fiction featuring NYC
Explore top fiction books set in NYC! Discover captivating novels featuring the vibrant streets, iconic landmarks, and rich culture of New York City in our curated list.
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Winter's Tale
by Mark Helprin
When master mechanic Peter Lake attempts to rob a mansion on the Upper West Side, he is caught by young Beverly Penn, the terminally ill daughter of the house, and their subsequent love sends Peter on a desperate personal journey. Reissue.
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Empire Rising
by Thomas Kelly
It is 1930, and ground has just been broken for the Empire State Building. One of the thousands of men who will come to work high above the city is Michael Briody, an Irish immigrant torn between his desire to make a new life in America and his pledge to gather money and arms for the Irish republican cause. When he meets Grace Masterson, an alluring artist who is depicting the great skyscraper's rise from her houseboat on the East River, Briody's life suddenly turns exhilarating--and dangerous--for Grace is also a paramour of Johnny Farrell, Mayor Jimmy Walker's liaison with Tammany Hall and the underworld.
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Forever
by Pete Hamill
Moving from Ireland to New York City in 1741, Cormac O'Connor witnesses the city's transformation into a thriving metropolis while he explores the mysteries of time, loss, and love. By the author of Snow in August and A Drinking Life. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.
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Manhattan Transfer
by John Dos Passos
An "expressionistic picture of New York" (New York Times) in the 1920s that reveals the lives of wealthy power brokers and struggling immigrants alike. From Fourteenth Street to the Bowery, Delmonico's to the underbelly of the city waterfront, Dos Passos chronicles the lives of characters struggling to become a part of modernity before they are destroyed by it.
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The Interpretation of Murder
by Jed Rubenfeld
The search for a serial killer during Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York City, his one visit to the U.S., propels the plot of Yale law professor Rubenfeld's ambitious debut in this well-researched and thought-provoking novel.
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Call It Sleep
by Henry Roth
When Henry Roth published his debut novel Call It Sleep in 1934, it was greeted with considerable critical acclaim though, in those troubled times, lackluster sales. Only with its paperback publication thirty years later did this novel receive the recognition it deserves—--and still enjoys. Having sold-to-date millions of copies worldwide, Call It Sleep is the magnificent story of David Schearl, the "dangerously imaginative" child coming of age in the slums of New York.
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Brookland
by Emily Barton
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the YearA Los Angeles Times Book Review Favorite Book of the Year Since her girlhood, Prudence Winship has gazed across the tidal straits from her home in Brooklyn to the city of Manhattan and yearned to bridge the distance. Now, firmly established as the owner of an enormously successful gin distillery she inherited from her father, she can begin to realize her dream. Set in eighteenth-century Brooklyn, this is the beautifully written story of a woman with a vision: a gargantuan construction of timber and masonry to span the East River. With the help of her sisters--high-spirited Tem and silent, uncanny Pearl--Prue fires the imaginations of the people of Brooklyn and New York by promising them easy passage between their two worlds.
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Another Country
by James Baldwin
From one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century—a novel of sexual, racial, political, artistic passions, set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France. “Brilliant and fiercely told.”—The New York Times One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.
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City of Dreams
by Beverly Swerling
A sweeping epic of two families—one Dutch, one English—from the time when New Amsterdam was a raw and rowdy settlement, to the triumph of the Revolution, when New York became a new nation’s city of dreams. In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; but soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, Lucas and Sally make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution, and create a heritage that sets cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and, ultimately, patriot against Tory. In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire in an unforgettable American saga of pride and ambition, love and hate, and the becoming of the dream that is New York City.
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Metropolis
by Elizabeth Gaffney
On a freezing night in the middle of a New York winter, a young immigrant is suddenly awakened by a fire in P. T. Barnum’s stable, where he works and sleeps, and soon finds himself at the center of a citywide arson investigation. Determined to clear his name and realize the dreams that inspired his hazardous voyage to America, he will change his identity many times, find himself mixed up with one of the city’s toughest and most enterprising gangs, and fall in love with a smart, headstrong, and beautiful woman. Buffeted by the forces of fate, hate, luck, and passion, our hero struggles to build a life–and just to stay alive–on an epic journey that is at once unique and poignantly emblematic of the American experience.
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Old New York
by Edith Wharton
Four short novels of New York in the 19th century deal with infidelity, illegitimacy, the class system and the place of women in society.
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Time and Again
by Jack Finney
Simon Morley is selected by a secret government agency to test Einstein's theory of the past co-existing with the present and is transported back to 1880s New York.
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Maggie
by Stephen Crane
Maggie is an astonishing novel of social realism, which parallels many of today's ills. Set in the urban squalor of New York in the 1890s, it follows the careers of the innocent Maggie and her brother Jimmie, children of brutal and drunken parents. It is a tour-de-force equal to The Red Badge of Courage.
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.
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Strivers Row
by Kevin Baker
The Rev. Jonah Dove is the son of a legendary Harlem minister, and a man troubled in both mind and spirit. He feels himself unworthy and incapable of taking up the burden of running his church from the larger–than–life figure who is his father. He is haunted both by his own, shameful history of "passing" as a white man in college, and by the prospects for his people in the harsh, new, racist age he fears the world is entering. Malcolm Little –– better known as Malcom X –– is a teenage hustler from Lansing, Michigan by way of Boston, a young man on the make, trying always to be something bigger, tougher, savvier, and more confident than he really is. On his way to New York, Malcolm happens to come to the rescue of Jonah and his wife, Amanda, when they are attacked by some drunken soldiers on the train. From then on, their paths cross repeatedly as they each go about trying to find what they really want out of the roiling, wartime city, until the moment when Harlem finally erupts around them, as a people driven beyond endurance strikes out blindly at all the forces keeping it entrapped in misery and hopelessness. Stranded on the streets of a rioting city, Jonah and Malcolm meet each other once more, as they come to grips with what they are and what the future will hold for them.
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The Electric Michelangelo
by Sarah Hall
Cy Parks is the Electric Michelangelo, an artist of extraordinary gifts whose medium happens to be the pliant, shifting canvas of the human body. Fleeing his mother's legacy -- a consumptives' hotel in a fading English seaside resort -- Cy reinvents himself in the incandescent honky-tonk of Coney Island in its heyday between the two world wars. Amid the carnival decadence of freak shows and roller coasters, enchanters and enigmas, scam artists and marks, Cy will find his muse: an enigmatic circus beauty who surrenders her body to his work, but whose soul tantalizingly eludes him. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
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The Drowning Room
by Michael Pye
Set during the terrible winter of 1642, in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, this haunting and evocative novel, based on fact, tells of Gretje Reyniers, a feisty, complex woman who makes her own unconventional way. "Pye captures in earthy detail the muck and mire of both the old and new Amsterdams, and the occasional flicker of gilt as well".--"Washington Post".
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The Night Inspector
by Frederick Busch
An immensely powerful story, The Night Inspector follows the extraordinary life of William Bartholomew, a maimed veteran of the Civil War, as he returns from the battlefields to New York City, bent on reversing his fortunes. It is there he meets Jessie, a Creole prostitute who engages him in a venture that has its origins in the complexities and despair of the conflict he has left behind. He also befriends a deputy inspector of customs named Herman Melville who, largely forgotten as a writer, is condemned to live in the wake of his vanished literary success and in the turmoil of his fractured family. Delving into the depths of this country's heart and soul, Frederick Busch's stunning novel is a gripping portrait of a nation trying to heal from the ravages of war--and of one man's attempt to recapture a taste for life through the surging currents of his own emotions, ambitions, and shattered conscience.
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The Alienist
by Caleb Carr
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A TNT ORIGINAL SERIES • “A first-rate tale of crime and punishment that will keep readers guessing until the final pages.”—Entertainment Weekly “Caleb Carr’s rich period thriller takes us back to the moment in history when the modern idea of the serial killer became available to us.”—The Detroit News When The Alienist was first published in 1994, it was a major phenomenon, spending six months on the New York Times bestseller list, receiving critical acclaim, and selling millions of copies. This modern classic continues to be a touchstone of historical suspense fiction for readers everywhere. The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over. Fast-paced and riveting, infused with historical detail, The Alienist conjures up Gilded Age New York, with its tenements and mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. It is an age in which questioning society’s belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and fatal consequences. Praise for The Alienist “[A] delicious premise . . . Its settings and characterizations are much more sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill thrillers that line the shelves in bookstores.”—The Washington Post Book World “Mesmerizing.”—Detroit Free Press “The method of the hunt and the disparate team of hunters lift the tale beyond the level of a good thriller—way beyond. . . . A remarkable combination of historical novel and psychological thriller.”—The Buffalo News “Engrossing.”—Newsweek “Gripping, atmospheric . . . intelligent and entertaining.”—USA Today “A high-spirited, charged-up and unfailingly smart thriller.”—Los Angeles Times “Keeps readers turning pages well past their bedtime.”—San Francisco Chronicle
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Suspension
by Richard E. Crabbe
"Suspension" is a riveting historical thriller filled with fascinating details of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, chosen as one of the year's best by the "San Francisco Chronicle."
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Gramercy Park
by Paula Cohen
Mario Alfieri, a world-famous tenor, seeks a few months of quiet before his Metropolitan Opera debut. Clara Adler, the ward of a deceased millionaire, has secrets she has yet to discover. Their chance meeting in a Gramercy Park mansion kindles a love as swift as it is unexpected, entangles them in an intrigue stretching back two decades, and earns them an implacable enemy.
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Paradise Alley
by Kevin Baker
They came by boat from a starving land—and by the Underground Railroad from Southern chains—seeking refuge in a crowded, filthy corner of hell at the bottom of a great metropolis. But in the terrible July of 1863, the poor and desperate of Paradise Alley would face a new catastrophe—as flames from the war that was tearing America in two reached out to set their city on fire.
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Emma Who Saved My Life
by Wilton Barnhardt
Gil Freeman, a midwestern aspiring actor, comes to the city in search of stardombut instead encounters the perils of Alphabet City, the desperation of off-off-off-Broadway theater...and the exhilarating, exasperating, absolutely unique Emma, around whom his life comes to turn.
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The Fortunate Pilgrim
by Mario Puzo
FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE GODFATHER - "A classic... The novel is lifted into literature by its highly charged language, its penetrating insights, and its mixture of tenderness and rage." - New York Times Book Review Described by the author as his "best and most literary book." Puzo's classic story about the loves, crimes and struggles confronted by one family of New York City immigrants living in Hell's Kitchen. Fresh from the farms in Italy, Lucia Santa struggles to hold her family together in a strange land. At turns poignant, comic and violent, The Fortunate Pilgrim is Italian-American fiction at its very best. The book's hero, Lucia Santa, is an incredibly captivating character and based on Puzo's very own mother - he describes, "her wisdom, her ruthlessness, and her unconquerable love for her family and for life itself, qualities not valued in women at the time."
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Summer in Williamsburg
by Daniel Fuchs
Describes the lives of the Jewish inhabitants of a tenement building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in the thirties
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The Gangs of New York
by Herbert Asbury
The basis of Martin Scorcese's acclaimed 2003 film, The Gangs of New York is a dramatic and entertaining glimpse at a city's dark past. Focusing on the saloon halls, gambling dens, and winding alleys of the Bowery and the notorious Five Points district, The Gangs of New York dramatically evokes the destitution and shocking violence of a turbulent era, when colorfully named criminals like Dandy John Dolan, Bill the Butcher, and Hell-Cat Maggie lurked in the shadows, and infamous gangs like the Plug Uglies, the Dead Rabbits, and the Bowery Boys ruled the streets. A rogues' gallery of prostitutes, pimps, poisoners, pickpockets, murderers, and thieves, Herbert Asbury's whirlwind tour through the low life of nineteenth-century New York has become an indispensible classic of urban history.
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The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan
by Bill Greer
When a young bride opens a Manhattan tavern in 1626, her razor-sharp tongue and premium beer spur the tiny settlement of New Amsterdam toward a collision with the tyrannical Dutchmen who rule it.
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Dancer from the Dance
by Andrew Holleran
One of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past -- and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene. From Manhattan's Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island's deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and low for meaningful companionship. The person he finds is Sutherland, a campy quintessential queen -- and one of the most memorable literary creations of contemporary fiction. Hilarious, witty, and ultimately heartbreaking, Dancer from the Dance is truthful, provocative, outrageous fiction told in a voice as close to laughter as to tears.
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The Year of Silence
by Madison Smartt Bell
Marian died by her own hand exactly one year ago. The author approaches Marian's death from the viewpoints of the people that touched her life including her lover, her best friend, and even her enemies.
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Billy Bathgate
by E. L. Doctorow
The story of Billy Bathgate, a boy who has insinuated himself into the inner circle of the notorious Dutch Schultz gang to become apprentice and protege to one of the great murdering gangsters.
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The Banished Children of Eve
by Peter Quinn
In Banished Children of Eve, Quinn presents a lavishly praised novel of a great American city in crisis.
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The Street
by Ann Petry
A young African American woman struggles to retain her moral integrity and guard her small son from evil in Harlem.
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North River
by Pete Hamill
From the bestselling author of Forever and Snow in August comes a story of love, family, and regained hope against the backdrop of Depression-era New York City. It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they can't pay, he treats them anyway. But in his own life, Delaney is emotionally numb, haunted by the slaughters of the Great War. His only daughter has left for Mexico, and his wife Molly vanished months before, leaving him to wonder if she is alive or dead. Then, on a snowy New Year's Day, the doctor returns home to find his three-year-old grandson on his doorstep, left by his mother in Delaney's care. Coping with this unexpected arrival, Delaney hires Rose, a tough, decent Sicilian woman with a secret in her past. Slowly, as Rose and the boy begin to care for the good doctor, the numbness in Delaney begins to melt. Recreating 1930s New York with the vibrancy and rich detail that are his trademarks, Pete Hamill weaves a story of honor, family, and one man's simple courage that no reader will soon forget.
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Martin Dressler
by Steven Millhauser
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • The author of Voices in the Night reveals the mesmerizing journey of an American dreamer as he walks a haunted line between fantasy and reality, madness and ambition, art and industry. “This wonderful, wonder-full book is a fable and phantasmagoria of the sources of our century.” —The New York Times Book Review Young Martin Dressler begins his career as an industrious helper in his father's cigar store. In the course of his restless young manhood, he makes a swift and eventful rise to the top, accompanied by two sisters--one a dreamlike shadow, the other a worldly business partner. As the eponymous Martin's vision becomes bolder and bolder, a sense of doom builds piece-by-hypnotic piece until this mesmerizing journey reaches its bitter-sweet conclusion.
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The Invention of Everything Else
by Samantha Hunt
Hunt's novel is a wondrous imagining of an unlikely friendship between theeccentric inventor Nikola Tesla and a young chambermaid in the Hotel New Yorker, where Tesla lived out his last days.
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Friday Nights at Honeybee's
by Andrea Smith
The Friday night musical gatherings of Honeybee McColor attract the finest jazz and blues musicians of the period, including lost souls Forestine Bent and Viola Bembry--one from the Brooklyn projects, and one from the rural South--who find refuge, guidance, friendship, and love under Honeybee's guidance. A first novel. Reprint.
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Netherland
by Joseph O'Neill
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • "Netherland tells the fragmented story of a man in exile—from home, family and, most poignantly, from himself.” —Washington Post Book World In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, and left alone after his English wife and son return to London, Hans van den Broek stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. As the two men share their vastly different experiences of contemporary immigrant life in America, an unforgettable portrait emerges of an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.