fiction with his knowledge of history. "The one thing I wanted to show was that people back then are a lot more like people today than we realize," said Carr. Carr researched the science and literature of the time period and noted, "The biggest challenge was to study the psychological literature of that day so that none of my characters would not know more than they could have known in terms of psychology. We're talking about a time when Sigmund Freud had just published his first book." Author Paul Levine compares Kreizler to Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud. He likens The Alienist to Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow; both stories fuse historical fiction with real characters from the time period. Levine notes the story serves as a "painless history lesson", and comments that the juxtaposition of J.P. Morgan's lifestyle with " the teeming tenements where police dare not enter", serve as "reminders that crime and class distinction are hardly new". Carr has said that "The Alienist is about how violent behavior is perpetuated from one generation to the next." The Alienist "explores the causes of insanity and criminality, and ultimately the nature of evil". Another theme is destiny, and the novel investigates New York City's destiny, "saying its basic character and problems have endured over history". Reception Sales and marketing Random House paid Carr an advance of $60,000 for the book. Paperback rights were sold at auction to Bantam for $1,001,000. The book made Publishers Weekly's list of best-sellers in April 1994, and during the summer of 1994 reached between no. 4 and no. 7 on The New York Times Best Seller list. Reviews The book has received generally favorable reviews; "while most critics found it entertaining, some said it was sometimes flabby with historical detail and its prose was less than literature." In a review published in Booklist, Brad Hooper calls The Alienist and Caleb Carr's sequel, The Angel of Darkness, "superbly atmospheric and compelling". A review of The Alienist in Forbes comments: "Wonderfully evocative of the age, this fascinating, fast-paced spine-tingler never flags." Writing for The Record, Laurence Chollet notes: "The story feels like a Sherlock Holmes tale, reads like a modern thriller, and is historically accurate." In his review in The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Victor Greto wrote: "Through his research into the New York of the late 19th century, [Carr] has also fleshed out an atmosphere and