Spindle City
A Novel

Quotes

“Saga fans on a time crunch will find in Burrello’s debut many of the appeal factors without the typical multivolume commitment.” Booklist

“With Spindle City, Jotham Burrello sets himself the seemingly impossible task of anatomizing pre–World War I America through the prism of a single mill town—and succeeds resoundingly. This portrait of desires and discontents radiating outward from the poorest families to titans of wealth recalls Ragtime in its sweep and brings our past to achingly present life.” Louis Bayard, author of Courting Mr. Lincoln

“In Spindle City, New England of a century ago is reborn a riot of cotton bales and quahog bushels, toboggan rides and Model Ts. Whether we find ourselves amidst the euphoria of a city-wide carnival or within the hearts of his grieving, striving characters, Jotham Burrello isolates, in the particularities of this lost world, timeless lessons about loyalty, ambition, and human resilience. A roaring debut.” Nathaniel Rich, author of King Zeno and Odds against Tomorrow

“In the grand tradition of E. L. Doctorow and Paula McLain, Jotham Burrello’s assured debut novel blends historical reality with invention as he creates textile mill owner Joseph Bartlett, who stands astride a world on the narrow edge of dangerous change. Even as Bartlett revels in his prosperity, he mourns his dying wife, and as union agitators are pitted against bosses, his sons are overtaken by the horrors of World War I. What could be a catalog of momentous events springs to life as Burrello infuses his characters with passion and humanity.” Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

“Love, friendship, thievery, abuse, robber barons, rotten teeth, the smell of hot nuts at a summer parade, and the decline of the great New England textile mills: Spindle City has it all. A delight to the intellect, the emotions, and the senses.” Emily Barton, author of Brookland and The Book of Esther

“In Spindle City, a delicately embroidered novel stitched with intrigue, author Jotham Burrello reimagines the early twentieth-century heyday of Fall River, Massachusetts, through the rise and fall of textile manufacturer Joseph Bartlett—a man beset by two wayward sons, the winds of labor agitation, and a secret he carries like a millstone. From the Portuguese laborers on the shop floors to the Yankee Brahmins in the city’s exclusive Highlands, Burrello captures the bustling spirit, complex social mores, and cutthroat underbelly of a lost world with a pitch-perfect ear and a generous heart. For those who enjoy their literary fiction with a historical weave, Spindle City rivals the best of E. L. Doctorow or A. S. Byatt. A stunning, stylish debut from an author who has mastered both the nuances of William Howard Taft’s America and the intricacies of the human condition.” Jacob M. Appel, author of The Liars’ Asylum, Millard Salter’s Last Day, and many others

“This well-crafted historical novel also succeeds in balancing big ideas about social justice, particularly regarding class, with tight plotting…It is a nuanced portrait of both the ruling and working classes in a highly interesting time and place in American history.” New City Lit

“The book explores working-class America and the vast divide between employer and employee. It is also about secrets, family, and dreams and expectations…It is clear that the author engaged in in-depth historical research, as it evokes the feel of the mill town from a century ago and provides the reader with interesting context.” Historical Novels Review

Awards

• PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel