The Christmas Kid

October 15, 2012
Little slices of decades-old melancholy from Hamill (Tabloid City, 2011, etc.). This collection of 36 short stories is largely culled from a series called Tales of New York that ran in the New York Daily News in the early '80s. Like most of Hamill's fiction, it's a mix of nostalgia and cynicism. As the author explains in an elegant foreword, this is the world, "without personal computers, cell phones, tweets, digital cameras, or iPads. A world where 'friend' was not yet a verb." And yet, the stories remain surprisingly timeless, full of regular joes, gangsters, lost souls and the cold, cold rain. There's plenty of nostalgia, remembrances of that awe-inspiring feeling of the world being new, but also the harsh reminders of New York's hard times, not least the wave of heroin and crack that swept the city in that time. From the title story, which finds the neighborhood teens forming a protective circle around a Holocaust survivor who is their age, to "The Book Signing," the tale of an elderly writer returning home, the message is the same. As the writer explains: "I've never really left. Or, to be more exact: those streets have never left me." In addition to that lovely last story, don't miss the other anomaly, "The Men in Black Raincoats," a noir story that feels right at home among its companions in this fine collection. Lost treasures from a time gone by, brimming with affection for old New York.

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November 1, 2012
Good ol' Pete Hamill is a seasoned journalist who can be counted on to write fiction with heart and old-fashioned, human charm. No cutting-edge technique here, no dystopian vision of city life (Hamill is a born and bred Brooklynite), but he certainly doesn't serve up pabulum to his eager readers. Hamill knows the toughness of city streets but also the warmth and richness to be found in the lives of the denizens of those streets. His latest book is a collection of short stories, most of them originally published in the New York Daily News. With their universality of theme and directness of style, they speak to all readers. For instance, The Christmas Kid, the longest story in the collection, is a poignant but never schmaltzy tale about Brooklyn immediately after WWII, when a Jewish boy from Europe is plunged into the neighborhood and is taught the ropes only to be taken away from this safe haven. His story is the story of the power of community.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)