GOLDEN HILL

Spufford’s first novel (after writing five works of nonfiction) has gone down a treat with British reviewers and readers. It was one of the most cited novels on the end-of-year lists in the UK and it’s not hard to see why.

Set in 1746 in the f ledgling city of New York, a handsome but enigmatic young man, Mr Smith, turns up at a counting house with an order for the extraordinary sum of a thousand pounds. Refusing to explain himself, Smith immediately becomes the talk of the town. Is he a wealthy eccentric or is he a fraud? Having set up this tantalising question, the rollicking narrative proceeds with the hero lurching from one deadly predicament to the next, pursued by an angry mob intent on doing him harm, jailed for fraud and facing the hangman’s noose and, finally, challenged to a duel!

The central romance is equally boisterous with Smith drawn to Tabitha, the prickly and poisonous daughter of Mr Lovell, the trader who is obliged to honour the bank note. Their courtship is a series of spars and jabs. A much more harmonious relationship is enjoyed by Smith’s one friend, Septimus, who has a clandestine and utterly taboo relationship with his slave, Achilles.

Reminiscent of Fielding’s Tom Jones or Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (although much more energetic and compelling), when the answer to the novel’s burning mystery is finally revealed in the closing pages, it proves to be inspired, brilliant and utterly surprising.