Gods of Gotham

A sweeping saga of New York City circa 1951, featuring numerous real-life historic figures in a dark, swirling story of political corruption, the rise of television, fixed college basketball games, and the ominous beginnings of McCarthyism . . .

A national championship basketball team, an effective, popular mayor with some dark secrets to hide, the genial mastermind of Brooklyn’s illegal sports betting empire, who feeds and fears a rogue police force — these are the Gods of Gotham, men who have reached the top through daring, hard work, and some very questionable associations . . .

Set as the 1940s become the 1950s in New York City, this sprawling new novel from Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Sayles follows a wide cast of characters including politicians, criminals, hopeful youth and striving immigrants trying to succeed — or even just survive — in a corrupt and rapidly changing metropolis. A welcome distraction from it all is the City College basketball team, which has been wildly inconsistent, but suddenly—shockingly—seems like it may be on the way to a national championship.

Featuring numerous real-life historical figures — including New York Mayor William O’Dwyer, Murder Inc. mobster Albert Anastasia, and legendary City College coach Nat Holman — the novel interweaves plot lines involving McCarthy-era repression, Borscht Belt comedians and the rise of television, the Puerto Rican diaspora, the threat of atomic war, and mob violence, to tell the everything-all-at-once story of the self-anointed Greatest City in the World.