Second Hand Smoke: A Novel - Hardcover

Rosenbaum, Thane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312199546 ISBN 13: 9780312199548

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Overshadowed by stories of his mother's Holocaust experience, Miami government lawyer Duncan Katz loses his perspective when he improperly prosecutes a former concentration camp guard

About this title

About the Author

Thane Rosenbaum is the author of the acclaimed novel-in-stories Elijah Visible, which was awarded the Wallant Prize for best book of Jewish-American fiction. A law professor in human rights and a teacher of creative writing, he is also the literary editor of Tikkun and writes essays and reviews for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other national publications. He lives in New York with his daughter, Basia Tess.

Reviews

In this well-intentioned but overly emotional novel, Rosenbaum (whose novel-in-stories Elijah Visible won the 1996 Edgar Lewis Wallant Award) focuses on the lives of Holocaust survivors who cannot achieve peace of mind or soul. The narrative follows Duncan Katz, federal prosecutor and top Nazi hunter, in his obsessive quest for justice and vengeance. Duncan's difficult mother, Mila, survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and, in 1947, fled Warsaw's postwar anti-Semitism by escaping to Germany, where she met and married Duncan's father, Herschel, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen. Later, in Miami Beach, Mila becomes a confidante and collector for notorious Jewish crime boss Meyer Lansky. Duncan, born in 1953, achieves a karate black belt at age nine, stars in high-school football and evolves into a tough, armor-plated prisoner of his own exaggerated fears, nightmares, grief and rage. Like his protagonist, Rosenbaum is the son of Holocaust survivors and grew up in Miami Beach; he writes with empathetic insight into the traumas of those who never escaped their harrowing memories, often unconsciously passing their tortured psyches on to their children. Overzealous Duncan is a time bomb. He destroys a new Mercedes because it was made in Germany; gets fired from the Justice Department after posing as a neo-Nazi in order to tape-record conversations with a former concentration camp guard whom he tries unsuccessfully to deport. Although his moral passion heats up this intense parable, Duncan's overbearing self-absorption dominates the book, and the story turns to creaky melodrama when he discovers that he has a half-brother, Isaac Borowski, whom Mila secretly left behind in Poland. Isaac, who is caretaker of Warsaw's Jewish Cemetery as well as a yoga teacher and Zen disciple, teaches Duncan to let go of his anger, a denouement that feels as contrived as it is cathartic. (Apr.) FYI: Rosenbaum is literary editor of Tikkun.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Tikkun literary editor Rosenbaums debut novel is again, like his earlier collection of stories (Elijah Visible, 1996), an autobiographically influenced account of the burdens shouldered by children of Holocaust survivors. While the family-background elements are persuasive, the plot itself tends more often to be forcedly unrealistic. Raised in Miami in the '50s and '60's, Duncan Katz is trained for strength and vengeance by his refugee parents, the benign Yankee and towering Mila, both survivors of Polands death camps. Well evoked are the familys habits of secrecy, suspicion, and paranoia; Mila's compensating appetite for ruthless gambling; and the early phases of Duncan's life. The boy excels at martial arts and aggressive sports, and later he becomes a lawyer in order to pursue Nazi war criminals hiding in the US. Eventually, his attempt to extract a confession illegally from a suspect costs him his job; then his mother dies; and his wife Sharonno more than an emotional bauble hereinsists that he leave her and their daughter Milan. His mothers final days in the hospital, and her confession that she abandoned a son in Poland before fleeing, contain touching moments, while Duncan's own search for his brother Isaac, and his exploits in Poland, are thick on action but thin on credulity. Isaac, a spiritual leader in his own community, teaches Duncan the techniques of yoga to contain his rage, and the pair spend a harrowing night (or is it a dream?) in a Birkenau camp cell dressed in striped uniforms adorned with gold stars. Ultimately, realizing that his mother never nourished him emotionally, Duncan is able to make peace with his past. Rosenbaum portrays well Miami's Jewish refugee population and the psychological box that traps Duncan early on. Its difficult, though, to credit a reconciliation that involves proper breathing techniques, the alignment of chakras, and a great, dewy-eyed group hug around the gravesite of a departed matriarch. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Duncan Katz is obsessed. The tortured son of Mila Katz, a wily and paranoid Holocaust survivor, Duncan has an overriding raison d'etre: the identification, prosecution, and punishment of every living Nazi war criminal. When he obsessively pursues a man he believes to be the Butcher of Maidanek, Duncan loses his job and his marriage. Heading for Poland, he uncovers deeply held family secrets and regains some humanity and perspective. Tikkun literary editor Rosenbaum's nonlinear plot shifts from Mila's remembrances on her Miami deathbed to Duncan's ongoing irrational behavior. Frequent flashbacks are confusingly placed within scenes, Duncan's character is flat, and at times the message is strangely maudlin. Yet Rosenbaum manages to deliver a host of well-developed supporting characters in a thought-provoking exploration of the tragic effects of the Holocaust on the second generation of survivors. Recommended for large fiction or Jewish studies collections.?Christine Perkins, Jackson Cty. Lib. Svcs., Medford, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312199546
• ISBN 13: 9780312199548
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 303