North River

This is a Depression era New York City story of Jim Delany, a middle-aged physician with a wreck of a personal life. His dream of being a surgeon was shattered in France in WWI when his right arm was permanently damaged by a bullet. He only child, a beloved daughter, ran off three years prior to marry a Mexican revolutionary. His troubled wife, who had never quite forgiven him for leaving her to go war, had just walked out one day eighteen months prior and never returned. He hopes she found a new life, but suspects she committed suicide in the North River. But his life is turned upside down when his daughter drops his two-year-old grandson off in the vestibule of his house and disappears off to Spain to search for her wayward husband. show more In the midst of turmoil caused by a child he has no idea how to care for, a busy medical practice caring for all the people in his immigrant neighborhood who can't really pay him in the hard times of the depression, and mob dangers swirling all around him, he finds a new life in his love for his grandson and for Rose, the Italian immigrant lady who comes as a housekeeper/nanny of sorts. But with love, comes risk, as Delaney well knows . . .

It's a beautifully written story with a great deal of melancholy, yet still some hope. show less

I read Pete Hamill books for many reasons, but one is because I love to see how he plays out his adoration for New York City. The city is more than a location for Hamill, it is a character in his writings. The man is in love with the place, its setting, history, people, quirks and sites. Through him, I get glimpses into the New York of the past, in the days before chain stores and globalization. It's one of the main things that keeps me reading Hamill -- he keeps declaring his love, and I keep exploring the New York of the early 1900s when my family first arrived, and when my parents were young.

North River is full of the Depression, gangs, soldiers home from the war, the Tammany bosses, and the world of immigrants: Irish, Italian and show more Jewish, primarily. But it's also a love story and a story of a father/grandfather's love.

What a joy it was to spend a few days in 1934 with Mr Hamill's story. show less

For a book that includes so much actual, not to mention potential violence, Pete Hamill’s North River is at its heart a very gentle novel.

Dr. James Delaney, a WWI medic who was himself wounded in the war, is having a tough time of it in 1934 Greenwich Village. Delaney’s neighborhood patients are suffering the effects of the Depression and cash money to pay for Delaney’s services is hard to come by. Despite the fact that his wife, Molly, who suffers from depression, has walked out of his life and has not been heard from since, Delaney keeps her room as she left it in hopes that she will walk back into his world one day.

His day-to-day routine, bleak as it is, is rocked one day when Delaney returns home to find that his daughter show more Grace has abandoned her two-year-old son at his doorstep. At first, Delaney is filled with anger that Grace would do such a thing. Later, he will realize that little Carlito and Rose, the woman he hired to help him care for the little boy, are two of the best things that ever happened to him.

Delaney’s life grows complicated when he is called upon to save the life of Eddie Corso, a local mobster who has been gunned down by a rival gang. Delaney and Corso have a history going back to the first time Delaney saved Corso’s life – when Delaney risked German snipers to get to the severely wounded Corso one horrible day during the war. The bond the two men formed that day is as strong as ever. Unfortunately for Delaney and his grandson, rival gangster Frankie Botts is convinced that Delaney knows where the recuperating Corso is hiding, and Botts is willing to do anything to get that information, even if it involves the boy.

But now comes the gentle (and best) part of the story. North River is really a very well written love story that encompasses the love of a man for his lost wife, his estranged daughter, his grandson, and soon enough for Rose, the Italian illegal emigrant who has moved so seamlessly into his life. Before long, little Carlito, who spent his first two years living in Mexico, is speaking Spanish, English, and even a good bit of Italian as he charms everyone in the Delaney household. Carlito’s world is one of constant discovery, and before long the adults around him cannot but help see the world through his new eyes, too.

North River gives the reader a remarkable feel for life in one New York City neighborhood during the Depression. Hamill’s sense of what everyday life was like for those who lived within a few blocks of the Village during the thirties is a key element of his story. This is a combination of superb historical fiction, crime fiction and romance and, as such, it will certainly appeal to a variety of readers. Don’t miss this one.

Rated at: 5.0 show less

Set in the New York City of the early 1930s, "North River" is the story of a struggling family doctor whose wife walked out on him years before. His unpredictable daughter, who married a Mexican socialist, abandons her 2 year old son on his doorstep so she can gallivant around the world trying to find her own missing husband. Dr. Delaney needs help, so he hires Rose, an Italian immigrant who seems competent to be given primary responsibility for the care of a his suddenly acquired grandson. He has also saved the life of an old friend from the Great War, who is now a gangster - making other gangsters put him in their sites if he can't tell them where his friend is.

This was one of those books that I mostly enjoyed up to the very end, when show more it disappointed. Primary reason: the whole saga of the gangsters was, in the end, just pointless filler. Pull it all out and you would have a much shorter book telling exactly the same major story. I kept expecting an exciting culmination of the gangster element to wrap up the novel, but that story just puttered quietly to a stop.

The real plot is the s-l-o-w-l-y developing romance between Dr. Delaney and Rose. Both are extremely cautious about allowing the blossoming of any relationship other than doctor/granfather and his hired nanny/housekeeper.

Read Hamill's "Snow in August" instead. show less

Pete Hamill knows how to evoke places in history with amazing feeling. The characters in North River, especially the protoganist of Jim Delaney, become completely real to the reader, including Jim's adorable grandson Carlito and Rose, an Italian immigrant who moves in to take care of these two special people abandoned by the women in their lives.

I really loved Hamill's Snow in August but haven't read his other novels. Time to look them up and check them out!

New York City of the mid-1930s is in the grips of the Great Depression and Dr. James Delaney is alone with his work. While he tends to the sick and injured all around his neighborhood, his daughter has left for Mexico and his unforgiving wife has vanished. But when Delaney returns home one snowy night, he finds his three-year-old grandson in front of his house with a note from his daughter. Overwhelmed, Delaney hires a tough Sicilian woman named Rose to take care of the boy. Can he make things work as he is caught in the middle of a mob war, abject poverty around him and Rose’s own secrets? And will his daughter one day return and take the only people holding his life together – Rose and his grandson – away from him?

“In the gray show more morning, wrapped in his bathrobe, he pushed aside the life within the house and glanced through the newspapers: 400,000 on relief in New York, Hitler ranting in Germany, fighting in China, a volcano erupting in Mexico. There was a photograph of the erupting mountain with a peasant in the foreground, dressed in white pajamas and sandals and holding a machete. You missed this, Grace. You missed the volcano. What paintings it might have inspired. I always thought that you had married Mexico even more than Santos. You were not a communist. You were an artist. Or so I thought. And never said.” – page 115

North River is very much a period piece, placed deep inside the parochial neighborhood setting of the urban New York City between the wars. The flappers of the 1920’s are long gone and the reality of the Great Depression is stark and depressing. However, while Hamill makes sure to describe the poverty and anger of the time, he doesn’t overdo it. He mixes in some beauty and happiness that immerses us in a very real NYC that none of us were alive to experience. It echoes some of the trials we are going through in our present day challenges, but it also makes you appreciate just how much worse things were then.

Hamill does a wonderful job of fleshing out Dr. Delaney as well as all of the other characters in the book. Each one of them is meticulously created and artfully brought to life. Hamill is obviously a master of bringing characters into a reality. However, the story itself takes a very long time to develop. We are nearly halfway into the book before any real tension begins to form. In addition, the threats to Delaney never feel all that threatening, and the resolution at the end was pretty underwhelming. But the story really isn’t as much about the events as it is about the characters. North River is not written as much as it is woven into a comfortable read.

Ultimately, North River is a good story, with some interesting characters set in a thoroughly detailed reconstruction of 1930’s New York City. If you are looking for a character driven period piece, North River may provide you an enjoyable trip into the lives of that place and era. show less

North River🍒🍒🍒
By Pete Hamill
2007
Little Brown

Dr Delaney, haunted by memories of war, is a devoted and compassion physician, ministering to many who can not pay, gangsters, prostitutes and gang members.
Living alone after is wife Molly disappears, he returns home one day to find a baby in a basket on his doorstep. A note reveals it is only daughters son, Carlito, she is unable to take care of. Delaney hires a Sicilian woman, Rosa to help with the baby. Carlito and Rosa warm this lonely, sad man into a new vibrancy and love.
This takes place is 1930s New York, during the great depression, a time of Roosevelt and Tammany. His setting are so beautiful and sweeping, it was my fave part of the book.
I really like Dr Delaney, show more too!!
Although I loved Delaney and the dramatic setting, I found this a bit dry and lagging in place.
Recommended with a So-So rating. show less