Tuesday, March 15, 2011

THE ENEMY CAMP





The Enemy Camp, Jerome Weidman, Random House Inc, 1958, 561 pp


 Jerome Weidman wrote 22 novels in a long career which also included plays and hundreds of short stories. His first novel, I Can Get It For You Wholesale, became the Broadway musical in which Barbra Streisand made her debut. The Enemy Camp, which was the #9 bestselling novel in 1958, is the only one of his I have read. 

 It is said to be autobiographical and tells the story of George Hurst, a Jewish man who rose up out of the Lower East Side ghetto, married a Christian woman and learned to overcome his fear of anti-Semitism.

 Many Jewish writers have covered this ground and Jerome Weidman was among the first. He writes with energy and knows how to keep a reader on the edge of the protagonist's anxiety. In other words, he wrote a page turner that reveals to a shiksa like me what it was like for a Jewish man in early  to mid 20th century America.

 I did not know anything about the author or the novel when I started it and was happily surprised to find it so good.


(The Enemy Camp is out of print, so is best found at libraries or from used book sellers.)

No comments:

Post a Comment