The Job

The Job: True Tales from a New York City Cop
© 2015 Steve Osborn
272 pages

Steve Osborn grew up by his father's side in a bar, standing on boxes to play pinball and idolizing the men his father hung out with. They were all cops, and their lurid stories of policing the City's streets captivated him. He knew that's what he wanted to do -- and at some point in the early eighties, he became a patrolman in New York City, and started collecting stories of his own. The Job shares some twenty-odd tales of life on the beat, starting from his first rookie patrol to his last takedown.  Although these stories are shared for their entertainment value, they're not uniformly comic;  instead, we see a young adrenaline junkie maturing into a tough beat cop, whose emotional walls are sometimes broken by events like 9/11,

The Osborn evidenced here is a natural beat cop; he has no desire to be a detective, rise as an administrator, or work for something like the FBI;  his happy place is the city street,  where he can mingle with people and watch them, and 'collar' the ones that prey on their fellow New Yorkers.  I referred to Osborn as adrenaline junkie before, because he loves chasing down suspects, and his enthusiasm is such that in his early years they led him to doing really dumb things, like following a robber into the subway tunnels.  When he'd gotten far enough in be stuck, and felt a train approaching from behind him, he could only think that this was a stupid, stupid way to die and that from now on, he'd be the morbid example used in Track Safety classes.  Osborn's passion for the job, and for his home city in particular, allowed him to flourish as an officer and truly connect with his partners,  some perpetrators, and citizens themselves.

Although throughout the book Osborn established himself as a world-weary cop,  forever scanning and processing the people and places around him for trouble,  using dark humor to cope with the horror and uncertainty that his occupation makes him face every day,  a few stories show another side.  Early on, for instance, he's assigned to investigate a foul odor in an apartment -- but runs into a problem when he learns that that the foul odor is most definitely a body, and the deceased's parents are waiting outside the apartment demanding to see their child one last time.    The young lady has at this point been dead for days,  and decaying in a stifling-hot July apartment.  Knowing he could not allow the woman's mother to see the ghastly remains, the putrefied blob of something that was human,  Osborn finds some source of inner strength that allows him to take a knee and convince the sobbing, desperate woman that she doesn't want to see her daughter this way.   It's one of the first times Osborn realizes his job was about taking care of people, not just chasing bad guys.     Another break in the tough-guy wall comes shortly after 9/11, when -- scarfing down McDonalds during a multiday shift pulling out bodies from the rubble --  Osborn discovers a card made of construction paper tucked into the bag. Somehow, schools across the country had gotten their kids to make "thinking of you" cards for fire&police officers, and place them in the meals being given out to first responders. The realization that New York is not alone, that people across the nation are thinking and standing with them, almost makes the grizzled lieutenant cry in public.

Page for page, 400 Things Cops Know* is more informative about the way police officers notice and interpret the world, but The Job humanizes an occupation and an institution (the NYPD) that is  being increasingly villanized.   While Osborn doesn't comment on this directly, he does include stories of being attacked by mobs just for making arrests on the streets, and presumably his sympathies are with the officers.



*I read 400 Things last year, but did so over the course of several months, reading a few chapters at a time when visiting a local Books a Million and drinking coffee. Because I kept skipping around, I'm not sure I read it in its entirety.

East of Eden

East of Eden
© 1952 John Steinbeck
580 pages

Why did Cain kill Abel?  East of Eden explores that question via a family saga, one that stretches across North America, spanning the continent as well as the generations;  a story that begins at the end of the Civil War ends only at the end of the Great War.  It's the story of two families and one individual, a woman who bares more resemblance to the apocryphal Lilith than to Eve. When I approached East of Eden, I did so only as a story about brothers; I had no idea that Steinbeck mixed in his own family history, let alone that he regarded the book as his magnum opus. Only time can tell if I will remember this story as vividly as I do that of the Joads ,in The Grapes of Wrath...but I wouldn't bet against it.

Readers who retain a familiarity with the Hebrew bible will remember that Genesis is essentially a family epic, particularly following the line of Abraham: he has a son, Isaac, who has two boys, who fight, and the victor thereof (Jacob) creates an entire litter of boys with more fighting ensuing, taking the family story to Egypt and back, until the family has become a nation.  East of Eden begins with a man and his two sons, who fight, and their story will take one brother not to Egypt but to the Salinas valley of California.  That brother, Adam Trask, wants to build a life and farm for himself in the west, but his ideals and dreams are shot when he himself is shot by a woman he shrouded with lies and hope: his wife.  Adam's sons grow up, bearing the names Aaron and Caleb,  and their own dram

East of Eden leaves a great deal to mull over.  There is a very obvious aspect of siblings vying for their father's affection;   Adam and Charles do this with their father, Cyrus, and  Adam's sons Aaron and Caleb echo it with him.  The homage to Genesis is deliberate, as several characters frequently ruminate over the meaning of the story in Genesis in which Cain grows distressed after his sacrifice to God is snubbed in favor of his brother's; that distress takes the form of murderous jealousy sentences later when Cain kills his brother and becomes an outcast, sojourning east of Eden.   Of particular interest is the fact that God "marked" Cain so that others would see him and not slay him-- saving judgment for God's own hand.  Several characters in East of Eden are 'marked', not through liver spots or birthmarks, but scarred through their own actions. These characters struggle with darkness; one is saturated by it, possessed by it -- and others  live in fear of themselves, wondering if they are doomed to persist in their vices. That question is the great theme of the book, the question of destiny: is our fate in our hands?  For the characters it all comes down to a single word, a word that fixates rabbis and Chinese wisemen and frustrated farmers alike.

What I appreciated most about East of Eden,  is that every character save the sociopath was conflicted. The "good", doted-on brothers frequently made mistakes, and their failures provoke the plot as much as the failures of the ''Cains'. Of course, this is a character-driven drama;  relationships here are all-important.  This was definitely a novel to savor..

Related:
Big Rock Candy Mountain, Wallace Stegner. Another family epic set in the West..

The Promise

The Promise
© 1969 Chaim Potok
336 pages

Growing up is never easy, but for Orthodox boys in the mid-20th century, it's especially hard. The Jewish people are in turmoil after the horrors of the Holocaust, some pinning their hopes on Israel and others recoiling from it as anathema. The latter is true of Hasidic communities from Eastern Europe, fleeing both European and Soviet persecution, finding safe haven in the United States. The welcome American Jews might have given to their kin, however, is worn thin by the Hasids' swelling number and their fervent defense of rigid Orthodoxy.   In this setting Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter, two Orthodox boys introduced in the gripping tale of The Chosen, complete their coming of age, united in the treatment of a young boy whose genius is matched by his inexplicable rage.

In The Chosen, Danny chose to depart from his father's legacy as a Hasidic rabbi, a leader of his community. He chose instead to pursue psychology, while his more mainstream rival-turned-friend Reuven realized a call to the rabbinate.  The Promise opens with both young men engaged in their graduate studies, and both faced with shared difficulties that force them to reconsider the paths they have taken. The first challenge is a boy with a passion for astronomy, the son of a humanistic Jewish scholar who is the object of scorn to the traditionalists governing Hirsch University.  Michael is very sick, possessed by fantasies and given to episodes of rage; he exhausts therapists and seemed doomed to be institutionalized.  Both Danny and Reuven have a personal connection to the stargazer Michael, in being companions of his older cousin Rachel. Danny has an idea for how to treat Michael, but it's risky: if it fails, it may destroy the boy's psyche altogether.  Meanwhile, Reuven's position as a graduate student who must soon defend his grasp and attitude of Talmud study to a panel of elders forces him between more liberal scholars like his father and Michael's, and the traditionalist Hasids. He recoils against the 'mental ghetto' of fundamentalist Talmud studies, but is not satisfied with  answers that reduce Judaism to empty family traditions.

In The Chosen, Potok impressed me by having Danny and Reuven both embroiled in an intense and challenging relationship with Danny's father, Reb Saunders, who despaired both of Danny's interest in the outside world, and of Reuven's own father's modernist approach to Talmudic study. Although they began as antagonists, however, ultimately they arrived at mutual understanding. No one is defeated,  their differences do not cease, but they break through the arguments to re-embrace the people making them. Potok accomplishes something very like that here, in the person of Rev Kalman. Kalman survived the death camps of the Nazi state, but lost nearly everyone he knew, and when confronted with American Jews he sees challengers that threaten to complete by sophistry what Hitler began with direct industrial  murder.    Kalman stands between Reuven and ordination, and is an especially difficult antagonist given that he rails against Reuven's father in the press.  Yet Potok does not resolve the tension by having Reuven choose a prescripted side. Instead, he makes his own choice, and Kalman proves to be much like Reb Saunders:  the enmity is defeated, but not his person.

Though initially appealing for being the further story of Danny and Reuven, Potok's skill at rendering intense debate that results in mutual understanding rather than one-sided triumphs impressed me. I imagine as a rabbi himself, Potok has spent long hours having similar heated conversations with his colleagues and academics, attempting to reconcile an ancient faith with modernity without losing the power of those values and practices to endue lives with direction and meaning.
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I know this is English Literature month, so er...consider this a salute to Benjamin Disraeli, former Jewish prime minister of Great Britain. (It's also Passover, so..chag sameach!)

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner
© 2003 Khaled Hosseini
400 pages

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The Kite Runner is a stirring story of betrayal and redemption set in Afghanistan as the country is destroyed through revolution, war, and the takeover by Taliban militias.  The novel rests on the relationship between Amir and Hassan, two young boys growing up together in the same household -- but separated by class.  Although theirs is a brotherly friendship, it is put to the test by intense social pressure, Amir's own fears, and the outbreak of war.  As the novel progresses, emotional and physical distance grows between the boys;  Amir, burdened by the shame of not defending his friend as he should when horror lashes out, pushes Hassan away, and eventually Amir and his father emigrate to the United States to flee the destruction of Afghanistan.  Fifteen+ years later, however, when Amir's father dies, he is called back to Afghanistan to visit an ailing friend of the family, There, in the rubble of his hometown, he must find the courage to atone for the selfishness and cowardice of youth. Once he hid before bullies and allowed others to be beaten for his sake; now he steals into the center of Taliban power to beard the lions in their den and rescue an innocent child.  The endgame has the kind of poetic justice found only in fiction,  with the same monster who tormented Amir and Hassan when they were all boys returning as the chief Talib. However improbable it is in real life, it succeeds wonderfully as a story, delivering the full impact of how Amir has changed since leaving Afghanistan. Few people get to fight their childhood memories so directly, and  it's utterly satisfying -- not the dispatch of the villain, but Amir's trial by fire. For most of the book, he is a weak character who shies away from responsibility, and  the ending chapters are a gauntlet that makes him honorable.  Although most of the book is tragic, such is made good by the finale.

Armada

Armada
© 2012 John Stack
400 pages

It is the 16th century, and a crisis looms for England.  Spain, who thanks to the plunder of the New World and its Hapsburg connections, is Europe's heavyweight and the declared enemy of England, threatens war. Spanish armies stand just across the Channel, occupying Holland, and a massive fleet has sailed from Iberia to help cover and transport that invading army to a land which has not known a conqueror's boots in five hundred years.  The force from without may have assistance from within, as persecuted Catholics look to Madrid for salvation. In the center of this drama is Robert Varian, a secret Catholic whose father was said to have died in exile following defeat in a rebellion decades ago.  Robert's father Nathaniel is quite alive, however, and from Spain he has helped organize the forthcoming invasion.  If Robert could be convinced to aide his father and provide intelligence on the gathering English fleet,  he could very well pave the way to Spanish victory and the restoration of the Faith in England.  But matters are far from simple.  A recusant Robert may be, but he is an Englishman who loves his Queen -- but does he love her more than his father?  As the hours draw the two massive forces closer to conflict, desperate attempts in England to root out a potential spy dot the landscape with death, and two missions converge in the same running battle as the English fleet and a fickle wind fight fiercely against the armed might and brazen ambition of the Dons.

Robert Varian dominates the lead here in a way  John Stack's other hero, Atticus, never did. Although there is an ensemble of other viewpoint characters, one of whom is his principle Spanish rival, this is Robert's story.  Happily, then, he's a likable fellow; conflicted, but devoted to his faith, his country, and the memory of  his father. He thrives as a warrior in an age of changing seamanship; sailors might pack primitive muskets and fire cannons instead of cutlasses and arrows, but cannons have begun their conquest of the naval scene. While the Spanish still rely heavily on boarding and hacking away,  the English have begun to experiment with using cannon alone to wear down the enemy. It is a tactic that will serve them in good stead during the battle itself, and give the Spanish captain Morales no end of grief. He wants desperately to take down Varian, a man who took his ship but spared his life in a raid, but how can he if the English do not consent to letting their graceful gunships be bludgeoned down by massive galleons? So Varian wrestles with both his conscience and the Spanish, working out the question of how he can be true to his faith, his father, and his country.  His love for both England and the church contrasts with the fanaticism of those on either side working against him, both Puritans in England and holy warriors in Spain.

The story of the Armada's protracted fight against the English fleet, unfolding over the course of several days, is told largely through the repeated brawls between Varian and his Spanish counterpart's ships, climaxing with a frantic duel aboard a burning ship.  It's a strange story, both because of the in-flux state of naval war, transitioning from ancient to modern methods, and because of the way it ends. The Spanish Armada is not destroyed, and neither is the English fleet;  they fight and go home. Stack's historical note comments that it was fortunate for England that the Spanish regarded themselves as spent, for the English fleet was driven to exhaustion as well, and this attitude reflects itself in the story, in that the Spanish lead is driven to despair over his loss even as the English captains are worrying about what the morrow will bring.  Varian, at least, gets most of his ends tidied up, though parts of the ending seem to be begging for a sequel.  It's a slight blemish, however, and if Stacks does more work in this period, so much the better off are we readers!

Come Rack! Come Rope!

Come Rack! Come Rope!
© 1912 Robert Hugh Benson
424 pages

Dear Miss Manners:
      My father, having long been both a leader of resistance against religious tyranny and an inspiration to his countrymen, has surrendered most abjectly and is pestering me into joining him. Whatever shall I do?
Doubtful in Derbyshire

Dear Doubtful:
          Flee to Rheims and become a priest, or marry me.  Your pick!
XOXO
Miss Manners

Young Robin Audrey becomes an enemy of the State when his father forces him to choose between Caesar and Christ. The Audreys are, or were, recusant Catholics; that is, Catholics who refuse to convert to the increasingly Protestantized Church of England.  For years a gentle truce held in Derbyshire:  its squire,  Robin's father, absented himself from church but paid fees for doing so. Thirty years into Elizabeth's reign, however, times are changing. her reign imperiled by rumors of palace revolt and am impending invasion from Spain,  the Virgin Queen wages war against her own people  to maintain distance from Rome, going so far as to hunt down and execute any priest of the Catholic church.   Fees and fears piling up,  Old Audrey finally surrenders: but his son cannot. Raised in the ancestral faith of Europe, he cannot abandon it for mere convenience' sake. Seeking moral support and advice from his secret fiance, Marjorie Manners,  he realizes a call to the priesthood. Retreating to France to take on holy orders, he thus becomes a hunted foe of the crown - and so begins a tragic romance and a stirring tale of resistance against religious persecution.

Our heroes here are of course Robin and Majorie, who sacrifice their own happiness out of devotion to higher deals. A Catholic priest, of course, cannot marry, and even if they could  there would be little domestic bliss to be found when one party is constantly in hiding and the other constantly doing the hiding. Both resist the Crown's intrusion into matters of conscience in their own way; Robin, by  traveling and ministering to the hidden faithful, and Marjorie by helping hide other priests who are engaged in the same business. In an ideal world, perhaps the Queen would have let her  Catholic subjects be, but the English Reformation was far from ideal. Not only has the Pope issued a bull absolving Catholics from fealty to Elizabeth, thus casting a treasonous light upon them in her eyes, but there are serious threats of assassination to contend with. Who but Catholics would want to drive the Protestant prince of England out, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots? And who but Catholics would welcome an invasion of England by Catholic Spain?  Robin and Mary are not violent insurrectionists, and certainly no sympathizers to any Spanish invasion --  indeed, they urge their countrymen against rash actions. But war would not be the horror that it is if it did not  consume the lives of innocents, and so it is that virtually every character introduced after the opening chapter will be executed at the hands of the State.

But where sin abounds, there grace does much more abound -- and there is grace to be found here. Robin lives a life of grace,  risking torture and death so that he might offer comfort to the hounded - - even listening to the confession of Mary, the imprisoned Queen of Scots. Some of the tragic beauty here comes from the relationship between Marjorie and Robin; even though they cannot marry,  love still unites them. It is not an erotic love, but they are very much partners in the same great enterprise. Another of the tale's wrenching aspects is the relationship between Robin and his father, who have become enemies: in the last hour, it is the father's unwitting signature on the warrant which damns him -- and yet  there is absolution. The finish is heartrending, but fitting.

The Chosen

The Chosen
© 1967 Chaim Potok
288 pages

Danny and Reuven are two Orthodox Jewish boys who take one thing very seriously: baseball.  When their rival schools meet on the baseball diamond, religious passion turns play to war, and an accident hospitalizes Reuven. Thus is born an unexpected friendship, one that matures throughout their adolescence.  The two come of age in a difficult era; the book begins in World War 2, and takes them through the discovery of the Holocaust, and the turmoil that surrounded Israel's creation. Making matters still more interesting is the boys' religious identities and their respective desires:  Danny is a Hasidic Jew being groomed to succeed his father, while Reuven's dad is a somewhat more secular professor.  Both boys are intellectually-oriented themselves, serious students of both their tradition and respective interests:  one is fascinated by logic, the other by Freud.  Their passion frequently causes them to bump heads with one another, and not necessarily over religious matters. Reuven's rationalism threatens not Danny's religion, but his passion of Freudian psychology.  Their most serious break has nothing to do with either of them, but with their fathers' respective politics: the professor is a passionate supporter of the nascent Israeli state, while the rabbi believes an Israel led by secular Jews is an obscenity, utter anathema to any devout follower of Torah.  This is mid-20th century America, a place utterly recognizable...but many of the characters live within a culture that is utterly exotic to the American mainstream, and The Chosen is simultaneously the story of boys becoming men and an education in Hasidic Judaism. There are five principle characters in this novel: the boys, their fathers, and the Talmud. Thousands of years of Jewish practice and biblical commentary are contained in its various volumes, and its demands and wisdom both guide our characters and fill their lives with reverent dread.  The Chosen is utterly fascinating with a strong redemptive finish.