Quinn's Book — William Kennedy

"Kennedy writes with verve and nerve. His wit, always sharp, has rarely been sharper. He paints a full and lively canvas... Quinn's Book casts a lovely light, indeed." -- Stephen King
 
From the moment he rescues the beautiful, passionate Maud Fallon from the icy waters of the Hudson one wintry day in 1849, Daniel Quinn, a twelve-year-old orphan, is thrust into a bewildering, adventure-filled journey through the tumult of nineteenth-century America. As he quests after the beguiling and elusive Maud (she's fourteen), Daniel will witness the rise and fall of great dynasties in upstate New York, epochal prize fights, exotic life in the theater, visitations from spirits beyond the grave, horrific battles between Irish immigrants and the "Know-Nothings," the vicious New York draft riots, heroic passages through the Underground Railroad, and the bloody despair of the Civil War.
 
Filled with Dickensian characters, a vivid sense of history, and marvelously inventive humor, Quinn's Book is an engaging delight by a modern master.
 
"Engrossing and eerily profound." -- Time
 
"Our history comes to us, grandiloquent and ennobled, translated by Kennedy back into a language of the heart." -- San Francisco Chronicle