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golems have populated count-
the grandparents who ended their
less Jewish tales (see the accompany-
lives before hers began, Ariel inad-
ing article).
vertently calls up some of the most
The best-known version recounts
eminent memoirists, poets and nov-
the fashioning of such a creature
elists to emerge from Hitler's infer-
byl6th-century centu-
no: Primo Levi, Jean
ry Kabbalist Rabbi
Amery, Paul Celan,
Judah Loew of Prague
Piotr Rawicz, Jerzy
in order to protect the
Kosinski, and Tadeusz
city's Jewish popula-
Borowski.
tion from Christian
Set free to roam
persecution.
21st-century New
In Rosenbaum's
York, this band of wit-
transformation of this
nesses from beyond is
basic story, the setting
first perplexed and
has moved from
then disgusted by a
medieval Eastern
contemporary Jewish
Europe to the Upper
culture they find sadly
West Side of
deficient. It's not just
Manhattan. Moreover,
Oliver's family that
there is not just one
requires mending, they
golem, and they are
discover; the whole
neither the defiant
world is in need of
champions of fable, nor the brainless
repair. And their method for going
strongmen that Yiddish speakers
about the work of resao riotous vio-
mean when they hurl the word as an
lence.
insult.
These and other plot twists (most
These golems are the phantom
notably, Ariel's sudden mastery of
spirits of Holocaust survivors who
the klezmer violin) are never less
endured the horrors of war
than clever, but they
only to choose, ultimately,
don't entirely cohere.
to end their lives by suicide.
Rosenbaum's brain teems
Part mystery,
Fearless in his use of
with
ideas, but he is more
part- ghost story,
extreme gallows humor,
inventive
than this partic-
"The Golems of
Rosenbaum has them make
ular narrative structure
Gotham" brings
their first appearance in a
can contain.
Primo Levi,
shower.
At times, Oliver's mus-
Jerzy Kosinski
These, then, are the pol-
ings begin to sound like
and other
tergeists who take up resi-
insightful essays corn-
survivors who
dence in the Upper West
menting
on the action,
committed
Side brownstone of the out-
from
the
outside, rather
suicide back
wardly successful but
than
being
part of the
to life.
inwardly cheerless mystery
story itself, as in this pas-
writer Oliver Levin. Deeply
sage:
traumatized by the double suicide of
"The only thing humanity can
his father, Lothar (whose dramatic
hope to depend on is the unfailing
death opens the novel), and mother,
presence of ghosts — looming and
Rose, Oliver remains emotionally
absorbed in our struggles. Because
frozen through the decades.
ghosts are no doubt watching, even
His wife, Samantha, has long since
if their righteous sobs are impotent
left him, and he remains so mired in
against the real monsters among us."
his own sense of abandonment that
A former lawyer who, in addition
his adolescent daughter Ariel feels
to his writing career, is a professor
compelled to rescue her father from
and director of Fordham Law
what's beginning to resemble a fami-
School's program in Morality,
ly legacy of suicidal despair. Ariel's
Humanities and the Law, Rosenbaum
method: conjure a golem from
is deeply engaged throughout his
Hudson River dirt to act as her
work with the ethical and philosoph-
father's — and her family's — savior.
ical aspects of history.
But as anyone who knows the leg-
Combine that commitment to
end will tell you, golems don't neces-
grappling with the legacy of the
sarily follow the rules we want them
Holocaust, with Rosenbaum's wide-
to. And Ariel, for all her good-heart-
ranging intelligence and quirky wit,
edness, lacks the mystical facility to
and you're bound to come up with a
invoke the precise presence she had
novel as unpredictable and original
wished for.
as The Golems of Gotham.
Thus, in addition to summoning

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