DREAMLAND
A Novel
KEVIN BAKER
With love to Ellen—
and the rest of the
fabrente maydlakh
BOOK ONE
New York isa nine-day town.
1.
I know a story.
2.
This is how you kill an elephant.
3.
Call me a dreamer.
4.
It all started that night at the rat pit. . .
5.
I hid them out at Coney. . .
6.
I sat behind the left ear of Satan. . .
BOOK TWO
I have no trust, and fear the prudery. . .
7.
Freud wasn’t sure that he had. . .
8.
They met on the beach at Coney.
9.
It was hotter than ever by the time. . .
10.
This life is too much for me.
11.
That night—the night of that first. . .
BOOK THREE
That cabbages thrive in dung . . .
12.
Big Tim Sullivan sipped his coffee. . .
13.
Esther met him at the main gate. . .
14.
When the train would go no farther. . .
15.
The trick to poisoning a horse was. . .
16.
Gyp walked back over to the Lodz. . .
BOOK FOUR
It is that we are never so . . .
17.
Each of the great parks on Coney. . .
18.
The great green ship lay before them. . .
19.
She sat out on the stoop. . .
20.
“ ‘Girls in Their Nightgowns’!
21.
The funny little man flickered. . .
BOOK FIVE
Dreams do not consist . . .
22.
Their next afternoon, Kid took her. . .
23.
He loitered ecstatically in the night.
24.
In the factory Joseph followed. . .
25.
Our city went up on a back lot of. . .
26.
He walked uptown as the long. . .
27.
By the middle of the morning. . .
28.
Delancey Street was melting. . .
29.
The Talkers’ Cafe was no more than. . .
BOOK SIX
There's always a certain number of. . .
30.
“Look out, you idiot!”
31.
He looked for Herman Rosenthal. . .
32.
On Sunday, Kid took her over. . .
33.
In Bostock’s Circus the great cats. . .
34.
They liked the elephant, and the circus. . .
35.
Monk taught him everything. . .
36.
Spanish Louie was tired of waiting.
37.
He had the dream again.
BOOK SEVEN
Then I heard Siegfield’s horn sounding. . .
38.
Freud had gone uptown in the morning. . .
39.
Their gondolier poled them sullenly. . .
40.
“Where to now, Big Tim?”
41.
Her mother would say that she was. . .
42.
The next Sunday, Sadie was waiting. . .
43.
I didn’t mind when that big fake. . .
44.
Beansy Rosenthal waddled quickly. . .
45.
The annual excursion chowder. . .
BOOK EIGHT
The ancient darkness would. . .
46.
They sat hand in hand, watching. . .
47.
Coming to meet her at Camp’s ice cream. . .
48.
The strike broke out one morning. . .
49.
At the Tombs they were hauled back. . .
50.
Big Tim Sullivan hurried up Broadway. . .
51.
There was a crowd to greet them. . .
52.
They moved together, in one slow, sinuous motion.
53.
The woman surprised him one afternoon. . .
54
Out on the streets, the tide was turning now.
55.
Sadie faded back through the crowd. . .
56.
Esther sat on the worn bedspread. . .
57.
I saw her.
58.
They stood before the rampaging fossils. . .
59.
The night before the election was. . .
BOOK NINE
When the work of interpretation. . .
60.
The greatest roller coaster ride of all time. . .
61.
On their next-to-last day in New York. . .
62.
Big Tim Sullivan stood by the waters. . .
63.
She met Sadie at the settlement house. . .
64.
Gyp waited until she came out. . .
65.
They stood in the Hall of Life. . .
66.
He heard the news about Charlie Becker. . .
67.
The ships glided through the. . .
68.
This is how you kill an elephant.
69.
He heard the nightingales in their. . .
70.
They sent Charlie Becker to the chair. . .
71.
“And that's all?”
72.
The evening after their visit to. . .
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND A NOTE ON SOURCES