Paradise Alley — Kevin Baker

A Civil War-era novel “intertwines love, violence, history, adventure and social commentary . . . an invigorating, heartbreaking tale of immigrant experience” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Paradise Alley is the story of three Irish immigrant women who are trapped together in the midst of the Draft Riots -- perhaps the bloodiest, most destructive riots in American history. Ruth, married to a black man, tries to shield herself and her children from an abusive former lover. Deirdre, the embodiment of “lace-curtain-Irish” respectability, is desperate for news of her husband Tom, who lies wounded on the battlefield of Gettysburg. And Maddy, a hard-living prostitute, rejects the patronage of the cynical journalist who took her off the streets, recklessly endangering herself and those around her.

Paradise Alley is a searing, historical epic, sweeping from the starving villages of Ireland to riotous streets of New York City and the battlefields of Virginia. It is a story of the intersection of the Irish�"and African-American experiences in the crucible of nineteenth-century New York -- a story of race and hatred, of love and sacrifice, of fire and war, of risk and dauntless courage.