Just Off Grand

The action takes place in and near New York City between the final days of World War II and the end of 1945. In Mrs. Levine's boarding house on the Lower East Side live three young people with growing and changing ambitions: Labal, in pursuit of a career as a cantor despite his rejection of his orthodox upbringing; David, a pre-med student with a passion for opera; Gussie, whose Left-wing ideals are tested by her infatuation with Labal. Their friend Jake, an older boarder who draws his power from personal charisma and mob connections, alters the course of their lives. Another boarder, Israel, subsists in poverty while his daughters, Shirley and Rosalie, are trapped in loveless if affluent marriages. The reader tracks Labal and the other denizens of the boarding house off Grand Street as they make their way uptown, some to luxurious Central Park South, others to the Astor Hotel, the Stork Club, and the Metropolitan Opera, to Times Square for the exuberant V-J Day celebration, to a prosperous West Side synagogue for a dramatic Yom Kippur Eve service. The often destructive, often conflicted relationships among the characters mirror the ferment of post-War society. is modeled on Honoré de Balzac's