New York: The Novel (Random House, 2009)

Written By Edward Rutherfurd

New York is the book that millions of Ruther­furd’s American fans have been waiting for.

Rutherfurd celebrates America’s greatest city in a rich, engrossing saga that showcases his extraordinary ability to combine impeccable historical research with storytelling flair. As in his earlier, bestselling novels, he illuminates cultural, social, and political upheavals through the lives of a remarkably diverse set of families.

Chronologically-ordered chapters bring you through the state, from one great moment of its history to the next. As the author recounts the in­tertwining fates of characters rich and poor, black and white, native-born and immigrant, Rutherford brings to life the momentous events that shaped New York and America: the Revolutionary War, the emergence of the city as a great trading and finan­cial center, the excesses of the Gilded Age and the explosion of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following that are the trials of World War II, the near-demise of New York in the 1970s and its roaring rebirth in the ‘90s to, finally, the attacks on the World Trade Center. Sprinkled throughout are captivating cameo ap­pearances by historical figures such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Babe Ruth.

Here is the story of how, in three centuries, New York became the envy of the world, the Big Apple, until those who envied it most sought so vainly to destroy it. A brilliant mix of romance, war, family drama and personal triumphs, New York gloriously captures the search for freedom and prosperity at the heart of America`s history.