Marching to Zion

September 16, 2013
In her third novel chronicling the experience of Jews in the South, Glickman (National Jewish Book Award Finalist for One More River) captures the untamed Midwest of the 1920s and ’30s, when the Mississippi offered an escape route and unleashed biblical wrath in the form of horrific floods. She follows the stories of two young upstarts: Mags Preacher, a plucky black girl bent on making it as a beautician in St. Louis, and Magnus Bailey, the first person Mags meets in the big city—a dapper, smooth-talking black man who is in love with Minerva, the adopted daughter of a Jewish man named Fishbein, who runs the funeral home where Mags finds work. Glickman puts Minnie and Magnus’s love affair through trial after trial: “They hurtled along a primrose path strewn with brambles sharp as arrow tips, studded with insurmountable boulders, crisscrossed by poisoned streams.” In describing their downfall, she eventually focuses on the glimmering citadel of Eretz Israel and Zion as a paradise of tolerance—“a solution to all our troubles,” Fishbein says. But religion isn’t the only thing that stirs Glickman to fervor: she writes in a high-drama, no-holds-barred style when it comes to romance. The result is a preachy yet entertaining novel about sins of the flesh and the redemptive power of belief.

October 1, 2013
Characters are kicked to the side of the road with little afterthought in Glickman's (One More River, 2011, etc.) tale of forbidden love and intolerance, set in the South during the early 1900s. When Mags Preacher arrives in St. Louis in 1916, the young black woman dreams of one day owning a beauty shop. Armed with a $10 loan and directions to a boardinghouse, she finds work in Fishbein's Funeral Home, which caters to black customers and seems to be a good, if unusual, place to learn her trade. Mags' hours are spent preparing bodies in the basement beside George McCallum, the manager, whom she marries after a brief courtship. The funeral home was once owned by George's relatives but was sold to a Jewish emigre whose disturbed daughter, Minerva "Minnie" Fishbein, witnessed the massacre of her biological family during anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. Magnus Bailey, a handsome black dandy who made the original loan to Mags, is Fishbein's business partner and good friend, and he also happens to be the object of Minnie's affection. Affected by extreme acts of racism, Fishbein sells the business and leaves St. Louis. Mags, who has a newborn daughter by this time, is dropped off at her cousin's home and, after being the central character in the narrative for more than a quarter of the book, pretty much becomes a nonentity. With nary a backward glance, the others travel to Memphis and take center stage. Acutely aware that an interracial relationship can only spell disaster, Magnus lies to Minnie and flees the area, and Minnie tries to follow him. Her journey results in a pivotal experience that affects the course of her life and convinces Magnus that he must take responsibility for their future. (He disappears and works for years in menial jobs before returning to Minnie.) Glickman skillfully conveys the struggles of African-Americans and Jews during this era, but the love story between Magnus and Minnie lacks credibility and emotion. The author abandons the most relatable character in the narrative to focus on a weaker, less interesting--and in many ways, more predictable--story.

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October 15, 2013

In this fast-paced novel, the fortunes of the Jewish Fishbein family, who fled the Eastern European pogroms, and Magnus Bailey, an African American wheeler-dealer who becomes Mr. Fishbein's business partner, are linked over 20 years. As the protagonists move from St. Louis to Memphis, everywhere there are race riots, poverty caused by floods, and economic depression. The unacceptable love between Mr. Fishbein's daughter Minerva and Magnus is the trigger that forces confrontations, lies, robbery, rape, and even murders in Glickman's (Home in the Morning; One More River) third examination of the confluence of relationships between Southern Jews and their African American neighbors. VERDICT National Jewish Book Award finalist Glickman employs the same storytelling technique that she used in her previous books by moving rapidly in time from one character's point of view and from one location to another. Although certain characters from those earlier works play roles in her new narrative, this is definitely a stand-alone title. Readers who are interested in Southern historical novels examining black-white relationships and those who enjoy good storytelling are the natural audience here.--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2013
This moving novel by a National Jewish Book Award nominee (for One More River, 2011) is set in the Mississippi Valley during and just after WWI, a region and a period deeply affected by historical events: the brutal East St. Louis race riot of 1919, the devastating Mississippi River floods of 1927, and the Great Depression soon afterall of which touch the book's characters profoundly, as does the poisonous racial climate of the time. Young African American country girl Mags comes to East St. Louis to make her way and falls in with an unlikely assortment of characters who help her: Magnus Bailey, a black dandy of what initially appears to be questionable character; George McCallum, a black employee of the Fishbein Funeral Home, with whom she falls in love and marries; and the Fishbeins, father and troubled daughter, Minerva. The relationships between blacks and Jews are unusual for the time but are handled with credibility by the talented Glickman. Mr. Fishbein, who likens the riots in his home city to the pogroms of his youth, offers his services to the African American community and forms a succession of partnerships with Bailey. Though Mags regrettably disappears from the narrative, supplanted by her cousin back home, Aurora Mae, the novel is sustained by the rich period detail and by strong and fully realized characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)