The Christmas Kid: And Other Brooklyn Stories

‘’In that lost city of memory, the wind is always blowing hard from the harbor and the snow is packed tightly on the hills of Prospect Park. They are skating on the Big Lake and the hallways of the tenements are wet with melted snow and the downtown stores are glad with blinking lights and the churches smell of pine and awe.’’

Pete Hamill’s stories transport us to Brooklyn, in a time when everything seemed simple, and much more innocent. From the 50s to the 80s, his stories echo the struggles of people who love, deceive, hate, hope, kill. Bittersweet, harrowing, hopeful, tragic, every page gives us a glimpse into the lives of women and men who faced a reality that had nothing to do with today’s world where only cheap mottos, show more made up by dubious individuals can be heard. Yes, times were hard back then but, at least, people believed. Today, most of us demonstrate our endless idiocy, our empty, superficial ‘minds’ and our blabbering, severely overused mouths.
I’d rather spend all my life in the poor Brooklyn neighbourhoods of the 50s than our falsely affluent cities, full of illiterate influencers and Youtubers who poison the minds of our children.

These are my favourite stories in the collection.

‘’There were other drawings too; buildings with spirals of black cloud issuing from chimneys; barefoot men with shaved heads and gray pajamas; watchtowers; barbed wire.’’

The Christmas Kid: In one of the most moving stories I’ve ever read, a boy who has survived the nightmare of the German demons, finds warmth and kindness in the city of New York. But demons are always lurking nearby…

The Price of Love: A divorced man tries to decipher his feelings for his ex-wife.

The Love of His Life: A man spends all his life waiting for the girl of his youth.

‘’He always loved this time of the New York day, when the sun faded and the light turned a warm grey, softening the hard edges of the world.’’

Good-bye: A married couple has to face the toughest decision.

6/6/44: A story paying tribute to D-Day, the day when Hitler’s reign of terror came to an end, the day to which we all owe our freedom.

The Men in Black Raincoats: The crime of a former IRA man comes back to haunt him.

Gone: A man becomes the victim of a peculair crime. Judging by the current state of our cities, full of ‘’citizens’’ of a barbaric ‘faith’ that dictates them to decapitate babies and rape dead women, I can’t say I blame him…

The Second Summer: A Muslim young woman from Syria has to obey her heathen parents and their law of Allah.

The Man With the Blue Guitar: An Italian widow falls in love with a young Greek man but her late husband’s brother has other views in mind.

The Waiting Game: In a too-good-to-be-true story, a man waits patiently for the love of his life.

Up the Roof: A woman who has lost her husband in the Korean War finds solace in an unlikely place. But will it last?

The Book Signing: In a shocking story, a successful writer cannot escape the fate that cries for retribution.

This collection is not for today’s audience. It seemingly has no place in a ‘culture’ of tattoos, unwashed wannabe- Che Guevaras who live in luxury and selfie-takers. However, there is always the blessed minority of the sane who will treasure a world that has disappeared forever.

‘’I must be healing, he thought. I don’t fear, I don’t love, I don’t hate. The wound is closed. I am alone. I am indifferent. I have survived.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway and I am very thankful for Goodreads and for having this book. I have been reading this book for several weeks. It is not long In length and the stories do not require much time to read but It is a book you pick up, read a story, then walk away and ponder the words, the story and why it had to be that way. I have always enjoyed Pete Hamill's writing and I love having all these stories in one book.

After many segues and taking time to complete many other books I finally finished the last story. This is a book of stories about Brookylyn and its inhabitants. I was introduced to boys named Eddie, Duke and Vito and girls named Betty, Dorothy and Gerry. Included in the pages was Sonny Marino and the show more Cavaliers, Grady the artist, Rattigan's Bar and Grill, Carmody the writer, the Dodgers and Giants, Sunset pool, Coney Island and Prospect Park, and the Korean Conflict. While not every story was a masterpiece, each was well written and resonated of life in Brooklyn in the 1950's.

I am sure I will pull this off the shelf from time to time to be transported back and become reacquainted with a very talented writer. show less

The neighborhood of Brooklyn, over the span of thirty years, a huge melting pot of a place and a place that this author loves. I really enjoyed these stories, all the things that happen in a neighborhood, the good, the bad and of course the ugly. So very real, real people and real situations. Reminded me so much of my old neighborhood in Chicago, a mix of nationalities, playing in the alley, the streets, just the sense of belonging, thinking that it would all last forever. Of course, anyone who tries to go back will find it all different, and will be filled with such a sense of sadness. This air of nostalgia, yearning for a past that no longer exists anywhere but in our memories. This is why I love these stories, for their nostalgic show more feeling and for making me remember the good and the bad of times past. show less

This book had a lot of promise (I loved Forever), but it fell flat. The characters lacked dimension, and the endings were abrupt and awkward. In the short story venue, Hamill doesn't hold a candle to short story greats like Ray Carver and John Cheever.

Evocative of a time that's gone. A bit uneven in quality and subject, but on the whole, satisfying.

rabck from dvg; a collection of stories set in Brooklyn; most were published in the 1980s and the subjects range from the depression & prohibition time, polio, WWII and just unknown vintage of boys growing up in Brooklyn. Quite good.