The House of Moses All-Stars

July 1, 2003
With a premise that sounds like an urban legend, college basketball coach Rosen launches his seventh book on basketball (after the novel The Cockroach Basketball League), taking readers on a wild road trip in a renovated hearse with "seven jumbo Jews." In the midst of the Depression, Aaron Steiner joins a Jewish professional basketball team, the House of Moses All-Stars, on a cross-country tour from New York to California. In addition to Aaron, who joined the team after losing his baby, his wife and his dreams of basketball success, the players in the hearse include a Communist, a Zionist, a bank robber and a redheaded Irishman posing as a Jew. All are running from problems at home and hope to be "an example or something." But the boys get lost before they leave N.Y.C.--and, unfortunately, so does the reader. Set against the hardship and fear of the times, the novel seems to hope to explore what it means to be an outsider in America. Yet, while Rosen is long on road-trip atmosphere (bored waitresses, lukewarm bowls of oatmeal and dank locker rooms), he is short on character development and plot. A string of racial epithets and stereotypes, for example, is what constitutes an exploration of racism here. The narrative is littered with sophomoric sex jokes and lame vulgarities: "Looking back, I can hardly recall anything that I learned in my classroom. Oh yes... from my anatomy class--the handbone connected to the dick bone"--a joke that provides an apt, if unfortunate, metaphor for the spirit of this novel.

December 1, 1996
The title characters are seven teammates on a barnstorming Jewish basketball team during the Depression. They leave the Bronx knowing that they will be anomalies across America's heartland, which they count on to draw crowds. Conveniently diverse individuals themselves, including an Irishman pretending to be Jewish, they find plenty of opportunities for discussion with one another and the people they meet about getting along, pursuing dreams, and being outsiders at a time when many Americans viewed Jews with suspicion or disdain. There's also lots of good hoop action, as one would expect from Rosen, who has coached and written widely about the sport (e.g., The Cockroach Basketball League, Donald I. Fine, 1992. o.p.). This often funny and touching tale is recommended for public libraries.--Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.

December 15, 1996
The Great Depression is in full swing in New York, and everybody needs an angle to survive. When former college basketball star Aaron Steiner's buddy Leo gets in deep with the bookies, he enlists Aaron in a quick-money scheme: a barnstorming team of basketball-playing Jews. Aaron, suffering his own personal depression after the death of his infant daughter, agrees to the wacky plan and joins forces with a Bolshevik, a bank robber, a Zionist, and an Irish kid posing as a Jew. As they play their way across the anti-Semitic heartland, the team encounters a mix of kindness, cruelty, and hatred. To Aaron, the experience of the road itself unleashes all his personal dissatisfactions with life and the future. Rosen, a basketball gypsy himself, was the coauthor of Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson's first book, "Maverick" (1975), and is a former coach and player. He gets the basketball just right and makes the most of his Depression setting. A satisfying road novel. ((Reviewed December 15, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)