The Golems of Gotham: A Novel

by Thane Rosenbaum

Book Overview

Many years have passed since Oliver Levin -- a bestselling mystery writer and a lifetime sufferer from blocked emotions -- has given any thought to his parents, Holocaust survivors who committed... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060959452
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

great literature

It's several different stories that although it deals w/ the Holocaust, applies to all of us. It is powerful, beautiful, gripping. With Fascism & Nazism again marching across the U.S. & Europe, it has very pointed and specific lessons that need to be learned again. And, again. It can happen here and it's stealthy. I'll be looking at his other writing too. Not to be missed.

Dealing with grief and loss

This book is about Oliver, son of two Holocaust survivors who made him an orphan by taking their own lives while he was in college. Equally devastating to Oliver was the fact that his wife deserted him and their two year old daughter, Ariel. It is also about Ariel, now a teenager, who has become the emotional caretaker in their family of two out of necessity, because Oliver is too waterlogged with grief and loss that he has kept buried all these years. Ariel, through kabbalism, brings back Holocaust writers as ghosts, along with ghosts of Oliver's parents, to save her father. The Holocaust itself is a character here - actually, the best developed character. The story itself is amusing, if not laugh-out-loud funny, but it is told in loosely connected segments, divided by segments that delve into the realm of philosophy. I would not recommend this story as a great read if all you want is amusement. The thing that makes this book so fantastic is the intimate and literary way in which Rosenbaum explores grief and loss. Rosenbaum is specifically examining the particular loss experienced by Holocaust survivors and their children, but the grief and loss he actually evokes is more generic. Rosenbaum's work illuminates the bleak emotional state that is the product of experiencing alienation from family and the near inability of the self to face that kind of rejection. Ariel not only saves her father in these pages, she also saves the readers who suffer from alienation for an infinite variety of reasons. The reader first experiences Oliver's pain, and then his transformation vicariously. On closing the book after reading the last page, this reader felt lighter and more hopeful about a lifetime of alienation than she ever would have beliefed possible. Rosenbaum has contributed mightily to the world's literature in ways that he himself, perhaps, didn't even realize, as he pursued his quest to make sure that the world does not forget the ultimate horror of the Holocaust.

best ever

This may be one of the best novels I have ever read. It is amazing to me. I find myself responding on many levels... a mirror of realities I have never articulated but felt deeply. Thanks.

Why Continue To Live?

In this book, Rosenbaum has captured some incredible reflection on the concept of suicide. While the book is ostensibly about the Holocaust, wrapped in a fairy tale of kabbalistic spirituality, Rosenbaum's story, is only a vehicle. It is the mode by which he transmits so many thoughts and feelings on why people should go on with life, philosophically, not just biologically.Starting with several Holocaust survivors who committed suicide, Rosenbaum investigates the reasons why they might have done so. One would think that after Auschwitz, Buchenwald or Bergen-Belson, life would be a virtual cakewalk. Nothing could possibly be as bad as that again.And as a general class, that is true. Yet, there is a small component of Holocaust survivors, who eventually decide that they can no longer live with the memory of what they saw, and eventually take their own life. And not surprisingly, a high percentage of them are artists, poets and writers, the people who would be most susceptible to feeling the pain of others and themselves.In crafting his book, Rosenbaum illustrates many reasons to live. And he equally poses many questions about life. But in some respects, he does manage to find reasons to live, which are undeniable, if not difficult to accept sometimes.As an added bonus, Rosenbaum's descriptions of midtown Manhattan are some of the best present day representations of the area I have ever read in my life. Since he teaches at Fordham Law school, he would be quite familiar with 59th St. & Broadway. The incredible precision of his pictures of Manhattan are truly picturesque and artistic.Rosenbaum has succeeded in creating a truly wonderful work that handles difficult life subjects with great aplomb. It is recommended to those who think about life and the meaning therein.

Great read

Another powerful book from the author of Elijah Visible and Second Hand Smoke. More philosophical, but still extremely entertaining, very literary and highly readable.

The Story Inside The Story

Having enjoyed immensely Rosenbaum's other works (Second Hand Smoke and Elijah Visible) I had high expectations for Golems of Gotham. I was not disappointed. Once again, the author explores the familiar terrain of love, fear, atrocity, beauty, and art. However this time, he does so with a depth and patience that permeates every page and far surpasses his earlier work. Although the surface plot of the book is compelling and makes for a wonderful read - there is another story (found within that story) equally compelling and even more beautiful. It is found in the narratives and in the simplest of asides - and speaks of the highs (and lows) of parental love and the beauty (and ugliness) of the city of New York (a city which is so prevalent herein - and described with such sweeping prose as to qualify the 10023 zip code itself as a main character).Once again Thane Rosenbaum offers us an excellent book and a compelling glimpse into the realm of human emotional complexity.