North River

by: Pete Hamill

Published by: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown & Company

Reviewed by Beth Cummings

Novelist, journalist and screenwriter Pete Hamill has created another novel in which the City of New York is a major character. This particular book is set in the North River area of Manhattan during the early 1930s–the middle of the Depression years. His city is populated with working-class men who are out of work, veterans from WWI who suffer war-related problems, immigrants trying to fit in and gangsters and the remnants of big-city political bosses. It is also populated with baseball fans, hot dog venders, Italian restauranteurs and others just trying to survive.

The main human character is Dr. Jim Delaney, a war veteran who returned to his neighborhood to serve as a general practitioner. His patients include immigrants, prostitutes, and gang bosses. He vowed after the war to try to help people. As the book begins, his wife has disappeared–a perhaps suicide–his daughter lives in Mexico, and he is lonely, depressed and despondent. Then a surprise arrives in the form of his grandson, Carlos. With the advent of a child in his house, Dr. Delaney begins to see the world again through innocent and curious eyes.

Pete Hamill is an excellent storyteller. This book twists and turns through Delaney’s life as well as the lives of many of his acquaintances. And, always, the life of New York City plays an important role.

Original hardcover edition was by Little, Brown & Company in June 2007. This paperback version includes a short interview with Hamill and also has a series of questions for book groups. The questions are such that they impart new meaning to some of the action and consequently make the book a good choice for reading groups.

I enjoyed the book.

Armchair Interviews says: Highly recommended.

Author’s Web site: http://www.PeteHamill.com