Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2022
Where do you start when you’re writing about a biography of Joe Greenstein, a man who was able to tap into a higher power that allowed him to perform feats of strength that were, to all intents and purposes, impossible to mortal man – and seemingly more impossible to Greenstein who stood 5 feet 4 inches tall and generally weighed under 145 pounds. One of the incredible things about this book is that the author, Ed Spielman, succeeds in conveying how his friend was able to perform these feats, it’s there for all to see however the secret is not laid out in a group of pages, but integrated throughout Greenstein’s life story – and what a story. Spielman takes us on a magic carpet ride, and we’re not just reading, we’re there standing alongside the asthmatic 14-year-old as he overhears doctors pronounce his death within four years, and his escape from that short life, to a new one as he runs away from home joining the circus, becoming the valet to, and student of the circus strongman, Champion Volanko. That’s where the story really begins, a story of a search to tap a higher power, countless adventures, and countless battles against the abuse of power. Greenstein took on the Ku Klux clan, Nazis, bullies of all descriptions, and in his later years, muggers. He was shot, stabbed, clubbed, beaten, blinded in one eye, and tarred and feathered, but he was always defiant, always fought back, and was always the last man standing no matter how many faced him. Only one thing could hurt him, the death of his childhood sweetheart, and wife, Leah.
In 2017, the documentary film The Mighty Atom was released. I have never watched it, nor have any intention to. Why would I watch a film when I have Spielman’s book, that misses nothing out, and plays out far better than any film could? I had often wondered though, why a story like this had not been given the Hollywood treatment, as on the surface it would be a blockbuster. Only after watching the film Hacksaw Ridge and reading about its historical accuracy did I understand the reason. One of the greatest acts of bravery on the part of the combat medic Desmond Doss is omitted from the film because the director felt it would not be believed by the audience.
Therein lies the target for the sceptics – in the unbelievability of Greenstein’s entire life. As for the photos, the newspaper cuttings, the headlines and quotes linked to the impossible acts, the sceptics will cry ‘Fake! If this man actually did what the book says he did, he would be a superhero, and those characters, as we all know, are fantasy.’ All except one. Greenstein possessed the purity and moral standing of Captain America who didn’t like bullies and stood up against them at every opportunity. When Drax the Destroyer, a Guardian of the Galaxy, was attacked by scores of men, he would wade through them, throwing them aside like rag dolls. Greenstein did the same on numerous occasions, most notably when he single-handily fought off, and hospitalized 18 members of a Nazi bund meeting. On stage, street corners, and on airport runways he was the Hulk, snapping iron bars in half that men twice his size couldn’t bend, and holding airplanes at full throttle to a standstill. He was a superhero, but unlike his peers, he was not the creation of a fantasy writer, he was flesh and blood, he was real. He was a man, who was presented with the keys to scores of cities across America, wrestled the world lightweight champion to a draw, and during the Second World War, having been turned down for the armed forces, taught unarmed combat to the New York Police Patrol Corps.
What a tragedy it would have been had this incredible life been lost. Ed Spielman’s book remains ahead of its time. We may not recognize his name, but we know of his work. Spielman was the creator of the Kung Fu series in the 1970s, The Young Riders, and co-creator of Dead Man’s Gun, yet for all his achievements as a Western writer, his greatest gift to the world is the book about a man who he first heard about from his grandfather when he was a boy. How inconceivable it would have been to that child that over two decades later he would be sitting in the audience of an event in Madison Square Gardens and watch as an old man, dressed in a Samson costume, slowly walked on stage and proceeded to tear iron bars apart. We can only imagine what was going on in Spielman’s mind as he made the connection to the man his grandfather had told him about. That realization is at the start of a book that holds so much promise, and then proceeds to exceed that promise.
