Crossing the Hudson

November 17, 2008
A Viennese fur dealer confronts his life’s failures in this pleasantly bizarre novel from the author of The Perfect American
. Gustav Rubin, a historian turned fur dealer, has returned from Europe to Manhattan to fetch his mother for a vacation at his lake house, but the trip goes awry at every turn, culminating in an epic traffic jam on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Lending a note of urgency is Gustav’s need to arrive at his lake house by dusk; as an Orthodox Jew (a faith his mother neither shares nor much respects), he must cease driving before the Sabbath begins. Mother and son bicker and reminisce about Ludwig Rubin, the family’s recently deceased patriarch, until Ludwig’s gigantic body appears beneath the bridge, lolling in the Hudson River. Marveling at his father’s enormous presence as he and his mother hammer out the many disappointments of his life, Gustav becomes increasingly aware of his parents’ power over his life. An unusual and inventive work, Jungk’s refreshingly strange images give some air to the otherwise claustrophobic narrative confines.

February 15, 2009
As if getting caught in a huge traffic jam on the Tappan Zee Bridge with his overbearing mother weren't enough, Gustav Rubin sees his dead father, Ludwig, floating on the surface of the Hudson River. Only-child Gustav grew up in the shadow of his father, a world-famous lecturer, while his mother maintained a continual running commentary, so that he was trapped between two dominating personalities. For Gustav, seeing his father's body sparks an inner monolog about his growing sense of having made wrong choices in his career, marriage, and attitude. As he walks along the bridge, with his father's huge image moving below, his mother nagging, and his wife calling on his cell phone, he realizes that it is time to break free of domination by others. Jungk ("Tigor") tackles themes of generational differences, Jewish identity, and the resolution of childhood development as crossing the bridge frees Gustav from his own jammed-up life. A solid purchase for large collections.Josh Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2009
If there was an award for the most hilariously impossible fictional mother, Jungk, author of the acclaimed novel The Perfect American (2004), would easily win it for Rosa Rubin. Every sentence she utters lashes her son Gustav like a cat-o-nine-tails. Gustav has come to New York from Vienna to spend the summer upstate with his wife and kids. Hes driving Rosa to the lake house, but theyre stuck on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Its hot, crowded, and chaotic, and Gustav has seen somethingstrange and distressing in the Hudson River. His mother the mind reader has also seen it: the enormous, naked body of his late, famous physicist father, her husband, Ludwig. In a dazzling mesh of the ordinary and the otherworldly, this mythic vision become a portal onto thehaunting story of Rosa and Ludwig, Holocaust survivors, and their burdened son. Bridging the past and present, the living and dead, Jungk turns one familys sorrows into a microcosm of Jewish heritage. Ofgreatpsychological depth and symbolic resonance, this dreamlike taleis worthy of the ancient Greeks.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)