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"La Gran Depresión dará vuelta la vida de la familia Fisher como un guante. Forzados a abandonar la casa, los Fisher se hacinan en el Lower East Side y la larga infancia de Danny llega a un final abrupto. Rodeado de vecinos hostiles, pronto aprende que deberá pelear tanto fuera como dentro del ring para sobrevivir.
Sus cualidades deportivas pronto llaman la atención del submundo del boxeo y Danny se aleja de su padre cuando decide ser un boxeador profesional. Se adentra en un mundo que está al borde de la ley, siempre con la esperanza de recuperar la mítica casa de Brooklyn.
Rodeado de listillos y mafiosos, de prostitutas solitarias en busca de consuelo y sostenido por Nellie, la chica que se niega a darlo por perdido, Danny ve cómo la vida se le escapa de las manos mientras otros toman decisiones por él. Cuando se planta, las consecuencias serán terribles.
Esta es la tragedia de un hombre corriente, el recordatorio de la facilidad con la que pueden perderse la estabilidad y las certezas.
Contada por el mismo Danny desde la tumba durante una visita de su familia al cementerio, el guijarro del título se refiere a la costumbre judía de dejar una piedra común sobre la sepultura de sus muertos a modo de testimonio. La novela más conmovedora de Harold Robbins.

Turned into an Elvis movie. King Creole??? ( )

"A Stone For Danny Fisher, Robbins' 1951 novel, is widely considered his best. It is a portrait of a young Jewish kid in depression-era New York who grows up to be a street tough, a boxer with an undefeated record, and gets mixed up with the rackets and hoods. It is the story of his love affair with an Italian girl who stuck with him through thick and thin. It's a story of poverty and welfare. It's a story about a whore with a heart of gold. It's a boxing story about a young kid on his way to make it big and the hoods who are sponsoring him.

The first part is a typical coming of age story about a kid in a new neighborhood, about a first kiss, about finding a stray dog, about watching the neighbor girl through the window. The story doesn't really get moving until the family has to move to the lower east side tenements and Danny becomes a neighborhood tough. From there, the story just explodes. The boxing sequences are terrific. You feel as if you are right there ringside watching the action.

Robbins incorporates a lot of different themes in this book about growing up, about corruption, about desperation, about family relations, and about trust. It's one of those books that tell a character's life history, not just a particular episode.

At almost five hundred pages, it weighs in as a heavyweight contender, but it's a book you just devour. ( )

boxing, sex and violence. My first Robbins book - a little gritty for my taste but I kept reading his books. ( )