Last Respects
A Novel
Published on 26. March 2013
372 pages
978-1-4804-1073-2 (ISBN)
Description
Reminiscing after his mother's death, Benny Kramer remembers the chaos and hardships of his youth, indelibly marked by a brief turn as a bootlegger
For most of his life, Benny Kramer's mother was an inescapable presence in his life. But on the day of her death, her body disappears on its way from hospital to morgue. While scouring New York in search of her body, Benny remembers the first adventure his mother sent him on, fifty years before.
At the height of Prohibition, little Benny's mother gives him a simple task: Deliver eighteen bottles of bootlegged hooch to a wedding. Along the way, the would-be rumrunner encounters sinister slumlords, a sadistic rabbi, and enough slapstick obstacles to give the Marx Brothers fits. Reliving each moment as he searches for his mother, Benny comes to understand that this is just another day in the life of a boy desperate to find his mother's love.
This ebook features a foreword by Alistair Cooke.
For most of his life, Benny Kramer's mother was an inescapable presence in his life. But on the day of her death, her body disappears on its way from hospital to morgue. While scouring New York in search of her body, Benny remembers the first adventure his mother sent him on, fifty years before.
At the height of Prohibition, little Benny's mother gives him a simple task: Deliver eighteen bottles of bootlegged hooch to a wedding. Along the way, the would-be rumrunner encounters sinister slumlords, a sadistic rabbi, and enough slapstick obstacles to give the Marx Brothers fits. Reliving each moment as he searches for his mother, Benny comes to understand that this is just another day in the life of a boy desperate to find his mother's love.
This ebook features a foreword by Alistair Cooke.
More details
Person
Jerome Weidman (1913-1998) was an American novelist and playwright. Born in New York's Lower East Side, he began selling short fiction at the age of seventeen to magazines such as
Story, the
American Mercury, and the
New Yorker; the latter published twenty-three of his short works between 1936 and 1946. Weidman's first novel,
I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1937), made him a national sensation. A story of greed in Manhattan's infamous garment district, it was as controversial as it was popular. Weidman went on to write more than twenty novels, including
Fourth Street East (1970),
Last Respects (1971), and
What's in It for Me? (1938), a sequel to his hit debut novel. In 1959, he co-wrote the musical
Fiorello!, about New York's most famous mayor, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a New York Drama Critics Circle award. Weidman continued publishing fiction until late in his life, and died in New York.
Content
- Intro
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- Preview: Tiffany Street
- Copyright
