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Second Hand Smoke: A Novel, by Thane Rosenbaum
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In the seamy atmosphere of Miami Beach's Collins Avenue, Mila Katz, a streaky card shark and confidante of mobsters, lives by the wits with which she has survived the Holocaust. Second Hand Smoke is the story of Mila's sons, Issac and Duncan, the one secretly abandoned in Poland, and the other, American-born, raised as an avenging Nazi hunter, poisoned with rage.
Told in bursts of fractured realism and dark comedy, Second Hand Smoke is a postmodern mystery of great lyrical power, deep insight, and emotional resonance.
- Sales Rank: #342012 in Books
- Published on: 2000-02-22
- Released on: 2000-02-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .72" w x 6.00" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Amazon.com Review
It is obvious from practically the first page of Second Hand Smoke that Thane Rosenbaum has not written a typical Holocaust novel. Consider, for example, the name of his protagonist: Duncan Katz. "What kind of a name is that for a Jewish boy?" an old man attending Duncan's circumcision ceremony in post-World War II Miami demands. "One thing is for sure: the boy's name isn't a mistake. These people are trying to tell us something."
"These people" are Yankee and Mila Katz, survivors of the Nazi extermination camps and Duncan's parents. In giving their son the name of a Scottish king on the day of this ceremony, they are both acknowledging his identity as a Jew and attempting to disguise it. Though living in America now, their world view has been shaped by their experiences in the camps; secrecy is the key to survival, and even at a young age Duncan understands that "he may have been born into the family but he was never accepted into its inner circle. Maybe it was for his own protection, his own good. Or, as Mila so often claimed, "maybe they just didn't trust him." So infected is the son by his parents' Holocaust experience that he grows up to become a Nazi-hunter and eventually loses both his job and his family in pursuit of vengeance. Then Mila dies and Duncan discovers her darkest secret: the son she left behind in Poland.
Second Hand Smoke often reads like a thriller--Duncan's early life is marked by his mother's association with Miami mobsters, and the time spent in Poland looking for his long-lost brother is pretty action packed--but there's a strong element of spirituality that runs through it, too, especially when Duncan meets his yoga-master brother, Isaac. Rosenbaum gets off to a terrific start but stumbles near the end, bestowing reconciliation too easily, wrapping up his characters' messy lives too neatly. Still, his acute rendering of the peculiar psychology of concentration-camp survivors and their children rings powerful and true. --Alix Wilber
From Publishers Weekly
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.
From Library Journal
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.
Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
A defining, highly profound, and beautifully written novel
By Mountain Glenn
I often find Holocaust material very painful and I feel like I know "enough." Like most Jews, the Holocaust is too engraved in my psyche. Still, in "Second Hand Smoke," - which I only bought and read because I saw Thane speak at a book talk and I was truly impressed - Rosenbaum defines the Holocaust's impact on the next generation - the children of survivors. Like Frazier's "Cold Mountain" which paints the Civil War without a single battle, "Second Hand Smoke" avoids the camps but captures the horror.
This is a brilliant novel. It is structually perfect, it swims in metaphor, it dances through time, it's funny, and it hurts. I am grateful that Rosenbaum took me to a place that I didn't necessarily want to be. I feel wiser.
"Second Hand Smoke" moves. No preaching. No indulging. Just raw, honest story telling. A great read!
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
This book is a must
By Pat Langnau
If you never read another book, you must read this novel. No, it's not about the tobacco industry; it's a post-Holocaust story, funny and gut-wrenching. It addresses the question: is it possible for survivors to have any kind of "normal" life?
For Rosenbaum's characters, the answer is a resounding "no." Told from the son's point of view, the story begins with Duncan Katz's bris in Miami Beach, where his parents--the survivors-- have settled. You will love Morty the Mohel who never misses an opportunity to rail against the god he doesn't believe in. Mother Mila, who becomes the mascot/mentor of the Jewish mafia,cajoles her son to move faster, as he grows up, through all the karate colors. Then it's taekwondo and kickboxing. To hon his skills, she drops him off in rough neighborhoods, a move which even her mob friends question.
The Katz mindset & lifestyle make perfect sense if you are a Holocaust survivor, but you wouldn't want to grow up in their home.
You will want to read this book again.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Intense and oh so important!
By A Customer
This is a fascinating story of Duncan Katz, the son of Holocaust survivors, and how his parents' horrific experiences in the concentration camps had such an invasive influence on his own well-being, in the same way that second-hand cigarette smoke can make non-smokers quite ill!
Mr. Rosenbaum has a very interesting writing style. Poetic and at times surreal (and sometimes a bit complicated), the author creates a world where not all Jews are portrayed as "nice Jewish boys", where characters such as Mila (Duncan's mother - a card shark and a gangster), Duncan and Isaac are larger-than-life but fascinating. The conclusion was extremely satisfying.
I feel that this story is very important, especially as the world loses many Holocaust survivors to old age. As those with the numbers tatooed on their arms pass on, we need someone to remind the world of the atrocities inflicted by Adolf Hitler on millions and it how it still effects current generations. Thane Rosenbaum has done that job in SECOND HAND SMOKE quite effectively!
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