I did as I was instructed; and it is no great exaggeration to say that from that moment forward, neither my own life nor the path of the investigation we had undertaken would ever be the same.
--Caleb Carr, Surrender, New York (Random House, 2016).
Surrender, New York is something of a sequel to Carr's period novel The Alienist (1996). Dr. Trajan Jones and Michael Li have been exiled to upstate New York because they have offended the powers-that-be by insisting on the importance of the quality of any forensic evidence. They now teach remotely at Albany State and are called for consultation by the few policemen who still trust them, on a case of the alleged murders of "throwaway children," abandoned by parents who can no longer support them in job-poor upstate New York. They are assisted by a young blind woman, Ambyr, who may not be who she appears to be and with whom the disabled Jones (he lost a leg to cancer) has fallen in love. Among the many themes in this detailed, rambling and intelligently didactic novel (also something of a shaggy dog story) are the treatment of animals (Jones has a cheetah he rescued from a petting zoo) and the economic devastation of upstate New York.
This 600-page novel reminds one of the picaresque novels of the 18th Century: Smollett's Peregrine Pickle (1751, 800 pages) and Richardson's Clarissa (1747, 1534 pages). I hope resistance to these lengthy novels has diminished since the popularity of Donna Tartt's recent The Goldfinch (2015, 771 pages). Carr's novel even has asides to the reader and names for chapters, as was common in the 18th C.
--Caleb Carr, Surrender, New York (Random House, 2016).
Surrender, New York is something of a sequel to Carr's period novel The Alienist (1996). Dr. Trajan Jones and Michael Li have been exiled to upstate New York because they have offended the powers-that-be by insisting on the importance of the quality of any forensic evidence. They now teach remotely at Albany State and are called for consultation by the few policemen who still trust them, on a case of the alleged murders of "throwaway children," abandoned by parents who can no longer support them in job-poor upstate New York. They are assisted by a young blind woman, Ambyr, who may not be who she appears to be and with whom the disabled Jones (he lost a leg to cancer) has fallen in love. Among the many themes in this detailed, rambling and intelligently didactic novel (also something of a shaggy dog story) are the treatment of animals (Jones has a cheetah he rescued from a petting zoo) and the economic devastation of upstate New York.
This 600-page novel reminds one of the picaresque novels of the 18th Century: Smollett's Peregrine Pickle (1751, 800 pages) and Richardson's Clarissa (1747, 1534 pages). I hope resistance to these lengthy novels has diminished since the popularity of Donna Tartt's recent The Goldfinch (2015, 771 pages). Carr's novel even has asides to the reader and names for chapters, as was common in the 18th C.
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