Snow in August
- Book Review,
by Pete Hamill
Amazon.com
In 1940s Brooklyn, friendship between an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy and an elderly Jewish rabbi might seem as unlikely as, well, snow in August. But the relationship between young Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch is only one of the many miracles large and small contained in Pete Hamill's novel. Michael finds himself in trouble when he witnesses the 17-year-old leader of the dreaded Falcons gang beating an elderly shopkeeper. For Michael, 1940s Brooklyn is a world still shaped by life in the Old Country, a world where informing on a fellow Irishman is the worst crime imaginable--worse even than the violent crimes committed by some of those fellows. So Michael keeps silent, finding solace in the company of Rabbi Hirsch, a Czech refuge whom he meets by chance. From this serendipitous beginning blossoms a unique friendship--one that proves perilous to both when the Falcons catch up with them. Interlaced with Hamill's realistic descriptions of violence and fear are scenes of remarkable poignancy: the rabbi's first baseball game, where he sees Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers; Michael's introduction into the mystical world of the Cabbala and the book's miraculous ending. Hamill is not a lyrical writer, but he is a heartfelt one, and this story of courage in the face of great odds is one of his best.
From Library Journal
In Brooklyn in 1947, Michael Devlin, an 11-year-old Irish kid who spends his days reading Captain Marvel and anticipating the arrival of Jackie Robinson, makes the acquaintance of a recently emigrated Orthodox rabbi. In exchange for lessons in English and baseball, Rabbi Hirsch teaches him Yiddish and tells him of Jewish life in old Prague and of the mysteries of the Kabbalah. Anti-Semitism soon rears its head in the form of a gang of young Irish toughs out to rule the neighborhood. As the gang escalates its violence, it seems that only being as miraculously powerful as Captain Marvel?or a golem?could stop them. Strongly evoking time and place, Hamill (Piecework, LJ 12/95), editor of New York's Daily News, serves up a coming-of-age tale with a hearty dose of magical realism mixed in. Recommended for most public libraries.?Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, Mass.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Robert Lipsyte
Somewhere between the Brooklyns of Chaim Potok and Spike Lee lies Pete Hamill's brawling, brokenhearted borough, as gritty, sentimental and ultimately optimistic as its creator. In Mr. Hamill's childhood Brooklyn of 50 years ago, Jackie Robinson, man and metaphor, danced off first base, bursting to lead the United States into postwar possibility while the legacies of hate against the Jews and the Irish clutched at his ankles. In his blunt, didactic, pleasing style, Mr. Hamill has told versions of this story many times... But in his new novel, Snow in August, Mr. Hamill adds magic. This time, salvation is not in the Dodgers and Jackie, it is in the kabbala and the golem.
From AudioFile
In fairness, no reader could rescue this maudlin, ultimately juvenile work of fiction. The story, which concerns the relationship between a fatherless Irish-Catholic boy in post-WWII Brooklyn and a rabbi survivor of the Holocaust, is insipid and replete with caricature. Unfortunately, Mitchell only compounds the deficiencies. He is a stilted reader whose attempts at accents-Irish, Yiddish and Brooklyn-are uniformly unconvincing or worse. He gives Southerner Red Barber a bad New York twang and manages to butcher one or two Hebrew pronunciations. His performance is nearly as embarrassing as Hamill's. M.O. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
In Brooklyn in the late 1940s, adolescent Michael Devlin is a dutiful son to his widowed mother and a conscientious altar boy at the parish church. One day, he meets Rabbi Judah Hirsch, a chance encounter that inaugurates a friendship with vast consequences, good and bad, for both of them. Michael lost his father in the war, and the rabbi, a recent immigrant to this country, lost his wife. The threads of their connection widen and strengthen as the rabbi endeavors to teach Michael about his native Prague and Jewish customs and lore, and the boy, in turn, instructs the rabbi about things American, including baseball. But Michael's awakening does not stop there; sadly, he learns hard lessons, to the point of bodily harm, about anti-Semitism. In fact, Michael must turn to extreme measures to effect a resolution to the problem of hatemongering; using his new storehouse of knowledge, he summons a golem! An intelligent, heartfelt, and ironically charming novel that will certainly enhance the reputation of this popular writer. Brad Hooper
From Kirkus Reviews
The eighth novel by New York journalist/now New York Post editor Hamill (Loving Women, 1989; the memoir A Drinking Life, 1994, etc.) finds him as readable as ever. In postwar working-class Brooklyn, Irish Catholic Michael Devlin, 11, is obsessed with comics, worships Captain Marvel, and wonders why shouting SHAZAM! doesn't turn him into a superhero. His naivet‚ is crucial to the story, it turns out, since this slice-of-life tale metamorphoses at the finish completely and unexpectedly into fantasy. Michael and two friends are in Mr. Greenberg's candy store when psychopathic bully Frankie McCarthy, 17, comes in, beats up friendly ``Mister G,'' and drops the cash register onto the owner's head, putting him into a coma. Although Michael is a witness, the code of the Irish goes against being a squealer. As his widowed mother Kathleen reminds him, Judas was the world's worst informer. Frankie is detained by the police and lets Michael know that he'll get his face carved up if he turns rat. For good measure, Michael is beaten up by Frankie's gang, the Falcons, who break his leg. After he's released from the hospital, he's attacked again, along with Kathleen. She still won't let Michael rat on Frankie, but she plans to move to Bay Ridge. Meantime, Michael has become the goy who works on the Jewish sabbath for a very poor rabbi. While the rabbi teaches him Yiddish in return for Michael's correcting his own English, the two become richly involved in the career of Jackie Robinson, the first black player to crack the majors. The rabbi also tells Michael about Rabbi Loew's golem, the Captain Marvel of the Jews. When Michael hears that Frankie McCarthy has got a pistol and intends to kill him, he decides to summon up a superhero of his own. A slow-moving opening, with Hamill as earnestly humorless as ever, but the time-warp element and terrific descriptions will appeal to many. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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