Customer Reviews

Only in America.

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This warm-hearted look at American life by Harry Golden (1902-1981) makes for humorous yet serious reading. The book is a compilation of anecdotes and pieces drawn from the Carolina Israelite, the author's little Charlotte (North Carolina) newspaper with a national reputation. The anecdotes range from a couple sentences to several pages, with most being about one page or less in length. These anecdotes cover a gamut of issues including family life, sex, tradition, New York City, small towns, Jewish life, the Church, immigration, segregation, and other facets of U.S. life. Readers can learn much from Golden, who was blessed with writing talent, a good memory, and common sense. This book is largely humorous and nostalgic, but at times is quite serious. So was his newspaper, which was one of the few in the south that dared to oppose segregation in the 1950's.

Golden was raised in New York City before moving as an adult (with a record) to Charlotte, North Carolina. His small paper had a national following, and was said to be popular among Christian clergy. This best-selling 1958 book was followed by FOR 2 CENTS PLAIN, ENJOY, ENJOY, plus several other volumes.

Harry Golden occupied an unusual spot in American life in the middle of the 20th Century; he was a public intellectual followed by politicians and others in positions of social power, though his direct audience was never large. He was a close friend and confident of poet Carl Sandburg, though he was not a poet himself (nor, arguably, a particularly fluid writer of prose). He was outspoken on the subject of civil rights for black Americans, and one of his satirical essays on the topic ("The Vertical Negro Plan") was widely reprinted and circulated in the late 1950s, but you won't find his name in histories of the civil right movement. Similarly, he corresponded with Billy Graham and other Christian leaders, some of whom regarded him as a Jewish leader, though he was never had a congregation of his own or filled any important official role among America's Jews. Even his geographical position was somewhat paradoxical, a Jew in North Carolina at a time when that was still rare.

To the extent he is remembered at all today, it is for the essays he published in his one-man newspaper, The Carolina Israelite, and for the collections (especially this one) that were much more widely read than the newspaper itself had ever been.

To the modern reader, the content of many of these essays will be dated, interesting especially to those with an interest in American politics and culture of the late 1950s, and to a lesser degree in the lower east side of Manhattan in the early years of the 20th century -- Golden does write about his childhood a fair amount). The form of the essays, however, is quite modern. He wrote frequently, about whatever was on his mind, referring frequently to events in the news but also discussing books he had been reading (his essay on anti-semitism in The Merchant of Venice is one of the most surprising and interesting in this collection). He is erudite, often quoting Roman sources or referring to figures or events of antiquity. In short, it reads like a highbrow blog.