Dreamland - Kevin Baker

I started this book awhile back when I was in my phase of new novels with Dickens-like plots (I thought of it as a cross between A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold). This book started out great - set in the early 20th century in NY, it follows a number of coney island performers, young women working in sweatshops, young men trying to scrape by, and a whole bunch of people in between. I enjoyed reading about the characters lives and seeing how they all interacted. Then, it seemed to turn into one of those memoirs I read too many of in college of the strikers turned socialists (like that musical "Newsies" - which I highly recommend). And I put it down for a few months. The book is about 200 pages too long, but it's a good story, I just got a little tired of it after awhile.