Golden Hill (Spufford)

Golden Hill:  A Novel of Old New York
Francis Spufford, 2017
Scribner
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501163890


Summary
2017 Costa Award - First Novel

The spectacular first novel from acclaimed nonfiction author Francis Spufford follows the adventures of a mysterious young man in mid-eighteenth century Manhattan, thirty years before the American Revolution.

New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan island, 1746.

One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat arrives at a countinghouse door on Golden Hill Street: this is Mr. Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion shimmering.

For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge sum, and he won’t explain why, or where he comes from, or what he is planning to do in the colonies that requires so much money. Should the New York merchants trust him? Should they risk their credit and refuse to pay? Should they befriend him, seduce him, arrest him; maybe even kill him?

Rich in language and historical perception, yet compulsively readable, Golden Hill is a story "taut with twists and turns" that "keeps you gripped until its tour-de-force conclusion" (The Times, London).

Spufford paints an irresistible picture of a New York provokingly different from its later metropolitan self but already entirely a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love — and find a world of trouble. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Where—Cambridge, England, U
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University
• Awards—Costa First Novel Award; Ondaatje Prize; Somerset Maugham Award
• Currently—lives near Cambridge, England


Francis Spufford is the British author of five highly praised books of nonfiction and one work of fiction. He was raised in Cambridge, England, by two Cambridge academics: his father was an economic historian, and mother a social historian.

Spufford, himself, attended Cambridge, but earned his degree in English literature. For three years (1987-90) he was Chief Reader at Chatto and Windus, a noted English publisher, which had taken over Hogarth Press, once operated by Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

His first book, I May Be Some Time, won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Nonfiction Book of 1996, the Banff Mountain Book Prize, and a Somerset Maugham Award. It was followed by The Child That Books Built, Backroom Boys, Red Plenty (which was translated into nine languages), and most recently, Unapologetic. He published his first novel, Golden Hill, in 2017.

In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and currently teaches in the creative writing program at Goldsmiths College in London. He lives near Cambridge with his wife and daughter. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/14/2017.)

Book Reviews
[E]bullient, freewheeling historical fiction.… Its action is so vivid that you seem to be consuming (imagine Wolf Blitzer’s voice here) breaking news. Delirious storytelling backfilled with this much intelligence is a rare and happy sight.… [A] a high-level entertainment, filled with so much brio that it’s as if each sentence had been dusted with Bolivian marching powder and cornstarch and gently fried. Some of this swashbuckling action goes over the top, but you will probably be turning the pages too quickly to register a complaint.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


Admirably eccentric.… The boisterous plot is perfectly in keeping with its mid-18th century setting.… This wonderful novel concludes with one further revelation, one that will make you reflect once again what a gloriously tricky fellow this Francis Spufford is.
Boston Globe


Francis Spufford’s fiction début is a fast-paced romp, but it keeps its eyes on the moral conundrums of America.… [He is] an author capable of making any topic, however unlikely, at once fascinating and amusing. Golden Hill is both.
The New Yorker


The intoxicating effect of Golden Hill is much more than an experiment in form. [Spufford] has created a complete world, employing his archivist skills to the great advantage of his novel.… This is a book born of patience, of knowledge accrued and distilled over decades, a style honed by practice. There are single scenes here more illuminating, more lovingly wrought, than entire books.
Financial Times (UK)


Like a newly discovered novel by Henry Fielding with extra material by Martin Scorsese. Why it works so well is largely down to Spufford's superb re-creation of New York.… His writing crackles with energy and glee, and when Smith's secret is finally revealed it is hugely satisfying on every level. For its payoff alone Golden Hill deserves a big shiny star.
Times (UK)


Splendidly entertaining and ingenious.… Throughout Golden Hill, Spufford creates vivid, painterly scenes of street and salon life, yet one never feels as though a historical detail has been inserted just because he knew about it. Here is deep research worn refreshingly lightly.… [A] first-class period entertainment.
Guardian (UK)


Paying tribute to writers such as Fielding, Francis Spufford's creation exudes a zesty, pin-sharp contemporaneity.…[C]olonial New York takes palpable shape in his dazzlingly visual, pacy and cleverly plotted novel.
Daily Mail (UK)


Golden Hill shows a level of showmanship and skill which seems more like a crowning achievement than a debut . [Spufford] brings his people and situations to life with glancing ease.… They all live and breathe with conviction.… His descriptive powers are amazing.… Spufford's extraordinary visual imagination and brilliant pacing seems to owe more to the movies than anything else.
Evening Standard (UK)


Spufford’s…New York bursts with energy, danger, and potential. His ironic, sometimes bawdy sense of humor and coy storytelling may frustrate those who do not "cotton" to the "cant," but patient readers are rewarded with a feast of language, character, local color, and historical detail.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred reivew) In 1746, a man named Smith arrives in New York City, population 7,000, in his hand, a bill for 1,000 pounds payable in New York. No one can vouch for him, and he won't explain why he needs so much money.… [A] successful homage to the great master of the picaresque novel, Henry Fielding.—David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Library Journal


(Starred reivew) A virtuoso literary performance.
Booklist


(Starred reivew) [S]parkling.… Spufford suggests in an afterword that he was aiming for "a colonial counterpart to Joseph Andrews."… A first-rate entertainment with a rich historical feel and some delightful twists.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. "What a difference a frame makes!" thinks Mr. Smith while first looking in on the room occupied by Tabitha, Flora, and Zephyr, less than an hour after arriving in New York (p. 10). What difference does the frame of Golden Hill, revealed in Tabitha’s postscript on pages 295-299, make in your understanding of the novel? What difference does it make in your enjoyment of the novel?

2. Saracen conjurer, agent of the French, actor, rogue, mountebank: Mr. Smith is called each of these things at some point during his time in New York. Which label is most fitting and why?

3. Mr. Lovell offers a definition of "commerce" in the following: "Commerce is trust, sir. Commerce is need and need together, sir. Commerce is putting a hand in answer into a hand out-stretched" (p.5). How does this definition apply to Mr. Smith’s mission as revealed later on? Would you call his purpose in New York "commerce" or something else?

4. Though he is never identified, who do you think the long-haired thief who stole Mr. Smith’s pocket book is? For whom was he working?

5. Golden Hill is set in 1746, eighty-two years after Manhattan passed from Dutch to British sovereignty, and thirty-seven years before it became American. Describe the various attitudes of the Manhattanites toward Britain and Holland. Where do you see fault lines that portend the coming revolution?

6. Examine Mr. Smith’s dreams during his nights of fitful sleep, first on Septimus’s too-small sofa (p. 89-90), and later on the night after his thumb is branded (p. 266-267). From the chessboard to the "wine-coloured snowman," what do the symbols in these dreams reveal to us about Mr. Smith and his feelings toward his mission?

7. Why was Tabitha pretending to be crippled? Why do you think Mr. Smith refrained from asking her to explain her behavior (p. 97)?

8. Cato, the play put on by Septimus, is the account of the final hours of Marcus Porcius Cato, a Stoic whose deeds, rhetoric, and resistance to the tyranny of Caesar made him an icon of virtue and liberty. As Septimus says, it "tickles all the themes that New-York loves best." Considering the political atmosphere of New York in 1746, do you agree? Considering the New York City of today, do you agree?

9. "A villain is hard to do without," says Mr. Smith to Septimus, about the role of Sempronius in their production of Cato (p. 205). Who, if anyone, is the villain of Golden Hill?

10. Mr. Smith says a phrase to Zephyr in the Ghanaian language Twi that is not translated: "Aane, me ara ni nnipa a wo twen no" (p. 288). What do you think he is saying to her?

11. Mr. Smith tells Tabitha that she is "a bird and a cage" (p. 281). What does he mean? Is this true of other female characters in the novel? Is this true of Mr. Smith himself? What other literary figures or film characters fit this description?

12. Golden Hill presents a society in which novels are shown to inspire addiction (Flora consumes them "like laudanum") as well as aversion (Tabitha calls them "Slush for small minds," "pabulum for the easily pleased"). Find other examples of meta-textual references throughout Golden Hill, including places where the narrator overtly intrudes upon the story. How do these moments force us to reevaluate the novel’s universe and purpose? What shortcomings of the novel as a form do these moments expose?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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