Customer Reviews

The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers

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I was touched by The Invisible Wall in a profound way. Harry Bernstein waited to tell the story of his childhood until he was 96 years old. I am not sure if that fact is what had me riveted or the way the story of his upbringing in northern England unfolds. As a young boy, Berstein had to endure a childhood of antisemitism where he was considered a Christ killer because he was Jewish and an alcoholic father. Even his family had their own prejudices and Harry seemed to be caught in the middle. Add a controversial (for their time) love story in the midst of all this and you have a best seller. Bernstein's mother is credited for keeping the family together with her strength and determination. I read this out of curiosity but finished it because it was wonderful and too hard to put down.
The remarkable spirit that pours from the pages of The Invisible Wall will capture your heart.

When I first heard about this book in the news I was already hooked. Harry Bernstein, in his 90's and lonely after the death of his wife of 60+ years, writes his memories of growing up in a Lancashire mill town in England in the early 1900's. He describes the "invisible wall" that ran down the middle of his street, keeping the Jews on his side and the Christians on the other mostly separate. The only thing they really had in common was poverty and a distrust of each other. It's an amazing memoir as he remembers some of the incidents that happened on his street, such as going to school for the first time, his sister Lily winning a scholarship to the grammar school, and the young men who went to fight in WWI. He tells of the sacrifices his mother made for the children, and how mean and uncaring his father was. The one thing that sort of brought the two sides together was when his sister fell in love with a Christian boy, although it caused a lot of trouble and heartache.

Overall, a very difficult book to put down from the very first sentence. The writing is beautiful and descriptive, and gives a sense of the hardships the working poor faced. But it's not all sadness, and there are some bright moments, although it reads very much like a Dickens novel in many respects. The bigotry of both sides of the street is detailed and told without bitterness. And Bernstein makes his family and neighbors come alive - you feel real sympathy for his mother and sister and their hopes and dreams, and even some for his alcoholic father. It's difficult to describe the emotions in the book, and yet I couldn't wait to keep reading it. Perhaps the best book I've read in a long time and I fully recommend it.

Written by Harry Bernstein at the age of 93, "The Invisible Wall" is a memoir about a young boy's experiences and observations growing up in a mill town near Manchester, England before and after World War I. Although the story is set in a very small locale, the inter-personal relationships the author (perceptively and lovingly) describes are applicable to all Humankind.

The book is a wondrous mix of both sadness and hope, sorrow and love. In ways similar to "Angela's Ashes," the affirmation of life, despite tradjedy and hardship, runs free throughout its pages.

Mr. Bernstein's story is a microcosm of Human Nature: Our never-ending need for love and companionship, and to endure even when things are most bleak; our mistrust of others whose backgrounds and beliefs are different from our own; how early experiences influence our character and personality throughout our entire lives; our ability, in some instances, to grow beyond narrow confines; the tragedies brought about by conflicts and wars; and the reality that some people are born with kind and generous hearts, while others are not.

Whether one is a Christian, Jew, Muslim or whatever, "The Invisible Wall" is a book of great sensitivity and relevance, one that will not be quickly forgotten. Mr. Bernstein, now working on a second book, is an inspiration to us all.

Ralph Block
Westlake Village, CA

Harry Bernstein, who is in his ninties, has written a memoir of what it wa like to grow up in a small mill town in Lancashire, England in the 1920's. His family had emigrated from Poland to escape pogroms. Life in England for poor Jews was hard, economically and socially. Harry's story begins when he is a little boy and covers about 10 years. He describes in small details what is was like to grow up there, at that time.
The book is well written, and reads like a novel....I recommend it!

After you read this wonderful book, you will agree that America has no race prejudice compared to other places in the world, including Great Britain. This memoir is a page turner and how anyone could report this book is boring, must come from a different planet or else not be human. This is a compassionate story of a family and neighborhood that should stick in your mind for a long time. It does include a fine love story and the title is most apt.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - Jane Austen.

Well, according to Harry Bernstein, any woman must be in want of a husband. No matter how abusive, how inattentive, how sickly, the desperation of both Christian and Jewish women to catch and keep a husband seems to be the underlying plot and message of Harry's Bernstein's youthful memoir The Invisible Wall. I obviously know that's not what he meant, but that's what kept coming through.

Harry trembles under the sheets as his drunken Jewish father comes home every night. Yet despite the abuse, the poverty, the neglect, Harry's mother never even considers leaving or defying her husband.

"My father had gone to Chester with other men to be examined by the army doctors, and had come home drunk, with a strange leer on his face, as if to say he would not oblige us by going off to war and getting killed.

We said nothing, though I know my mother cried with relief."

There seem to be no redeeming qualities in Harry's father, at all, and the God I know, no matter how religious you are, would not condone keeping terrified, abused kids in that house.

On the day his smart, successful sister Lily is to interview for a paid teaching position, her father grabs her by the hair and drags her to his work at the tailoring shop. After all they did to get Lily to take the test, to see her dreams crushed like that broke my heart and actually made me despise Harry's mother. There are just some edicts worth defying.

Speaking of defiance, the biggest defiance comes when his Jewish sister Lily talks to, writes to and eventually marries Christian neighbor Arthur Forshaw. The Invisible Wall refers to the divide between the Jews and Christians on a poor street in Manchester, England, just before the first World War.

It's apparent from the beginning who the love story will involve, and it ends in a expected, yet disappointing way.

Did I like it? Yeah. Did I love it? No.
I read a lot of Young Adult fiction and thought this book (the writing, the plot, the message) would be better suited to Young Adult Fiction.

The writing is very simplistic, which, as the narrator is age four when he's recounting the start of the story, makes sense. Young Harry Bernstein, know as `Arry throughout, shares his impressions, but does not seem to gain any more insight, despite his age. But as the author ages, the narrative voice does not. He tends to use similar phrases over and over and over and over again (Kinda like I did here, get it?)

I've read a lot of reviews comparing this book to Angela's Ashes, but do poverty, Britain and an abusive father make any book Angela's Ashes? Hardly. The biggest parallel is that while both mothers do care about their children, they are too beaten down to do much to defy the rotten men in their lives.

Frank McCourt writes so beautifully and with such pathos that the book stayed with me for months afterwards. The Invisible Wall is fine, but I have little interest in reading the sequel, when he and his family emigrate to America.

An absolutely wonderful book written by a 93 year old author who captures the very essence of anti-semitism in pre-World War I England through his own childhood experiences. The last chapter is so descriptive and poignant...really tugs at the heartstrings. I hope Mr. Bernstein continues to share his gift of the written word.

Wonderfully written. This book surprised me because of its unpredictability. I couldn't put it down. Mr. Bernstein's story is beautiful, it's a wonder why he waited so long to share it.

My six member book club read this last month, and all of us, including our most critical member, found this book very enjoyable and enlightening. The inclusion of dialog easily puts the reader in the time period. The tone and style of the author encourage empathy and understanding of both populations on either side of the invisible wall. The author conveys his and his sibling's emotions in the gentlest of ways while the reader easily grasps that at the time they were much more. While not quite a page turner, my attention never lagged and I would have willingly read more. I would have appreciated more wisdom on the overall subject such as was found in Arthur's letter to Lily.

Harry Bernstein writes in a descriptive manner that makes all the characters seem to be living right in front of the reader's eyes. The story is so interesting that I could not put the book down until I finished. It was hard to believe that a man at ninety years of age could remember so much detail and emotion back to his early childhood. The book was well worth reading. I look forward to Mr. Bernstein's next book.