Another historical fiction during 1934- height of the Great Depression in New York City, and Greenwich Village by the Hudson River, which New Yorkers called the North River.
Here you find Dr. James Delaney, a tall Irish MD working and living in Little Italy, one of the many slums of New York City. His patients include New York City’s gangsters with such names as Eddie Corso, Knocko Carnody and Frankie Botts; Tammany chieftains Irish), day laborers, prostitutes and abused housewives where poverty prevail and dreams are lost.
With his own life in tatters, Dr. Delaney’s daughter leaves her two-and-a-half-year-old half-Mexican son (Carlito) on his doorstep one snowy New Year’s Eve. “I can’t take care of myself, how am I going to take care of a child who speaks no English?”, wails Dr. Delaney. Coping with this unexpected arrival, Delaney opens the door one day to find Rose, a tough, decent Sicilian woman standing there to take over the job. She is hired on the spot. Thus begins a new life for Rose, Carlito, and Delaney, along with problems concerning gangsters, drunken Irish, the Italians and life in 1934 New York City.
This book is full of history and culture of the Irish, Italians, Sicilians, and Jews who were beaten down by the Great War, who had made marriages, fathered children, and roared in speakeasies, who danced until dawn and then blew it all away. You don’t judge them, you comfort them with love. You can find this book at the Harrison County Library.
Reviewer: Carolyn Beanblossom
