Customer Reviews

Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Good fortune was with me when I happened upon this book last year. It is now one of my all-time favorites and I went on to read the two books that chronologically follow this one. My only complaint is that Ms. Simon died before she had the chance to tell us every minute detail about her unextraordinary, extraordinary life. A Jewish immigrant household in the Bronx shaped Kate's wonderful and unique personality. She shares her childhood - engrossing tales of urban fairy tale embedded in the real world of poverty -with the aplomb of a grand story-teller. If only I could have met her. She is the baudy humorous glamorous grandmother we all wish was our own.

This book is a warm, witty and intricate look at the author's childhood and teenage years in the Bronx. The prose sucks you in, and you are given enough detail so that you feel that you are right there with the author.

However, if you want to give it as a gift to a young bookworm, be forewarned that it contains graphic sexual content, including a blow-by-blow description of the male and female anatomy, and several descriptions of sexual (and physical) abuse.

The frank portrayal of Simon's relationship with her father in this book is refreshing, as are many of the stories about daily life as a girl growing up Jewish in the Bronx after WWI. However, the parts dealing with sexual advances of older man and, in general, older people's sexual opportunism with younger people were things I found really disturbing. Simon tells these anecdotes well and evenly, but as a reader, I felt frustrated and helpless reading so much about the way the taboos of sexuality trapped kids into silence about their victimization.

Kate Simon's little book will doubtless become a classic of the genre: memoir, coming of age, the immigrant experience, sexual awakening, life on the stoops in the Bronx...
Told unsentimentally and with a refreshingly straightforward style, Simon manages to convey both the sense and the essence of her unusual childhood to her readers.

I read this book twice. I myself am not Jewish. I happen to be of Irish, Danish and Dutch heritage. It brought back so many memories. I lived in an apartment house with Jewish, Italian and Irish people. I sent this book to four of my sisters (they each received their own copy) and they all loved it too. I then gave a copy to my best friend who happens to be Jewish and who grew up in Brooklyn. That didn't matter. It brought back memories of her childhood too. It is sad and funny at the same time.