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‘Vivid and compelling’ – The Telegraph

‘A masterful portrait of the city’ – Observer

‘A propulsive, gorgeously reported account of the forces that re-shaped New York in the late 1980s, The Gods of New York is brilliant historical non-fiction that doubles as a warning about the future.’
– Emily Nussbaum, author of Cue the Sun

‘A rip-roaring, sweeping, essential work of history… A must read.’ – Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life.

‘Jonathan Mahler has pulled off a magic trick’ – Wright Thompson, author of the The Barn

‘Mahler will have you hooked from start to finish… as colourful and fascinating as the city it captures’ – Irish Independent

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A Foyles Monthly Top Ten Read

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A rollicking, real-life Bonfire of the Vanities from bestselling author Jonathan Mahler. Gods of New York is sweeping chronicle of four years in 1980s New York that would transform the city and leave it more divided than ever.

New York City, 1986: Donald Trump’s real estate empire is booming, despite his constant clashes with Mayor Ed Koch. U.S. Attorney Rudy Guiliani is indicting mafia dons. Ivan Boesky is convicted of insider trading. Spike Lee releases his first feature film. The headlines scream of the Preppy Murder, the AIDS crisis, the crack epidemic and soon, Black Monday. Over the next four years the city will be transformed as the deep divisions lying beneath the soaring skyscrapers and a thriving Wall Street become chasms. Jonathan Mahler’s sweeping chronicle of the late 1980s is a wonderfully exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities and its larger-than-life characters, at a time of historic upheaval and seismic change.

Publisher Review

An enthralling read * The Guardian * Mahler’s exploration of the rowdy origins of the ruling style of contemporary US politics is engaging, enlightening and discouraging * Spectator * Vivid and compelling * The Telegraph * Mahler will have you hooked from start to finish with this marvellous tome that’s as colourful and fascinating as the city it captures. * The Irish Independent * [A] masterful portrait of the city in the late 1980s…A meticulous, riveting portrait of a city at a fulcrum of its history. * Observer * A propulsive, gorgeously reported account of the forces that re-shaped New York in the late 1980s, The Gods of New York is brilliant historical non-fiction that doubles as a warning about the future. With its clashing crew of sharp-elbowed political players-visionaries, provocateurs, and grifters, and sometimes, all three at once-and its juicy, behind-the-scenes details of the tabloid stories that spiked the period like an EKG chart, The Gods of New York is a rollicking ride with a heartbreaking undercurrent. * Emily Nussbaum, author of Cue the Sun * The Gods of New York may be the best non-fiction book ever written about the city. Jonathan Mahler evokes the names of my youth-Bernie Goetz, Tawana Brawley, Ed Koch, Yusuf Hawkins-but he manages to both personalize the New Yorkers of the fateful years 1986-1990 and to fly over the city in a metaphorical helicopter, giving us a clear map as to how the city changed not just itself, but the country to which it is tenuously attached. * Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends * A rip-roaring, sweeping, essential work of history. The Gods of New York offers a deeply reported and brilliantly observed account of how the modern city was born, and why all of us continue to live with the results, for better and for worse. A must-read. * Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life. * Jonathan Mahler has pulled off a magic trick, evoking the sepia glory of the decade of me in the city of me, while also showing the fatal flaws baked into the revelry. The sunken, lost world of this book died with the corruption disguised as optimism known as the Reagan years, the canary in our civic mineshaft. All this happened both a long time ago and yesterday, undone by the same root causes now sweeping our land, proving that what happens in America, good and bad, happens first in New York. This is a story about the big apple, about the tree that birthed this forbidden fruit, and about the worms hiding inside. * Wright Thompson, bestselling author of The Barn * Jonathan Mahler finds the origins of our own time in the squalor, strife, and sleaze of 1980s New York. Full of pathos and wry humor and replete with a colorful gallery of rogues, winners, losers, dreamers, and killers, The Gods of New York is a triumph of civic humanism. . . . A deeply enviable book. * John Ganz, author of When the Clock Broke *