Description
Set at the turn of the 20th century, the story of the father of New York City, his mysterious assassination and his hidden life, for fans of Golden Hill and Kavalier and Clay
About the Author
Jonathan Lee is the author of the novels High Dive - a New York Times bestseller - Joy and Who is Mr Satoshi? He has been shortlisted for the Edinburgh Festival First Book Award the Desmond Elliott Prize for literature, and longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award. Born in the UK, he now lives in New York.
Reviews
Wily, virtuosic, very beautiful - an intimate portrait of a public man that also serves as an X-ray of America. The Great Mistake is a great novel of New York, in which the shaping of public space becomes inextricable from the loneliness, longing, and ferocious ambition of a single, damaged man -- Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
A great novel of 19th-century New York. A meditation on the meaning of success, and a magical escape from the 21st century that sent me back feeling wiser and more hopeful -- Sandra Newman, author of The Heavens
A wonderful, compelling, finely-tuned and deeply loveable novel, with a central character who is all of those things too. Jonathan Lee has taken the bare facts of a nearly forgotten life and turned them into a rich and unforgettable story -- Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
Few writers working today have Jonathan Lee's range or eye for detail. Fewer still are capable of roaming minds and histories with such bittersweet, richly detailed ease. A wonder and a delight. -- Tea Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife
A highly satisfying mix of mystery and character portrait, revealing the constrained heart beneath the public carapace. * Kirkus *
Elegiac and elegant, inviting and refined. The reader is immersed in [a] world that grows more dense with longing, regret and foreclosed possibilities... Lee's prose is thick with an emotional awareness that recalls the writing of Henry James * The Times *
Not a novel of grand deeds, but of grand imagination... quietly but intently ambitious * Guardian *
Seriously entertaining * Sunday Times *
[A] stylish, finely wrought mashup of mystery and history, which paints a dynamic portrait of both man and metropolis * Mail on Sunday *
Book Information
ISBN 9781783786244
Author Jonathan Lee
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Granta Books
Publisher Granta Books
Weight(grams) 435g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 21mm