North River
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Written by Pete Hamill.
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Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they can't pay, he treats them anyway.But in his own life, Delaney is emotionally numb, haunted by the slaughters of the Great War. His only daughter has left for Mexico, and his wife Molly vanished months before, leaving him to wonder if she is alive or dead. Then, on a snowy New Year's Day, the doctor returns home to find his three-year-old grandson on his doorstep, left by his mother in Delaney's care. Coping with this unexpected arrival, Delaney hires Rose, a tough, decent Sicilian woman with a secret in her past. Slowly, as Rose and the boy begin to care for the good doctor, the numbness in Delaney begins to melt.
Recreating 1930s New York with the vibrancy and rich detail that are his trademarks, Pete Hamill weaves a story of honor, family, and one man's simple courage that no reader will soon forget.
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MaTitwonky thinks this book is Excellent.
Pete Hamill has written a wonderful book about New York City during the depression. Dr Delaney's wife has disappeared, his daughter took off to pursue the notion of being a revolutionary, and he has been left to deal with his patients and the lives he can save as well as those he cannot. And then one snowy day, his daughter leaves her son in Delaney's vestibule while she goes off in search of her husband who may be in Mexico or Spain or somewhere else entirely. So Delaney is left with the job of caring for his grandson who does not know him, is 2 years old, and scared at having been abandoned by his mother. Delaney hires Rose, a Sicilian woman, to care for Carlos, his grandson, so Delaney can continue ministering to his patients. What happens to Delaney and his newly formed little family forms the basis for the rest of this well-written book.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves to read about New York City and how things were during the depression. Hamill provides a history lesson without ever seeming to be the instructor in a classroom of New York City history. He also captures the hopelessness and helplessness of that time when there was no work but people got sick anyway, and men's frustrations often took themselves out on their wives.
There's also a love story in North River as well as illustrations of loyalty and what that meant during the uncertain times in NYC's history. There is no huge fanfare in North River; just the continuing evolving story of Delaney and those in his world of mob connected individuals, prostitutes, policemen, and the never ending stories of the sick who always need his help.
I loved Pete Hamill's observations on the city of NY and those who inhabited it during the 1920's. It's a very good story, very well told. It's a keeper.