Book Review

Snow in August

EW's GRADE
A

Details Writer: Pete Hamill; Genre: Fiction

The year is 1947, and a young man named Jackie Robinson is preparing for his major-league debut with the Dodgers. Meanwhile, in an Italian and Irish Catholic working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, 11-year-old Michael Devlin makes friends with a Czech emigre, rabbi Judah Hirsch. The two companions exchange more than lessons in English and Yiddish, as Michael's world of baseball, comic-book heroes, and movie stars meets the rabbi's centuries-old legends of Prague. Lifelong journalist and current editor in chief of the New York Daily News, Pete Hamill writes with snap and humor in Snow in August, from Michael's first dry mouthful of matzo (''A Hershey bar it's not,'' says the rabbi) to Hirsch's unforgettable first visit to Ebbets Field. A

Originally posted May 30, 1997 Published in issue #381 May 30, 1997 Order article reprints

Add your comment

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.

500 characters remaining
Advertisement