LA's Reviews > The Alienist

To paraphrase Jules from Pulp Fiction, "Say Marches Carcano chair one more time...." BAM!

Sorry. My tolerance for the repeated naming of the characters' fabulous Italian chairs, bought at auction, was shot by the fifth time the overinflated verbiage was used. I don't know, maybe the writer - a history buff - made this furniture up based on a famous murder weapon. A Carcano was what was used to kill JFK, if you didn't know. Anyway, I was ready to fire a gun into these ridiculous chairs myself.

EDIT: in trying to give the book its due, I read that the author has gone back to writing non-fiction, military history books. That seemed like a better fit, and I just now clicked on his author profile to see if there were something my son, a military history buff, might like. HA! The first thing I saw was that Caleb Carr read and reviewed The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America - he gave it TWO STARS! Oh the irony.

Let me back up. I first read The Alienist 20 some years ago. Upon joining GoodReads, like you, I went through some lists of books and gauged my old reads based on memory. It was one of those psychological thrillers popular in the late 80s and early 90s. Patricia Cornwell's forensic murder investigations, the FBI profilers who sought out Buffalo Bill via Hannibal Lecter, those true crime books from Ann Rule, and the cult-fave "why-dun-it" The Secret History by Donna Tart were en vogue with publishers and readers alike. Here, we do have some nice tie-ins to real events and personas from late 1800s NYC. Im guessing New Yorkers will have gotten a kick out of this backdrop - this is like CSI NYC: Century 19.

I gave The Alienist three stars then and now a two, re-reading it as a commitment for book club. The story is a Sherlock Holmes-Dr. Watson trope with a token emancipated female, a black sidekick, compassion for the gay community, and a couple of unappreciated-by-the-police-force-but-brilliant Jewish detectives. One of the victims is a kid with middle Eastern heritage, too - the author ticked every box he could including Irish cops on the dole and clergy being paid off by the uber wealthy. He even tossed in some animal cruelty. Lastly, the analysis of abnormal human psychology was about as deep as a write up in Cosmo magazine.

Now, if you have never read any true-crime books or novels where profiling is described, then you may actually enjoy this story. But let me better suggest His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae for something also set in the 1800s and about a thousand times better than this!

I do confess to having a crush on Teddy Roosevelt and initially was delighted to see his role crop up throughout the book - I had forgotten he was in the story. Unfortunately, the author rather wrote Roosevelt like a caricature of himself, even feeling compelled to insert the appearance of Roosevelt's overly boisterous children, one after another. Yes, I know he was a terrific father and loved his children to be active, but this little section was over the top. We had to hear the exclamation BULLY! way too often.

Little stuff that bugged me? There were sections in The Alienist where the characters turned their noses up at hardworking farmers or less affluent passengers on a train, and yet while at the opera, their dialogue slammed New York's upper crust for not wanting to associate with a mere crime reporter and an alienist/psychologist. Aside from the constant mention of the aforementioned Marchese Carcano chairs, their giddiness over opera, the description of multiple six course meals at Delmonico's, and the need to change into dinner clothes gave the entire book a snotty, metro-sexual feel. I'm generally okay with unlikeable protagonists and often get attached to even the most unsavory anti-hero. Here, they were just written too snarky for me to care about.

Save yourself the time and effort, and just watch the January 22nd debut of The Alienist on TNT. The costumes and late 1800s backgrounds guarantee to be lush, and I'll bet the screenwriters do a good job with the rewrite.

And for God's sake, keep a look out for those ridiculous Italian chairs.

EDIT. The TNT series includes a subplot with the journalist who is now instead an illustrator (so we can see the reactions of those who view his sketches of the murdered?) tying to some secret marriage fantasy. The chairs haven't appeared just yet! Ha.