Teitlebaum’s Window

by Wallace Markfield

Welcome to Brighton Beach of the 1930s and early '40s as filtered through Simon Sloan, from youth to would-be artist-as-a-young-man at Brooklyn College to the eve of his induction into the army. Wallace Markfield perfectly captures this Jewish neighborhood—its speech, its people, its unique zaniness.

But like any masterpiece—Joyce's Dubliners comes readily to mind—Teitlebaum's Window both survives and expands upon its time and place. While remaining rooted in the specifics of its own world, thirty-seven years after first being published it teems with Markfield's inventiveness, hilarity, and singular voice.

Genres: Fiction, American, The United States Of America

387 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Wallace Markfield (1926-2002) was one of the most important Jewish-American writers of the twentieth century. His novel To an Early Grave was adapted into the film Bye, Bye Braverman, directed by Sidney Lumet, and he was also the author of Teitlebaum's Window, You Could Live If They Let You, and Radical Surgery.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wallace Markfield is another voice howling from the void—the void of unloved unread unappreciated now-dead experimental fiction writers too cool for even the postmodern crowd. This novel is a collage of elements: each chapter opens with a list of scenes, kvetchings or moments from the 1930s Jewish Brooklyn neighbourhood the book depicts. Simon Sloan is at the centre of the piece and his story is told in intermittent chapters consisting of diary entries, letters, college notes and extended dialogue-packed pages. The chapters in between cover his family, especially his ultra-Jewish father whose good humour gives way to moments of violent son-hating misanthropy that explode from the patchwork of niche jokes, wordplays and Yiddish terms of disapproval. Simon’s early days with his filthy friends recounting sex stories about their parents provides many chuckles, and the later parts with his various Marxist, insane, anti-Marxist suitors as he shimmies up the social ladder are also written with relentless comic imagination. Not all the chapters lend themselves to the addictive pleasure-filled aspect of the Simon pieces, but the novel delivers an original suckerpunch of howling tittering Jewishness regardless.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

March 26, 1938

Hohner told us the best best lays he ever had live in the middle of Australia. He said there the girls have a lot of hair around their twatzers, that's why they call it the bush country.

Mrs. Abrams Sheldon passed high on the post office test. She invited in the whole floor for delicatessen. Mom got angry at Sheldon. She asked him if where he would work he could do something for her on postals, she uses them a lot. He didn't answer.

The downstairs bell rang. Mom got very nervous. She ticked back. It turned out it was Cousin Phillie. She said Hello stranger how are you, this is a very very pleasant surprise, and what brings you here. Cousin Phillie said he was in the neighborhood and he wanted to use the bathroom.

It was a really beautiful day later so Mom and Dad and I went on the boardwalk. Mom told Dad in Jewish he should walk with me to talk and make better friends. Dad said I don't know what to say. Mom said What whats the difference, just have like a little discussion. Dad said A discussion, how about we should have a discussion sonny. What do you like better, you like better a sour pickle or a half sour pickle? I told him I used to like the half sour pickles better but I think now I like them both the same. Dad went back to Mom and he said, What do you want from me, What can I do, From the day he was born this boy is my enemy.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This remarkable novel suggests in its own unique way James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" set in the Brooklyn of the 1930s instead of the Dublin of the 1890s. It presents a startlingly vivid, often humorous, sometimes touching, picture of a specific place, time, and society, using many different styles, each adding to the richness of the total panorama and story of Simon Sloan's childhood, adolescence, and young adult life as a college student. The book carries him through the Great Depression and Pearl Harbor and the beginning of worldwide conflict. The United States entry into the War appears to solve some of Simon's personal problems, but we can be sure that new ones will arise. Nothing in this world is ever easy, but these folks don't give up and Simon especially has both the wits and sense of humor to keep on going, whatever is thrown at him. A classic.

[Irving Koppel · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you can imagine a combination of James Joyce's"Ulysses" and Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye",you
might get some idea of this rather strange book. On the face of it,it is the story of the coming of age
of a young Jewish boy in Brooklyn during the 1930's. However, the tortured method which the author employs
to go through this life almost make us feel as we have had to spend the entire span of the young man's
childhood and adolescence. I'd only recommend this book for English majors who wish to learn about various
methods of experimental communication.