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The Mensch: A Novel
A day in the life of Leon Roth, a young Jewish manager of a decaying apartment building in New York. A college dropout, Roth spends his life fending complaints from the Hispanic tenants about broken mail boxes and elevators smelling of urine--that is when he is not dreaming of his Polish-Catholic girlfriend.
177 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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October 18, 2014
I had this book on my to-read list for a very long time, and after at long last getting a library card I found the book there. How disappointing! I made it through about 40 pages of the book and just had to give up; I am not usually a giver-upper, but this book just put me into such a negative mood I had to stop reading it.
The main character, Leon Roth, grew up in the Bronx and now, at age 25, he is still living there, working as an apartment manager in a run-down building owned by a rather slum-lordish man. The environment alone is depressing, and when we meet some of the tenants we are dragged down even further into hopelessness. No one seems to be able to get out of the place. Roth's once-competent handyman has retired, and the current handyman is portrayed as the typical stereotype of the Latino, lazy, stupid, and just unwilling to try. In fact, I would say that almost every character in this book is a stereotype of some group, from Hispanics to Jews to Polish people - you name it.
I'm going to stop here and simply say, "Blech!" The book just isn't worth plowing through and using my valuable reading time when there are so many books still on my to-read list.
The main character, Leon Roth, grew up in the Bronx and now, at age 25, he is still living there, working as an apartment manager in a run-down building owned by a rather slum-lordish man. The environment alone is depressing, and when we meet some of the tenants we are dragged down even further into hopelessness. No one seems to be able to get out of the place. Roth's once-competent handyman has retired, and the current handyman is portrayed as the typical stereotype of the Latino, lazy, stupid, and just unwilling to try. In fact, I would say that almost every character in this book is a stereotype of some group, from Hispanics to Jews to Polish people - you name it.
I'm going to stop here and simply say, "Blech!" The book just isn't worth plowing through and using my valuable reading time when there are so many books still on my to-read list.
Displaying 1 of 1 review