A long-overdue reissue restores to print an 1892 novel that is generally acknowledged as one of the earliest and finest works of Anglo-Jewish fiction. A scholarly and informative Introduction by editor Rochelson capably summarizes the life and influence of its once-famous author (18641926) as fiction writer, journalist, playwright, and political activist. Published both in Zangwill's native England (he was a second-generation Jew of Latvian and Polish heritage) and in America as the initial offering of the Jewish Publication Society, Children of the Ghetto—the author's third book of fiction—was an instant critical and popular success. Its exhaustively detailed portrayal of social, economic, and marital strife in London's Whitechapel Ghetto (where Zangwill was born) brings to vivid life an impressive gallery of believably thoughtful characters—most notably those torn between the new science and theology of the ending century and the tradition-bound world of their fathers. Prominent among Zangwill's several protagonists are Hannah Jacobs, who sacrifices her own happiness to obey her parents' beliefs; Esther Ansell, a troubled freethinker who will fulfill her intellectual ambitions only by writing in the guise of a male author; and Raphael Leon and Joseph Strelitsky, each of whom is both embittered and empowered by the tension between his commitment to orthodoxy and his conviction that the world is changing in ways his elders' wisdom can't comprehend. The frequent objection to the comparatively undramatic ``Book Two: Grandchildren of the Ghetto''- -that it amounts to little more than Zionist propaganda—has merit; yet even in its flatly argumentative pages, the resolutions of its characters' moral dilemmas are presented with passionate force. And few have ever denied that the racy color and vitality of its first half (``Book One: Children of the Ghetto'') make this one of the liveliest novels of its period. An incomparable portrait of a culture in transition—and a classic that truly deserves to be rediscovered and remembered.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8143-2593-9
Page Count: 523
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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