After work today I finished reading North River by Pete Hamill. A beautiful story about a winter during the depression in New York City and love and hope and family. It's a got a great mob subplot - look for the line about the guy getting killed at the movies with an ice pick in his ear - along with a few others about the hopes of Irish and Italian immigrants.
There's also a fun trip out to Coney Island, plenty of hot dogs and Braciole and a Mexican communist terrorist.
It starts with a snow covered New York City and talk of the North River, which as I learned from Wikipedia was the original Dutch name for the Hudson River. According to Wikipedia, it is still called North River in communications among commercial vessels (I'll be checking that fact out with my Merchant Marine nephew-in-law soon). The Delaware River is the South River.
Not a taxing read, but a beautifully written journey to another place and time that reminds us that life is always hard for some if not many; that peace and national power are always fleeting things; that the love of family no matter how desperate the situation or how you define family brings not just solace, but hope and warmth.
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Exploring the travels and readings of a US expat living in the UK.
