From Publishers Weekly
Based on novelist Ragen's own experiences growing up in an
ethnically mixed low-income housing project in the Rockaways,
this novel opens a window into the bittersweet world of the
Markowitz family as they struggle to make ends meet in 1950s
New York City. A first-generation Jewish immigrant with
incredible reserves of optimism and ambition, David
Markowitz trades in his religious identity for the promised
gold of America, believing that "if you really wanted to, if
you worked your can off, you could not only get out of
Brooklyn, but get Brooklyn out of you." After being conned
into making a bad investment that leaves him and his family
financially and emotionally bankrupt, David dies suddenly.
For the first time in her life, his wife, Ruth, must take
sole responsibility for her three children, something that
seems overwhelmingly difficult. Ruth manages to enroll her
eldest son, Jesse, and her daughter, Sara, at a private
Jewish day school. Sara embraces her educational and
spiritual environment and finds hope and self-renewal in the
form of her parents' lost religion. But Jesse, to his
mother's dismay, refuses to attend the school and instead
self-educates himself in business so that he can fulfill his
father's vision of success. Terrorizing his mother with his
unreasonable plans and propositions, he self-destructs.
Ragen (The Ghost of Hannah Mendes; Sotah) elaborates on her
usual themes, extolling the comforting power of faith in a
hostile modern world. Working with familiar characters, plot
and setting, she crafts a comforting if somewhat shopworn
tale of family, hope, religion and the dark side of the
American dream.