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Book Review by Ida Nasatir
Joey by David Lord
April 28 1950—Ida Nasatir book reviews—Joey by
David Lord—Southwestern Jewish Press, page
14: Joey is a boy of Los Angeles—not the bungalow city of retired
elderly folk, nor the plain-fringed playground of millionaires, but the crowded,
vital Jewish neighborhood that centers around Brooklyn Avenue. Here Joey grows
up. He learns of life and death, and joy and sorrow in the faith of his father.
He meets the scarlet excitement of adolescent sex, and he find the wonder and
beauty of a world where an has wings. He knows doubts and misgivings as he faces
the challenge of increasing maturity and he comes through bitter experience to
an acceptance of life and a new faith based on the old. Vivid characters and
events mark this book. There's Joey's immigrant father, Sam, the Barber,
pious, hard-working, none too sensitive to the boy's needs. There's Grandmother
Silverberg, who even on her deathbed studies English in order to achieve
American citizenship. There's Jake Samson, athlete and scholar, who finds his
personal answers in the devoted life of a rabbi. There's sluttish Rosie, who
knows too much, too early. There's the Abrams family—drunken father, pathetic
mother, and fine-grained Molly, who shows Joey the way to peace and stability.
There are family parties and squabbles, adolescent games and dates and movies,
the thrilling experience of flight and the harsh meaning of war. Always,
underneath the entire thesis, there is the eternal groping of the sensitive
spirit for the meaning and the purpose of life. In Joey, one finds a
respect for Jewish values, a desire to understand them, even though one's faith
in them is sometimes shaken by the untoward experiences of life. The author,
David Lord, contributes to an appreciation of Jewish life and struggle.
The book is vivid and readable. It has color and incident, character and story.
It has a drive too, that makes it a work of real stature.