A couple of weeks ago a gentleman bought a couple of books from me and handed me one he’d just read, Pete Hamill’s
Snow in August. Hamill is a legendary figure in NYC, both as a journalist and man about town. He also wrote fiction. Although the main character of the novel is Irish and 13 years older than me, I related to him very well. He is a lot wiser and more scholarly than I was as a pre-teen. We both are baffled by the bittersweet mystery of life. The novel is set in post-war Brooklyn, the bulk of it during 1947, the year Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball. I am a proud Brooklyn boy, and Hamill captures our beloved borough perfectly, although his neighborhood, near Prospect Park, was completely foreign to me, despite the fact that it was only a few miles away. By the time I was the character’s age, the Brooklyn I knew was more peaceful and less impoverished than the one he’d known. We had our bigots and thugs, but they weren’t the danger to us that they are to Michael Devlin and Rabbi Hirsch. My eyes glazed a couple of times during the course of the book. It is beautiful even in its telling of grief. It is written in a clear, clean style one would expect from a journalist, untainted by pseudo-literary excess. Although I found the climax problematic, it does not come out of leftfield. I wonder how many readers reacted or will react skeptically to Hamill's use of the supernatural. I would have preferred a solution grounded in human ingenuity. Perhaps this simply reflects the lack of faith of an agnostic such as I. Rabbi Hirsch believes he failed to set the force on the Nazis’ evil because he had lost faith, doubted God, which is understandable given what he witnessed. Yet an adolescent Irish-American succeeds in conjuring the Golem. In the Afterword, Hamill says the theme of the novel is: “first we imagine, then we live.” I wished I believed that God cares, that He sends the Golem to protect the faithful. I would love to be wrong about life’s greatest mystery. Then again, maybe we have Golem in the form of drones. Maybe he lives in the hearts of those who served and are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in those of the agents worldwide who stand guard against the scourge of Islamic fanatics. I hope so. On a scale of five, I rate
Snow in August four.
It was quite a day for the floating book shop. Since I had a dentist appointment in Bay Ridge, I chose to set up on the busy strip at 86th Street between 4th & 5th Avenue. I was already ahead of game. Dr K purchased
Killing and now owns all four of my books. His wife Ann, his assistant, said she hoped it wasn't as scary as
A Hitch in Twilight. Their son David recently turned 17 and has begun scouting colleges that specialize in science. He is a member of the Robotics team at his high school, and it created a robot that can throw a Frisbee, which they will enter into a contest. I remember him seated on the floor of the office, playing with his magic set, performing tricks for me. Good luck, David.
No sooner had I reached the now closed HSBC Bank on the sunny side of 86th Street, and displayed my books, when a young woman asked what they were about. When she heard that
Killing was about three generations of combat veterans, she jumped on it. She is an Air Force veteran herself and comes from a family in which generations have served. Thank you, Sunny. Given her beautiful smile, she was named perfectly. My thanks also to the young Asian gentleman who purchased Mary Carter's
The Pub Across the Pond, a novel about a 30-year-old American woman who wins an Irish bar in a raffle.
Of course, life being a bittersweet journey, our joys are often balanced by sorrow. Two great women passed away today: Margaret Thatcher, 87, the Iron Lady, daughter of a grocer, a Golem in her own right who stood up to the unions and saved England's economy; and Annette Funicello, 70, everyone's favorite Mouseketeer, who succumbed to a 25-year battle with MS. Rest in peace, ladies, and thank you.
Vic's Third Novel (Print or Kindle):
http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3 Vic's Website:
http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/ Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle):
http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb Vic's 2nd Novel:
http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6 Vic's 1st Novel:
http://tiny.cc/94t5h Vic's Screenplay on Kindle:
http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
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