![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The bouldered retaining walls were twenty-five feet thick and rose forty-four feet in an inward-leaning slant. It was an unnatural thing, the reservoir. Tweed lived just a block north, practicing the same silence. The few brownstones and marble mansions on Fifth Avenue stood aloof from the noisy commerce of the south. But in those years its massive ivy-covered walls rose over a neighborhood monumental in its silence…. I’ll tell you here that I was ready to believe in every dark vision if it appeared at the Croton Holding Reservoir. It is central to all the action, as much a character as any person who moves through the narrative. The geographic lynchpin of The Waterworks is New York City’s Croton Reservoir and Aqueduct during the latter part of the 19th Century. His goal is to immerse his readers into a precise place within a period – inside the newspaper stacked rooms of the Collyer brothers’ mansion (Homer and Langley) or amidst the crowds and chaos of Sherman’s Army trekking South (The March). While most historical novelists are satisfied with transporting their readers to a different period, E.L. It’s a book that takes more time to digest. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far, though I don’t feel as stunned upon finishing The Waterworks as I did with Homer and Langley. Doctorow novel, and I’m still becoming familiar with his quirks as an author. ![]()
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