITY – Nicholas Griffin/Steerforth Press - 2007
For those with an interest in New York City just prior to the United States’ involvement in WWI, this book will be fascinating.
We encounter an Englishman, Ben Cramb, in the thick of battle in France. He was forced to enlist, along with his three best friends, instead of being jailed for petty crimes. Experiencing trench warfare, the death of his only friends and his almost inevitable demise, he deserts and makes for Liverpool. There, under cover of darkness, he stows away on the first vessel he sees, hiding out in the coal bin. When the boat docks, he finds himself in New York. He evades the customs official and strolls into his new world. He is constantly worried about detection, because he would surely be sent back for court martial and most likely, hanging.
He utilizes his talent for picking pockets but can only subsist. In his walks he discovers the Bowery and a soup kitchen. He knows he must get a paying job while on the lam. Cramb falls back on his prior skills. He had learned to play the piano at his father’s knee. He goes into an Irish-owned theater on the Bowery and plays well enough to be hired. While he is there, he meets the man who will take him on as an assistant. Julius McAteer is a veteran con man and would like to hire Ben as a ‘roper.’ As an inducement, McAteer offers Ben a room in his home in Greenwich Village at a very nominal rent. Ben jumps at the opportunity. The sharp-eyed McAteer realizes that this bruised young man has deserted from the British Army. He knows that this knowledge will keep Ben in line.
McAteer has targeted a wealthy businessman in the Midwest. He has snared him with a little research of the society columns of various cities and towns, placing ads in local newspapers with an investment opportunity. Henry Jergens replies. He is invited to come to New York at his own expense to meet with McAteer. Ben is given money and train tickets and is dispatched to Chicago. He watches Jergens and follows him to the railroad station. The ‘mark’ encounters Ben on the train. During the course of the trip, Ben develops a relationship with Jergins that continues throughout Jergins’s New York visit. He confides in Ben about his possible business venture, an investment in the music business. Ben steers him to a Harlem club to hear some authentic rag music and with his musical knowledge, he copies down the melodies note for note. Prearranged, the author of this tune catches Ben writing down his music and demands thirty dollars as payment. Ben complies. By this time both are quite drunk and as they walk downtown, Jergins drunkenly comes up with words for the tune. Ben leads him to a music publisher (as played by McAteer) and the song is purchased. The next day, they put lyrics to another tune. The country bumpkin Jergins is again rewarded by a sale. Now the con is in play.
Griffen’s creativity is evident. Jergins turns out to be a con artist of equal merit. He has been hoping to get revenge on McAteer for years. The man had conned his now-dead mentor. All of their ill-gotten gains had been stolen by a younger McAteer.
The book is broken into sections, first involving Ben and McAteer, then Henry Jergins and finally, Jergins’s beautiful young wife. Katherine is part of the counter-scheme.
Griffen has done an amazing job with this novel. Not only does he present an amazingly complicated plot with ease, but he sets the backdrop of early 20th Century New York in great detail. As an almost life-long New Yorker, I had no idea of what occurred on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor. It was the site of major sabotage by Germany and even damaged parts of the Statue of Liberty. No one I’ve spoken to has ever heard of Black Tom Island or what amounted to an explosion of the intensity of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake.
Thumbs up!
