The Banished Children of Eve
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Authors: Peter Quinn
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BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE
“Historical fiction as well made and whole as this is not common.”
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The New York Times
“Peter Quinn's extraordinarily fine and ingenious novel,
Banished Children of Eve
, shows how much we are made of history. ⦠Unflinching in its depiction of prejudice and, for that matter, of grace, Quinn deftly weaves the lives of his characters into an intricate web of past and present, of association and moral involvement, until I, at least, had a sense of not only of this terrible time but of history itself at the fundamental level, of the individual actions that make up its fabric.”
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The Boston Sunday Globe
“A stunning portrayal of New York in 1863. ⦠Would that all history be told as well.”
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Chicago Sun-Times
“Quinn pays long, lusty tribute to his Irish-American heritage and his hometown, New York City. ⦠A spirited tale.”
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Kirkus
“This book is a formidable and yet fascinating read. The author sweeps the reader along on an ever-changing tide of people, places, and incidents. ⦠What emerges triumphant is a sense of the vibrant and vital contest between good and evil that made this country what it is. ⦠The writing in this book marks a new voice in the annals of Irish literature. It is dark and brilliant, fateful and forceful, unsparing in its evocations of brutality and tender in bearing witness to the travails of the innocent.”
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The Irish Literary Supplement
“Like the best historical novels. â¦
[Banished Children of Eve]
is a vividly drawn chronology of New York's inexorable march into madness, when a protest over conscription into the Union Army degenerated into a frenzy of looting and murder. ⦠A compelling, textured account.”
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The Boston Globe
“Vividly imagined, scrupulously researched, and almost disorienting in its authenticity. ⦠A historical classic. ⦠Nothing short of splendid.”
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The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Exceptional. ⦠The author's pungent style, refusal to romanticize, and affinity for historical details all blend to make
Banished Children of Eve
an achingly vibrant panorama of ethnic feuds and struggles.”
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Los Angeles Times
“A terrific novel, an ebullient mingling of fiction and history that recreates America during and after the Civil War. ⦠Quinn breaks the rules for first novelsâthey are rarely of this scope, rarely this good.”
âWilliam Kennedy
“A new and formidable talent. ⦠Flawed and broken though they are, these âbanished children' are irresistible. Peter Quinn's achievement is to have brought them alive in a historic moment and to have given us a historical novel of stature and breadth.”
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Commonweal
“It seems to me one of the very, very best of modern historical novels.”
âThomas Flanagan
“A strong, imaginative, and well-researched examination of the life of common people in that time through portraits of hucksters, minstrel actors, speculators, soldiers, and domestic servants whose lives touch. ⦠Thoroughly enjoyable.”
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Library Journal
Hour of the Cat
Looking for Jimmy:
A Search for Irish America
This edition first published paperback in the United States in 2008 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
Woodstock & New York
W
OODSTOCK:
One Overlook Drive
Woodstock, NY 12498
[for individual orders, bulk and special sales, contact our Woodstock office]
N
EW YORK:
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
Copyright © 1994 by Peter Quinn
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-46830-511-1
About the Banished Children of Eve
For Kathy,
who taught me
to love is to persist.
T
HE MORNING PAPER
for February 21st last contained two items that could not help but arouse curiosity. The first, from Cairo, Egypt, recounted how a British archaeological expedition in search of the Lost Tombs of the Pharaohs had unearthed an ancient avenue lined with stone sphinxes. The second was from our hometown of New York. It, too, was concerned with sphinxes, in this case a singular one, the late Mr. James Dunne, a tavern keeper, whose death (from natural causes, we were assured) was reported under the caption “The Passing of the Bowery Sphinx.”
Given our druthers, we
would probably have booked passage on a steamer for the Mediterranean to unearth the full story behind that avenue and its enigmatic monuments. Alas, it was not to be. The directive that arrived on our desk described a quest of far shorter distance. “Who was this âBowery Sphinx'?” it asked. “How had he earned that appellation?”
The “Bowery” part seemed easy to explain. Like “Chelsea Joe,” or “Broadway Mike,” characters of our acquaintance, the mere fact of a long presence in a section of this city is enough to add a geographic qualifier to one's name. But “Sphinx,” ah, there was the rub. In the loud, unending human chorus of the Bowery, who besides a mute could have gained that title for himself?
On a bright, frigid morning, with arctic gusts playing about our coat and pulling at our hat, we embark on our expedition. We walk up the great avenue called Broadway. The towering buildings on either side are as solemn and silent as any of those monumental guardians recently uncovered along the Nile. This is Sunday, and the usual rampage of money changers in and out of their temples is suspended
for the day. The street is left to an occasional clerk or newsboy, his head bowed into the wind, his jacket and scarf bundled around him as tightly as the wrappings of any mummy.
We turn off Broadway into the narrow puzzle of streets where the magnificent thrust of the avenue dissolves into a jumble as confused as any found in the
qasbahs
of North Africa. In front of us pads a Chinaman, his pigtail swaying like a metronome, a distraction we welcome since all around us the hour has struck when sagging rows of lodging-houses are disgorging their guests.
It has been estimated that upwards of ten thousand souls a night seek shelter in these structures, the grandest of them providing a mattress and blanket for twenty-five cents, the lowest offering, for five to seven cents, a roof above and a floor beneath. Herein is an army as numerous as the one Cheops pressed into building his pyramid, but most find little employment beyond the annual ritual of Election Day, when, for a few drinks and some corned beef, the overseers of Tammany press them into the service of The Organization.
One recent observer counted over 100 churches, chapels, and places of worship of every kind in the lower quarter of this city, and 4,065 saloons, most of the latter clustered along and around the Bowery. This Sabbath morning, it is the saloons rather than the churches that are bringing in the sheep. The closer we come to the Bowery, the more there are.
Here is a typical specimen: a peeling, faded building that began its life perhaps as some respectable tradesman's domicile but in its dotage has been divided, subdivided, and redivided into an indeterminate number of “rooms” that are rented for the nocturn. At the street level is a sepulchral hole with a faded sign above that tells us we stand before J
OHNNY
M
C
C
LUSKEY'S
W
ELCOME INN.
Ahead is a dime museum, one of half a hundred to be found in the vicinity. A tattered banner hangs outside and proclaims the marvels of freakdom that are to be found within. The door is open. But we resist the temptation.
We pass a used-clothing store, whose proprietor is standing out front amid racks of
secondhand coats that are swinging wildly in the wind. His face has the unmistakable physiognomy of the Hebrew, the same visage that Ramses and the priests of Osiris looked upon when Moses bargained for his people's freedom.
We move on. Our expedition has almost reached its destination. Up to the right, on the far side of the Nile, beneath the elevated railway, on the northeast corner of Bayard Street, is what has been reported to be the former place of business of “the Bowery Sphinx,” Mr. James Dunne. Indeed, as we draw closer, our information is confirmed by the chipped and faded lettering on the front window. D
UNNE'S
S
ALOON,
it reads. Below, in smaller letterings, is this: P
ROP.
M
R
. J
AMES
F. D
UNNE.
As we read, a squat, pug-nosed member of the Celtic race emerges. His bowler hat is pushed way back on his head; his hands are thrust into his jacket. His cheeks and nose are red, a color, we surmise, less inspired by the cold than the warmth he has already managed to imbibe. He regards us warily. We ask, “This is the establishment of
the
James Dunne?”