Willy Wonka meets Gangs of New York and Let the Great World Spin The Story Begins on September 11th, 1850... Based on the life of Timothy O’Sullivan, Tim is a ten-year-old boy from sleepy Staten Island who is told he must apprentice at Mathew Brady’s daguerreotype studio in 1850. Tim takes the ferry over to York with his father and rides the omnibus up Broadway to Fulton Street. Across from Brady’s Gallery is Barnum’s American Museum filled with all its relics and wondrous curiosities. As Tim ventures inside, he takes us back into New York’s forgotten past and the history of photography. The story begins on September 11th, 1850, with Jenny Lind’s premiere concert at Castle Garden near Battery Park — a night that would be remembered for years to come, as the night when the Swedish Nightingale first sang in New York. All the city is infatuated with Jenny Lind. Great crowds surround her wherever she goes. She is the most sought-after celebrity by all the Broadway photographers, except that her manager, none other than P.T. Barnum himself, will not grant Brady access to Jenny Lind. But Brady shall not be thwarted, not with his observant young assistant, Tim... Book Review on Amazon.com by Grady Harp Author Daniel A. Sheridan studied photojournalism and the history of photography at New York University and served as a darkroom technician at The Photography Workshop, as editor and photographer at Low-RANGE magazine, and as a drummer in the band The Immigrants. TIM is his debut novel – and who better to write this book than Daniel?! For those unfamiliar, Timothy H. O’Sullivan (1840 – 1882) was a photographer widely known for his photographs of the US Civil War and the American West. Bringing to our attention the special gifts of the often-overlooked Timothy H. O’Sullivan, the apprentice to the famous photographer Matthew Brady, this immensely entertaining novel recreates the mid-nineteenth century and an important overview of the history of photography. The interaction between Tim and Brady is beautifully rendered, offering insights into the development from daguerreotype to photograph – or in Brady’s advice to Tim, ‘The war over photography... The French process versus the English process. We must choose our allies carefully and know our enemy. You see, we’ve been working with the daguerreotype process for these last ten years…’ By inserting his own progress in photography alongside Tim’s progress, Daniel makes this book ring true and even more accessible in honoring the art and history of photography. This is a fascinating and beautifully written book – one that deserves a very wide audience. Highly recommended. "A stunning story of youthful determination and a nascent technology that would change the world. Sheridan's descriptive passages capture the same immersive beauty and vivacity of a photograph, and he regularly brings forgotten details of the old smoky metropolis to life. Tim rings with authenticity that readers will relish, inspired as it was by the real Tim O'Sullivan's early experiences. Making readers lose themselves in a fictional history is a masterful skill, which Sheridan demonstrates in spades throughout this brilliant historical portrait." Self-Publishing Review, ★★★★ OnlineBookClub.org review of "Tim" by Patty Allread ★★★★ Set in 1850, Tim by Daniel A. Sheridan is the story of how Timothy O'Sullivan, a ten-year-old immigrant Irish boy living on Staten Island, began working for Mathew Brady in his daguerreotype studio in New York City. The daguerreotype was all the rage and was called "The New Art." Brady takes Tim under his wing and gives him odd jobs while teaching him how a daguerreotype portrait is created. Tim gets to know New York City and meets some colorful and famous people there, including P. T. Barnum, famed writers, poets, and others who come to the studio to have their portraits made. What I loved the most was reading about Tim's day-to-day experiences in nineteenth-century New York City. Sheridan paints a lively picture of the era and the city and explains many of the things that were going on at that time. What might seem quaint now was written with a gritty reality as seen through the eyes of young Tim. Sheridan did a great deal of research not only about the now-famous Brady and O'Sullivan but also about the New York lifestyle in 1850. I have always subscribed to the saying, "I Love New York," and thoroughly appreciated this part of the book. I was intrigued when partway through the book, Sheridan interspersed chapters about his own life in 1985. He writes about specific moments that inspired him and helped lead him to pursue photography and writing. He tells readers at the beginning of each chapter what year he is writing about, so there is no confusion. I could connect some of the dots in the 1985 chapters and see how they reflected what I read about in the 1850 chapters. The only part I could not easily relate to was Sheridan's inclusion of popular music from the 80