A Family Examined – This Is Not about Us, by Allegra Goodman

I had quite a wait for this novel – I think there were about 150 people ahead of me on the library's hold list. I'm happy to say it was worth it.Allegra Goodman does not disappoint, whether she is writing about the generations of a Jewish family, as in this book, or in Isola, about a 16th century French noblewoman who is abandoned and stranded on an island in St. Lawrence River in Canada but lives to tell the tale. That shows the diversity of her talent.

The Rubensteins are a close family, but when Jeanne, the youngest of three sisters in their seventies, dies of lung cancer, a petty argument between the remaining sisters Sylvia and Helen over apple cake develops into a long-standing feud between them, and creates awkwardness among the other family members.

That is a kick-off into an examination of the relationships between parents and children, husbands and wives (and that of the family's lesbian granddaughter/niece/cousin and her wife), younger siblings, and cousins. We meet them all in this story: Sylvia's son Richard whose wife Debra is divorcing him, their concerns about their two daughters, and the subsequent developments that impact them; Helen's older daughter Pam and her personal difficulties; Helen's younger daughter Wendy and her protective, loving wife Jill; and, Jeanne's sons Steve and Dan, their marriages to Andrea and Melanie, and their kids, Zach and Nate, and Phoebe.

As in every family, there are conflicts and disappointments, joyful occasions and celebrations. Goodman paints a complex portrait of a Jewish family that many readers will relate to, no matter what their ethnicity or religion.

The writing is beautiful, just descriptive enough to provide context, and cuts straight to describing the emotions felt by the family members as they cope with their individual challenges and find their places in a changing world. For Helen and Sylvia, who towards the end of the book, are now approaching or just past 80, it's also a look back while they continue to move forward.

I was glad to read about multiple characters who are at later points in life, the sisters at 80-something, their children in their 40s and 50s, but also the grandchildren finding their ways through adolescence and young adulthood. It was a multi-faceted portrait, but age and experience, while respected, were not shown to be infallible. A good story, all around.

Looking Back to a Better Time – Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American by Rachel Gordan

This scholarly book examines what the author, Rachel Gordan, calls anti-antisemitism writing, in novels and non-fiction books about Judaism, and in magazines, starting just after World War II and going into the 1950s. One of the most famous examples of fiction of the period is the 1947 Gentleman's Agreement, by Laura Z. Hobson, a novel about a gentile journalist who goes undercover as a Jew to write about the experience of antisemitism and exclusion in New York City and the upper class suburbs of Connecticut. It was a tremendous bestseller, and was made into an Oscar-winning movie with Gregory Peck in the leading role.

Another is the 1958 Exodus, by Leon Uris, about the founding of the State of Israel following the voyage of the immigration ship "Exodus". It too was made into a highly successful film, released in 1960, starring Paul Newman in the central role. Though I was a young child in pajamas in the back of my parents' car at a drive-in theater, I still remember the impression made on me by its stirring music and vivid graphic opening.

Gordan examines other best-selling fiction by such writers as Herman Wouk, the author of Marjorie Morningstar and The Caine Mutiny, who also wrote the non-fiction This Is My God, his interpretation of Judaism (also a bestseller), and similar non-fiction texts by rabbis of the period. Wouk was a practitioner of Modern Orthodox Judaism, and the other books examined Judaism from the Reconstructionist and Reform viewpoints.

In addition, she describes the special features on Judaism (and other major religions) in mainstream magazines like "Time", "Life", and "Look", which were revolutionary in bringing a Jewish perspective into the mainstream of American life.

On the whole, it presents a positive view of the evolution and mainstreaming of Jewish life in America after World War II, and onward, until the last decade or so, when we began to see obvious evidence of increased antisemitism once again, typified by the Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh in 2018. It is a highly informative and fascinating book, but it was written before the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and the ensuing events. Since then, everything has changed, and the hopeful sentiments of this book must, sadly, be viewed as nostalgia.

Growing Up in The Bronx – City Boy by Herman Wouk

This charming book by Herman Wouk chronicles the adventures of Herbie Bookbinder, an eleven-year-old Jewish boy growing up in The Bronx of the pre World War II era. Even though Herbie is a child, and an intellectually precocious one, this is a book for adults.

 
Herbie lives with his parents and older sister in an apartment in the working class East Bronx, and his father is a partner in an ice business, an essential in the days before refrigerators had arrived in households. It is 1928, and the horrors of The Great Depression, World War II and The Holocaust are yet to come. In that respect it is an innocent era, and boys Herbie's age enjoy a visit to the corner soda fountain for a "frap" (an ice-cream soda), or to buy the latest comic book.

Herbie has a crush on his 7th-grade teacher, and then on a girl in his class, who becomes his girlfriend, in the most innocent sense of the word. Unlike some of his classmates, he is not an athlete, and not interested in sports. He would much rather spend his time reading. He is stout, and some of his classmates torment him at times for it.

Herbie, his sister, his girlfriend, and his cousin, along with his nemesis, the ultra-athletic son of his father's partner, end up spending the summer at a sleep-away camp in the mountains, where many of his escapades are based, and where he misses his parents, but also pays little attention to regularly writing to them.

This gentle novel feels as though it might be somewhat autobiographical of the author's own childhood. There are intimations that Herbie may someday go far in life, but as an eleven-year-old, he has more immediate concerns – and worries, though all comes out well in the end.

I enjoyed this book immensely, and as my own father was born in 1917, the same year as Herbie, I'm sure he had some similar experiences in his Philadelphia childhood, some of which I heard about, but many he most likely stored in his memory, and savored over time.

Always a Beautiful Experience – Selected Poems by Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg has been my favorite poet for many years. I find an extraordinary peace in reading his work, and there is always something new in it to discover. I recently found this edition of Selected Poems in a Little Free Library on a walk in my neighborhood – what a lucky day that was...

I truly enjoyed visiting the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in North Carolina, near Hendersonville, and his birthplace in Galesburg, Illinois.

Modern Renaissance Man – Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris

Mike Nichols was an acclaimed director of theater and film, but also acted and performed comedy in his early career, particularly with the writer Elaine May. His most famous movies include "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, "The Graduate" with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, and "Silkwood" with Meryl Streep, Cher, and Kurt Russell, just to name a few. On Broadway, he directed "Barefoot in the Park", "The Odd Couple", and many others. He died in 2014.

This book is an encyclopedic compendium of his many projects, with a tremendous amount of detail, many interviews, and quotations, but it is not an insightful interpretation of the man and what made him tick. The author presents Nichols's life chronologically, with many pages devoted to his childhood and early career. I kept waiting for the author to get into the meat of Nichols's career, and it took a long time for that to happen. I found that his approach made me impatient, and I began skipping sections and chapters to get to the highlights that most interested me.

I found the sheer volume of material to be overwhelming, and felt the book would have been more effective with closer editing and the shortening of some of the chapters. Still, if you are interested in learning everything there is to know about such subjects as the disastrous making of the film "Catch-22", but also the triumph of "The Graduate", then this is the book for you.