It takes a fairly audacious author to name a contemporary Canadian novel after the foundational literature of Judaism, but while Karen Tulchinsky’s book may not achieve the significance of the original five books of Moses, there’s a good basis for the reference. For Tulchinsky at least, the times and incidents that are the basis of the novel are a part of the foundation of the Jewish experience in Canada.
The novel describes in concrete detail the pogroms that drove Jewish immigrants out of their Russian homeland and to a new promised land, and then of the struggles they faced in their new homes. It deals with tradition and family as sources of strength as well as limits to personal adaptation.
Tulchinsky brings together some key historical facts from the period and ties them into the Lapinsky family history. They face poverty in the 1930s, the oppressive antisemitism and almost equally oppressive heat and humidity. I had known a little of the history of antisemitism in Canada, but Tulchinksy makes it real with stories like blatant bypassing of a job application from the literary son of the family and the antisemitic riot at the Christie Pits baseball park. These incidents effect the family in dramatic ways, causing family splits that everyone regrets but can’t seem to change. They drive the central story of Sonny, who takes out his fury both in the army and in the boxing ring.
Through their telling and retelling of the family stories, the Lapinskys make their history and their connection to their culture a strong part of their life. But the private recriminations and reliving of their mistakes also lets it eat away at their mental health. And the guilt that family members feel comes back over and over and it works on them even after they have achieved successes in Canada. It continues to affect the contemporary narrator who is putting together notes for a family history.
The details of everyday life keep the story personal, a specific family story set against larger histories. Tulchinsky has clearly done a lot of research and uses it to create a particular time and place. Her description of the light in a shop in the stetl or the sound of horses hooves on a Toronto bring me as a reader right into the scene. For me, these details are one of the strengths of Tulchinsky’s writing.
Happily, Tulchinsky uses a light touch and humour as well as her historical research. In one comic spin on the stereotype of Jewish guilt, she works her way around five members of the family, each agonizing over how he or she is guilty for the debilitating injury of the youngest son. And the local lovable crime boss is almost comic in his characterization.
I would not have thought that I’d be very interested in a story that spends a lot of time on the inner life and the physical experience of a boxer, but Tulchinnsky makes the details and the life fascinating. She gets into Sonny’s life so closely that I often wondered if Tulchinsky had not taken up boxing herself.
If I have a criticism (beyond the occasional excess of details from the Toronto newspapers), it’s in the stories of the sons as young boys. It seemed to me sometimes that their thinking was too advanced for their ages – Sonny at 10, for example, is more focused and driven than anyone I’ve known at that age. Lenny is drawn into a literary world at 12, which is a little hard for me to imagine. I can agree that they live in times different from those I’m familiar with, but I think I’d have accepted more of their thinking if they had all been a few years older.
Nevertheless, I’m happy to have found the book and read it. It gives me a sense of Jewish and Canadian lives and how they are linked to the past, and how the past continues to relate to the present. ( )

I'll compare this book to a 3-D puzzle: The author tells the current situation then adds some background information which helps explain the current situation. She does it several times and I thought it led to a more interesting read.

The novel is a biography of a family, primarily during the first half of the twentieth century beginning with the flight to Canada in 1913 by Yakov Lapinsky following a progrom in Russia. He meets up with a cousin in Toronto and they become peddlers. Yakov marries and he and his wife have four sons. The family survives through the Depression, a riot by a group of Nazi sympathizers in 1933, World War II, and its aftermath.

One of the sons, Sonny, becomes a professional and highly successful boxer and there is a lot of information about the world of boxing. The author assumes the role of his grandson.

The influence of criminals on businesses and sports that help the family survive is detailed as are disasterous invasions that Canadian soldiers died in while trying to fight the Germans in France.

The role and effects of guilt play a tremendous part in this family's story. Yacov was not able to save his younger brother in Russia. His youngest son suffers a major brain injury in the riot in Canada. Everyone is blamed and everyone considers himself/herself guilty. The biggest effect is the way Yakov treats his sons because of his guilt.

It cleverly shows the doctor jovially explaining their son's brain injury to his parents, who lack the language skills and education to understand is technical explanation. The way Yakov treats his family is mirrored in the way Sonny treats his.

In many ways I found this a difficult book to read, especially the scenes during World War II, but it was definitely worth it. ( )

This was chosen as the One Book, One Vancouver for this year and I have to say it didn't really do anything for me. The storytelling is there, all of the elements of a rich novel are present. But I didn't feel any connection with the characters other than a sort of mild interest. I wasn't burning to learn more about them, in fact it dragged on and I started feeling like I wanted to move in to my next "book relationship."

KXT does tell an interesting tale about immigration in Canada, but I guess since I recently read Two Solitudes and felt that it really spoke to the immigration experience and the experience of newcomers during WW2 and the Depression...well maybe I have just had enough of that. Perhaps if I had given some space and time to those ideas I would not have felt so bogged down by the situation of the Lapinsky family.

My expectations were exceedingly high for this choice, too, since I have REALLY loved the One Book choices up to this point, suggested them to others, purchased them for friends/family. So maybe the novel did not have a chance.

I don't know. Give it a read, maybe you will like it.

This book is for you if:
1) you like boxing or have a history of boxing yourself
2) you have an interest in the Russian/Jewish experience in Canada
3) your family history includes any involvement in the interaction between immigrants and domestics in Toronto in the 30s ( )

2009 ( )