A finely observed memoir of growing up as a secular Jew in the Bronx in the 1930s. A more melancholy Radio Days, or Plot Against America without the multiverse factor.
There’s wisdom on every page, as often happens when a good writer plunges head first into nostalgia. Even though Doctorow’s life was far from tragic, there’s an overwhelming sadness that kinda put me in a funk as I read this. But a well-earned funk.
It’s a nice piece of work, but I must offer a consumer’s warning. This book does *not* use the 1939 World’s Fair as a backdrop as you might be led to believe. The words “World’s Fair” don’t appear til page 185 and the story doesn’t actually travel there til around 250 – just as things are wrapping up.
I recognize that titles can have all sorts of meetings, but the back of the book advertised this as the World’s Fair being a major player in the text, and it is not. No reason to hold this against the book, though.
