The Sun and The Moon: Praise & Reviews
“Mr. Goodman has managed not only to give us a ripping good newspaper yarn but also to illuminate life in the nation’s largest city in the early part of the 19th century. He also provides something of a treatise on the birth of modern mass-market newspapering.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Mr. Goodman’s hucksterish subtitle lives up to its remarkable promise. In this true tale of science fiction the author, a historian, succeeds in recreating mid-19th century Manhattan in vivid fashion. He brings history to life.”
—The New York Times
“A delightful recounting of ‘the most successful hoax in the history of American journalism.’ . . . Goodman consistently entertains with his tale of press manipulation, hucksterism and the seemingly bottomless capacity for people to believe the most outrageous things. Absolutely charming.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A richly detailed and engrossing glimpse of the birth of tabloid journalism in an antebellum New York divided by class, ethnicity and such polarizing issues as slavery, religion and intellectual freedom.”
— Publishers Weekly
“The Sun and the Moon is flat-out fascinating — not only for its brilliant reconstruction of one of the great newspaper hoaxes of the nineteenth century, but also for the Dickensian characters who populate its pages, each more outlandish and outrageous than the other. Hats off to Goodman for one of the most entertaining books about New York City in quite some time.”
— Edwin G. Burrows, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of Gotham
“Highly entertaining.”
— Boston Globe
“[A] delightful history. . . . The genius of The Sun and the Moon is that it endeavors to explore, through the lens of 19th-century New York and the prism of the press, why we believe what we believe, particularly when those beliefs go beyond the pale of plausibility.”
— Los Angeles Times
“A compendious, beautifully written account. . . .The Sun and the Moon transcends the merely colorful and becomes a serious, innovative work of intellectual history. Imagine a version of Herbert Asbury’s Gangs of New York where the central currency is not violence but ideas.”
— The Barnes and Noble Review
“A delightful story. . . . Absolutely fascinating.”
— Washington Times
“In The Sun and the Moon, Matthew Goodman has produced an immensely enjoyable account of one of the greatest (unintended) hoaxes of all time.”
— Times Literary Supplement
“Delightful and intelligent. . . . Through the keyhole of the hoax, Goodman provides a panorama of New York life: the poverty and privilege, the religious manias and fierce debates between abolitionists and slave-holders. It’s a rip-roaring story.”
— Scotland on Sunday (UK)
