Writing a historical novel must be no easy task, especially when it comes making it interesting and relatable. Even though many authors have attempted to do it throughout the years, not all of them have succeeded due to the complexity of the endeavor. Nevertheless, Eric D. Lehman’s 2009 novel is a beautiful work that brings to life a city, even if a person has never visited it. Bridgeport: Tales from the Park City is the biography of a city, something as complex as a single person, if not even more. He brings the history of the geographical location to life through the people the inhabit it, accomplishing the task of creating a new, buzzing type of being, much like P. T. Barnum did in his day.
Even though this city may be rotten now, it was not always this way. Lehman takes a step back in order to allow people to see how vibrant the city was before, something that is not evident in the present day. In this book, one can see how P. T. Barnum, its mayor and benefactor, was not just a skilled businessman and circus entrepreneur: he was also a great city planner. Mainly, he did this by allowing other people to establish their companies there as well. One can see this in the way that he handles the shortage of water that the city encounters after its natural resources dry up. The council gave the problem to Nathaniel Green, who “laid pipes along the city streets, installed hydrants and charged businesses and the public for water” (Lehman 26). Even though this was outlandish for them at first, they then became accustomed to it, as they saw that it was for the improvement of the city.
Lehman treats the city with such care and detail that the reader is led to feel sympathy towards it, especially due to the drastic changes that it has suffered. “Bridgeport’s destiny as an industrial center was a long way off in 1730, when Richard Nichols opened his little shop on the Pequonnock River” (Lehman 22). As one can see, the city did not start being great, but achieved this status through the hard work and dedication of its citizens. As such, it leaves anybody with half a heart wanting for this city to be fantastic again, a certain yearning for history that few books achieve at evoking.
In conclusion, Lehman’s Bridgeport: Tales from the Park City presents the biography of a city, treating it like a person, something that is very interesting. One meets the parents in the form of P. T. Barnum and many of its founders and beneficiaries. Furthermore, one can see it develop, including something as common day as a sewing machine, which gives a person historical perspective. Finally, it gets the reader to care about the city, and how it now it the shadow of what it once was. As a whole, it is a very interesting novel, and it serves to give a fresh and unexpected perspective on history, something that is always welcome.
Works Cited
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Project Guttenberg. Web. 04 Jun. 2016. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59/59-h/59-h.htm#part4>.
Singh, Shubh M. & Chakrabarti, Subho. “A study in dualism: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Indian Journal of Pyschiatry 50.3 (2008): 221-223. Web. 04 Jun. 2016. < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738358/>.
Axelrod, Lloyd. “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde—and John Hunter”. The American Journal of Medicine, 125.6 (2012): 618-620. Web. 04 Jun. 2016. < http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(12)00080-0/fulltext?mobileUi=0>.
