Johnny One-Eye

Starred review from November 12, 2007
This remarkable novel unfolds in a Manhattan split asunder by the Revolutionary War, where “every street had been turned into a ditch.” Here we follow the picaresque adventures of John Stocking, a double agent who has a talent for placing himself in jeopardy, and Charyn traces, at a breathless pace, his adventures on both sides of the Revolution, beginning with Gen. George Washington sparing Stocking from the gallows. With a superb eye for detail, Charyn shows Stocking’s efforts to help the Revolutionary Army’s ever-eroding hold on the city while coping with the machinations of the British Army’s Howe brothers, Sir Billy and Lord Admiral Richard, as they execute their assault on the rebel forces. At the same time, Stocking is engaged in a journey to discover who his father is. Charyn provides a stunning gallery of characters, including an elegantly treacherous Alexander Hamilton; Stocking’s guardian angel, the outrageous madam Gertrude Jennings; Gertrude’s star prostitute, the exotic Clara; and Benedict Arnold, whom John calls “the one hero I’ve ever had.” Charyn’s command of time and place is masterful: the reader can practically smell the gunpowder that suffuses the war-torn city. As a kaleidoscopic view of a tumultuous era, the book deserves to be spoken about in the same breath as E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime
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Starred review from January 15, 2008
In a rollicking tale that is equal parts "Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy", and "Gulliver's Travels", award-winning novelist Charyn ("The Green Lantern") vividly re-creates revolutionary Manhattan through the eyes of young double agent John Stocking, aka Johnny One-Eye. In "Zelig"-like fashion, Stocking saves Benedict Arnold from death, consoles George Washington by regaling the colonel with fairy tales, befriends the British commanders Sir William Howe and his brother, "Black Dick" Howe, and falls in love with one of the prostitutes in the brothel he calls home. Much like the foundlings of Charles Dickens's and Henry Fielding's tales, the picaresque hero Stocking moves from episode to episode, seeking the story of his birth only to find he is the illegitimate son of his protector, the madame of Holy Ground, a famous Manhattan bordello. Through the eyes of his young hero, Charyn gives us a glimpse of the Revolutionary War as lived not by the soldiers and the politicians but by those whose homes, jobs, and lives were completely turned upside down by the war. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 10/1/07.]Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Evanston, IL

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2008
Never before has the American Revolution been so glorious or tawdry as it is in Charyns picaresque adventure of spies, harlots, and Founding Fathers. Wartime Manhattan provides the backdrop for the tale of young double (at least) agent John Stocking and his infatuation with the sharp-tongued octoroon Clara, the most ravishing whore in Manhattans most notorious brothel. Matching Johnny and Claras drama is the intrigue between Johnnys mum, Gertrude, who runs the bordello, and the farmer-general George Washington, whose brooding bravura is a far cry from the wooden goody-goody found in history books. As Johnny infiltrates redcoat war roomswhich just so happen to be the same rooms Gertrude and her nuns occupythe great Revolution plays out in miniature in dizzying allegiances and machinations behind both sides of the firing line. Filled as it is with bawdy episodes and magnificently imagined historical dignitaries, perhaps the most compelling facet is the simmering racial undercurrent, which Charyn delivers on the sly. With a wicked sense of humor and lively period prose, Charyns remarkably smart and definitely naughty novel repaints revolutionary America as a gleefully strange and tumultuous swirl of passions, adventure, and intrigue that anyone with an eye for great, lusty tales cannot afford to miss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)