Baldwin Street

A Novel

Fiction & Literature, Cultural Heritage
Cover of the book Baldwin Street by Alvin Rakoff, Bunim & Bannigan
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Alvin Rakoff ISBN: 9781933480275
Publisher: Bunim & Bannigan Publication: July 16, 2013
Imprint: Bunim & Bannigan Language: English
Author: Alvin Rakoff
ISBN: 9781933480275
Publisher: Bunim & Bannigan
Publication: July 16, 2013
Imprint: Bunim & Bannigan
Language: English

Leonard Abelson is one of seven children. He lives above Abelson’s Hardware on Baldwin Street in Kensington Market in Toronto. It’s the 1930s. Leonard’s father, Sam, a former merchant sailor who speaks fourteen languages, does the purchasing for the store; his mother, Pearl, a Ukranian émigré who was a victim of pogroms and marauding Cossacks after WWI, runs the shop floor.

Leonard wants to be a writer. He witnesses the affections, struggles, and meager hopes of his neighbors—fuel for his imagination. Periodically, Leonard has to look after a young philosophy professor from the University of Toronto, Menasha Rifkin, who suffers from fugue states, squatting among the stalls on Baldwin Street reading Spinoza, Kant, and the Globe & Mail.

Halloween 1936. A band of young Italians invades Baldwin Street in search of blood. Marshall McDonald, the Irish cop who failed to quell the famous “Wop” vs. “Yid” riot at Christie Pits six years earlier, now must investigate the death of Bernie Altman, a young boy whose senseless slaughter lingers over the Jewish community like a bad dream.

In the tradition of James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan and Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Alvin Rakoff’s Baldwin Street is literary fiction at its best. This powerful novel presents a vivid mosaic of characters, the rich fabric of a community, and a boy’s coming-of-age on the dusty, rough-and-tumble streets of Toronto.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Leonard Abelson is one of seven children. He lives above Abelson’s Hardware on Baldwin Street in Kensington Market in Toronto. It’s the 1930s. Leonard’s father, Sam, a former merchant sailor who speaks fourteen languages, does the purchasing for the store; his mother, Pearl, a Ukranian émigré who was a victim of pogroms and marauding Cossacks after WWI, runs the shop floor.

Leonard wants to be a writer. He witnesses the affections, struggles, and meager hopes of his neighbors—fuel for his imagination. Periodically, Leonard has to look after a young philosophy professor from the University of Toronto, Menasha Rifkin, who suffers from fugue states, squatting among the stalls on Baldwin Street reading Spinoza, Kant, and the Globe & Mail.

Halloween 1936. A band of young Italians invades Baldwin Street in search of blood. Marshall McDonald, the Irish cop who failed to quell the famous “Wop” vs. “Yid” riot at Christie Pits six years earlier, now must investigate the death of Bernie Altman, a young boy whose senseless slaughter lingers over the Jewish community like a bad dream.

In the tradition of James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan and Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Alvin Rakoff’s Baldwin Street is literary fiction at its best. This powerful novel presents a vivid mosaic of characters, the rich fabric of a community, and a boy’s coming-of-age on the dusty, rough-and-tumble streets of Toronto.

More books from Cultural Heritage

Cover of the book Légendes normandes by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book July's People by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book I Ain't Black and You Ain't White by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Deep Singh Blue by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book The Unicorn Rampant by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Storm in the Sky by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book The Mountain and the Wall by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Morabaraba by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Life Times by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Homesteader's War by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book A Golden State of Mind / Golden Daze by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Sovereign of Stars by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book The World Treasury of Fairy Tales & Folklore by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Improbables destins by Alvin Rakoff
Cover of the book Partisan Heart by Alvin Rakoff
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy