Books Every American Should Read, #2: Low Life, by Luc Sante
Low Life is a history of the poor and the criminal classes of New York City up through 1920, focusing mainly on the Victorian era. Profuse and spectacular in detail, engaging and fascinating in character study, Low Life is also one of the the most beautifully-written books it has ever been my pleasure not only to savor, but to read aloud to anyone I can manage to trap in his cube - hello, Theo! Take this, for example:
…The district grew up helter-skelter in a malodorous environment of slaughterhouses, soap and glue factories and waterfront effluvia, in patches that bore names like Poverty Lane and Misery Row.
Or this:
The tenement is the basic facade in New York, the face of the slums, a slab of tombstone proportions, four to six stories, pocked by windows. Above is the towering tin cornice, a confection of scallops and curlicues, with foliaceous brackets, often topped by a semicircular peak, a disk enclosing a rayed sun.
