HE HILL

by Howard Fast ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 3, 1963

A modern miracle play written as a script for the screen and set in today's Harlem where ""the Hill"" is the heart of the Negro ghetto. The whole climate of opinion is in terms of the people of the area:- Joshua is suspect because he makes friends of the oppressed and depressed and is at odds with his father, Joseph; the ""pov"" is the point of view of one character or another; the eyes of the reader are the eyes of the camera. Read with this in mind, one follows closely the shifting scene, from the streets and the shops to Mt. Morris where the final scene is played out. Almost--Howard Fast succeeds. He fails where the family of which Joshua is a part becomes a family devoutly celebrating the Jewish Passover, his friends- the twelve- join with them in the Passover Seder- and 'Cariot betrays him to the Romans, equipped with Tommy guns. Somehow the modern idiom and prototypes should have been sustained and the crucifixion on the hill been a modern parallel. Despite these shortcomings- which seem almost fallacies- the impact is tremendous, far greater than Hollywood's interpretation of the passion and death of a Jewish carpenter two thousand years ago. Not to be overlooked, and surely controversial.

Pub Date: Jan. 3, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1963

Categories: FICTION