Review: "Golden Hill," Francis Spufford

By Paul Carrier

I’m not in the habit of quoting dust-jacket blurbs in book reviews. After all, the point of the exercise is to offer my humble opinion of the book in question, rather than someone else’s assessment.

But I’ll make an exception in the case of Golden Hill, a novel by Francis Spufford that is set in 1740s New York. BBC Radio 4 hit the proverbial nail on the head when it described Golden Hill as “the best eighteenth-century novel since the eighteenth century.”

Published in 2016, Golden Hill takes its name from a section of New York City during the colonial period. The novel follows the adventures of a genial and handsome but mysterious 24-year-old Brit calling himself Mr. Smith.

Smith’s tale opens with a 17-line sentence -- yes, one sentence -- that conjures up a writing style from a much earlier time than our own. There are enough archaic flourishes thrown into the novel to give Golden Hill an 18-century feel, thanks to the use of such terms as “mulligrubs” (a sullen mood), “congress” (sexual intercourse), and “mountebank” (a charlatan). Letters and notes written by characters display the odd capitalization and formal, stilted grammar of the time period.

If that makes it sound like Golden Hill is stuffy, however, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a rollicking romp stuffed with memorable people and twists and turns aplenty. Among its accomplishments, Golden Hill offers up a convincing recreation of a small but turbulent New York as it might have existed several decades before the American Revolution. And the writing, which is consistently solid, often rises to impressive heights.

 

Newly arrived in New York, Smith walks into Lovell & Company, a counting house, with an order supposedly issued by a British firm for some 1,000 pounds. Smith claims he paid the British issuer for the note, to avoid carrying that much money with him across the Atlantic. So, Smith asks that Lovell & Company pay him off and then seek repayment, in turn, from the British counting house.

But Gregory Lovell, the New York firm’s owner, is understandably suspicious. Who is this newcomer? Is Richard Smith the traveler’s real name? Is he legitimate, or a con artist? Why is he so cagey about his background? What brings him to New York? And what does he intend to do with such a large sum of money? Smith, ever pleasant but always circumspect, isn’t forthcoming.

Smith’s prospects take a turn for the worse in short order, when Lovell learns that a ship newly arrived from Britain is not carrying an expected letter that would confirm Smith’s account of events and verify his financial claim. Predictably, legal problems ensue.

That setback is only one of several misadventures that dog Smith in this picaresque novel, which takes readers on one wild ride. A theft, Smith’s imprisonment (not once, but twice), political turmoil, a near-death experience, a tentative romance, some far-from-tentative sexual antics, and a duel that goes terribly wrong — all fuel the propulsive plot.

Desperate readers who race to learn what secret “errand” prompted Smith to travel to America will not be disappointed when they finally discover the nature of his mission. And late in the game, there’s another equally welcome disclosure as well: the identity of Golden Hill's witty, mischievous narrator. Imaginative, compelling and highly entertaining only begin to describe Spufford’s delightful novel.