Snow in August
by Pete Hamill
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Book Summary Information
Author: Pete HamillEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-10-01
ISBN: 0446675253
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780446675253
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Snow in August
Book Review: Is snow in August possible?
Summary: 4 Stars
Snow in the month of August seems impossible: overcoming evil seems impossible too. And yet the story turns the impossible into redemptive hope, hope that triumphs against pessimism, hope that allows for simple moments of human goodness. Pete Hamill's Snow in August is a morality tale set in the 1940's. It pits good against evil, courage against fear. The protagonist, Michael Devlin, an eleven year old in search of answers to immorality he sees on Brooklyn streets, wants to live a heroic life; he wants to do the right thing. But when he watches Frankie McCarthy violently attack Mr. G, a Jew who has defended Michael and his friends, Michael freezes beneath Frankie's ruthless intimidation. Anti-Semitic hatred reigns. Michael's own weakness shames him.
Hamill gets into the mind of Michael Devlin. He gives us Michael's rational thoughts suffused with boyish fantasy. Reality and fantasy intermingle as Michael looks to mythic stories for answers, stories that explain how to live in the world with dignity. He feeds his imagination with comic supermen who prevail in spite of peril. Shazam stands against evil. He listens to his mother's tales of Irish heroes' boldness in the face of attack. He looks at the uniformed photo of his father who gave his life in WWII. He looks to Jackie Robinson the first Negro to play for the Dodgers. These stories feed his imagination but don't help him on the street. Where are living heroes? He looks to his friends Sonny and Jimmy, but knows they are as clueless as he is. Frankie McCarthy rules the neighborhood with hatred, knives and guns. Violence escalates against Michael, his mother, and Michael's new friend Rabbi Hirsch. The street code is silence. Evil prevails; Michael watches the weak go down in scary silence.
Michael yearns for friendship. With Sonny and Jimmy their motto had been one for all and all for one. But when Mr. G. was attacked Sonny and Jimmy left Michael standing alone. Is that one for all and all for one? Michael's relationship with Rabbi Hirsch brings friendship to a new dimension. Their friendship is solid, reciprocal, respectful, moving both forward to greater consciousness and humanity. The association between Rabbi Hirsch, whose struggles with evil wrought by the Holocaust have left him fragile, and Michael, an altar boy who is just beginning to see evil and understand his own limitation, is life affirming. Rabbi Hirsch learns English and baseball from Michael. Michael learns Yiddish and history from Rabbi Hirsch. Both make sacrifices to maintain friendship in spite of iniquity around them. And in spite of the cold streets they enjoy moments of joy--tickets to the Dodgers game to watch their hero Jackie Robinson. They laugh, they sing, they commiserate.
Hamill expresses a deeply cynical world; the self-interested players are capable of awful violence. Pessimism permeates the scenes. Is cynicism the only response to the evil world Hamill acknowledges? In an interview Dan Schneider asked Pete Hamill what his purpose was for writing (http://www.cosmoetica.com/DSI3.htm)? Hamill replied: "Stating a goal would sound pompous, and I have no slogan posted above my desk. As any writer grows older the goals are always shifting. But I suppose that in my journalism and my fiction, I've tried hard to make the world more human."
Snow in August recognizes evil, but holds on to goodness. Hamill erases cynicism when the rabbi and the altar boy go to the baseball game together. The world becomes beautifully human. Michael Devlin's Golem fantasy at the end of the novel supports the possibility of poetic goodness with boyish triumph.
Summary of Snow in August
Set in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood in 1947, this poignant tale revolves around two of the most endearing characters in recent fiction: an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy named Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch, a refugee from Prague.In 1940s Brooklyn, friendship between an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy and an elderly Jewish rabbi might seem as unlikely as, well, snow in August. But the relationship between young Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch is only one of the many miracles large and small contained in Pete Hamill's novel. Michael finds himself in trouble when he witnesses the 17-year-old leader of the dreaded Falcons gang beating an elderly shopkeeper. For Michael, 1940s Brooklyn is a world still shaped by life in the Old Country, a world where informing on a fellow Irishman is the worst crime imaginable--worse even than the violent crimes committed by some of those fellows. So Michael keeps silent, finding solace in the company of Rabbi Hirsch, a Czech refuge whom he meets by chance. From this serendipitous beginning blossoms a unique friendship--one that proves perilous to both when the Falcons catch up with them.
Interlaced with Hamill's realistic descriptions of violence and fear are scenes of remarkable poignancy: the rabbi's first baseball game, where he sees Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers; Michael's introduction into the mystical world of the Cabbala and the book's miraculous ending. Hamill is not a lyrical writer, but he is a heartfelt one, and this story of courage in the face of great odds is one of his best.
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