Story Building Book

The title of "The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York" is misleading only in that it's not as all-encompassing as it could be. The subtitle could easily have included an alcoholic fiction writer, a slave-turned-fabulist, and an ill-used astronomer, and as a result been even more inclusive of the book's many subplots. (That would take into account Edgar Allan Poe, Joice Heth and John Herschel, respectively.)

Matthew Goodman has saved from obscurity a fascinating if relatively minor chapter in the history of journalism, New York City in the 1830s, and 19th-century literature. Important or not, "The Sun and the Moon" is great fun, whether it's focusing on P.T. Barnum, New York's rival newspaper publishers, or the various hoaxes -- or, in the parlance of the time, humbugs -- of the day.

While the ostensible focus of the book is a series of articles by Richard Adams Locke that ran in the New York Sun in 1835 -- a series that claimed winged men and other creatures had been discovered on the Moon, and which helped boost the Sun's circulation to the point that it became the most widely read newspaper in the world -- Goodman uses the series merely as a starting point to discuss Poe, Heth, Barnum and other figures who were connected to Locke, some directly, some tangentially, and all of them interesting in their own right.

The decision to do so was a smart one. The story of the Moon series, while interesting, is a bit thin for a full-length book. (By bringing in the other stories, though, the book becomes jam-packed with material.) Also, not a lot is known about Locke himself or his motives for writing the series. As a result, Goodman finds himself at times speculating on what Locke thought, saw or felt -- or, as is common in history books intended for a general readership, describing somewhat generically the time period and places in which he lived. These are easily the weakest sections of the book, with one in particular -- a description of Locke's trip across the Atlantic that's almost completely speculative -- being especially wanting. Fortunately, such passages are confined mostly to the book's early pages, and lessen as the story progresses and Goodman has a greater amount of printed source material from which to work.

The book's only other significant weakness is a passage near its conclusion in which Goodman seems to accept without reservations Locke's published explanation -- an explanation that came many years after the original publication of the Moon series -- for writing the articles: They never were intended to be accepted as fact, but rather were meant as satire. Maybe. Or maybe Locke decided later, in a bid to burnish his reputation, that this explanation made him appear better than a simple flimflam man. Goodman never seems to consider this though, and never explains to his readers why we shouldn't consider it ourselves.

These are relatively minor quibbles though. "The Sun and the Moon" is a lot of fun, and its few weaknesses can be easily overlooked. Few readers with even a passing interest in New York in the 19th century, the development of newspaper journalism, or famous hoaxes will have many complaints about this book.