to. Their harrowing stories are played
out against the harsh backdrop of the
sordid and harsh lives that were led in
these crowded slums. Poverty, prostitu-
tion and exploitation were rampant.
One of the girls is determined to get
out of the East End, and she does so at
great cost. The other one remains there,
struggling for survival against over-
whelming odds. But what happens to
them is less gripping than the full pic-
ture of life in the East End skillfully and
colorfiilly painted by Nattel.
She has obviously done considerable
research to give her presentation com-
plete authenticity. For example, she
how London streets change their
names so that "only criminals and the
drivers of hansom cabs truly knew the
streets of London."
The smells of these streets and the
stalls of Petticoat Lane come to life in
the pages of this well-crafted novel.
Homelessness, unemployment and
poverty were the lot of East End Jews in
the late 1800s.
Further evidence of the author's sys-
tematic inquiries can be found in her
depiction of Yiddish theater in London.
Based on what actually happened, she
tells how. Jacob Adler and his troupe
flourished until a fire destroyed a theater,
claiming 17 victims and putting an end
to Yiddish theater in London for many
years thereafter.
The effective combination of fact and
fiction add to the appeal of this fine
novel.

--- Morton L Teicher

SHIPWRECK

By Louis Begley
(Alfred A. Knopf;
2 ,pp.; $23)

.,
orn in Poland in 1933 as
Ludwik Begleiter, the author of
this book survived the Holocaust
because his mother obtained false papers
and passed herself and her son off as
Catholic Poles. His father, a physician,
was pressed into service by the Russian
army and also managed to live through
the war. The family settled in New York
in 1947, and changed their name to
Begley.
Louis Begley won a scholarship to
Harvard and, after two years in the
army, attended Harvard Law School,
graduating magna cum laude. He went
to work for a prominent law firm,
becoming a partner in 1968, specializing
in international law.
In 1991, when Begley was 57 years
old, he published his first, obviously

ii

autobiographical novel, Wartime Lies,
which describes how a Jewish boy and
his aunt managed to survive through the
Holocaust in Poland. Changing subject
matter to such themes as worldly success
and emotional-failure, homosexuality,
anti-Semitism and coming to grips with
-dying, Begley wrote five more novels
before Shipwreck. Two of his novels that
introduced a character named Schmidt,
a retired and recently widowed lawyer,
were the basis for a popular movie,
About Schmidt, starring Jack Nicholson.
Continuing to demonstrate his versa-
tility, Begley has written a new novel
that examines the complexity of human
interactions. He uses an unusual style in
which the central character, novelist
John North, tells his spellbinding story
over a period of several days to an
unnamed interlocutor. They eat and
drink in a cafe, significantly called
LEntre Deux Mondes, "between two
worlds." The magnetic narrative, is pre-
sented without the interruption of chap-
ters.
The religious identity of North and
his physician wife, Lydia Frank, is hinted
at. A passing reference is made to
North's going to church and his father's
funeral service in a cathedral. Lydia's
brother contributed to the. United
Jewish Appeal; Lydia has an Israeli doc-
tor friend; her niece and nephew were
interested in the Anti-Defamation
League. When North has an affair with
Lea, a French magazine writer, he specu-
lates that she might be Jewish.
North insists that this is the first time
he has been unfaithful to his wife, but
he is strongly infatuated with Lea, and
the development of this relationship is
the heart of the enthralling story. It
waxes and wanes as North gradually rec-
ognizes that he cannot continue to
deceive his wife despite his powerful
attraction to his young lover. He wrestles
with his conscience and his sexual needs,
gaining more and more insight into his
own perSon,ality in the process. North's
startling soldtion to his dilemma is a
shocking jolt.
Shipwreck is rich in its characteriza-
tions, depicting the people in the story
with all their positive and negative
attributes. They emerge as: fully formed
individuals who change in response to
what happens, modifying our view of
them as they evolve through a series of
engrossing events.
Begley has again written a novel t1 6.t
fully demonstrates his impeccable talent .'
and his deep comprehension of the
human condition.
- —Morton L. Teicher

SECRETS OF
THE CITY

By Anne Roiphe
(Shaye Areheart Books;
320 pp.; $24)

A

nne Roiphe devotes her eighth
- novel to the trials and tribula-
tions of Mel Rosenberg, the
Jewish mayor of a large city that is obvi-
ously New York — although, for. some
incomprehensible reason, she doesn't say
so specifically.
Rosenberg simultaneously tries to gov-
ern a chaotic city, keep his dysfunctional
family happy and nurture his aspiration
to be America's first Jewish president.
The sometimes funny, sometimes
tragic, lot that befalls him is told
through a series of related vignettes that
seem to be written on pins and needles.
The jittery writing style and the brevity
of the episodes are undoubtedly tied to
the book's origin as a weekly series in the
Forward. But Roiphe's approach is fully
appropriate for describing the daily crises
that beset the mayor.
The mayor's frenetic round of meet-
ings, lunches and dinners is punctuated
by mysterious killings, battles between
Arab and Jewish residents, arson, strikes,
a paralyzing snowstorm, arguments with
the education chancellor, death threats, a
crooked parking commissioner, kidnap-
ping, suicide and on and on.
His private life also is in turmoil. His
son, an ambitious lawyer, wants to out-
strip his father; his daughter-in-law is a
compulsive shoplifter; his daughter has a
shaky marriage to a man whose brother
is an unsavory character; a reporter tries
to seduce the mayor and he is sorely
tempted.
Roiphe describes all these events in
staccato fashion, reflecting the rapidly
changing nature of the events that
Crowd the mayor's calendar. Although
there is some continuity between the
brief chapters, each one is largely devot-
ed to a new emergency. Taken together,
they offer an unusual
vantage point from
which to view the
problems of life in
a big city.

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2004

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