Library Director’s Notebook                       May,...

Thu, 04/26/2012 - 1:10pm -- KChin

                

                     Library Director’s Notebook

                      May, 2012

Some authors write books that might have been set at any time, at any place; others become known for specific localities or historical periods.  Fans of Pete Hamill, of whom I am one, know that he is best identified with New York, particularly the “old” New York of some decades ago.  And although it’s been said so often that it has become somewhat of a literary cliché,  in Hamill’s books old New York is so well loved and described in such authentic detail, that the city itself becomes an important character in the story.

In Hamill’s book North River, the city is struggling severely during the early years of the Great Depression.  James Delaney is an educated man and a compassionate doctor who tends to the needs of his many poor, often uneducated and down-on-their luck neighbors, whose many illnesses are the result of poverty, ignorance, and crime as much as they are of disease.  In some ways a fish out of water in his crowded, tumbledown neighborhood, Delaney is often seen as the last and only hope of desperate people who will probably never be able to pay him for his help.

As a result, Delaney is poor in finances but rich in friends.  Those friends come from every level of society, including some very dangerous mobsters and unsavory politicians. All of them see Delaney as an enigma and wonder why he bothers to treat the poor when he might so easily lead a life of relative ease.  They know little about his personal life or his private demons, although it is common knowledge that his wife Molly killed herself and his daughter Grace  has run off with a communist revolutionary.

When she left for Spain, Grace unceremoniously deposited her two year old son Carlitto on Delaney’s doorstep.  With the surprise arrival of his little grandson, whom he has never seen, Delaney’s well-ordered, lonely life takes an astounding turn. The quiet house is filled with the eager footsteps of a little boy and the smells of the good Italian cooking his newly hired housekeeper Rose brings to his once sterile home. 

But this is not a light-hearted, feel-good story.   Although there is romance and although there is love, there is violence, betrayal, fear, and self-loathing as well.  The road to a more fulfilling life for Delaney and his grandson is threatened with countless dangers and obstacles; a successful outcome is not a given .  The journey for the reader, immersed in the richness of the relationships and the loving re-creation of time and place, is its own reward.

Blog Category: 
chat loading...