In honor of the release of The Street Sweeper in paperback, we are reprinting my review from the hardcover release last year. We also have a giveaway, so after you read the review, if you’re interested, just leave a comment, and you’ll be entered to win!
The Street Sweeper reminds me, organizationally, of looking at the back of a piece of embroidery. There are plots and story-lines running everywhere, and at first it feels chaotic. However, by the end, you are looking in awe at a beautifully-finished piece of story-telling. This is an awesome book, well worth the time commitment required for its 600+ pages.
The book is a novel, but it packs in a huge amount of 20th-century history. The story follows two young men, both living in New York, both representing to various degrees the past of their people; however, the plot also follows for periods of time a Jewish professor who claimed to be Episcopalian in order to get a job in 1940s Chicago, a young Jewish girl in Poland in the years just before WW2 and then later in the camps, a beautiful black social worker whose marriage is crumbling, and many many more.
At the beginning, we are introduced to Lamont Williams, a young black man recently released from prison after serving his sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. Lamont is a fundamentally decent man who more than anything lacks self-confidence. He lives with his grandmother, and wants desperately to find his daughter, now 8, whom he hasn’t seen since she was 2. He has been given an opportunity—a job in Building Services at Sloan-Kettering Cancer hospital, where he is on probation for six months. During his first week on the job, a patient who’s been left out on the sidewalk insists that Lamont help him return to his room. Lamont does so, and a reluctant friendship springs up between the two. The patient, a survivor of Auschwitz, insists on telling Lamont his story, and has Lamont repeat it until he has it memorized, learning the difference between death camps and concentration camps, and about inside uprisings at Auschwitz. Shortly before his death, he gives Lamont a present, and you don’t need the gift of prophecy to foretell that will spell trouble for him.
The other main character is Adam Zegnelik, whose career as a history professor at Columbia is on rocky ground, and who is struggling out of the great shadow cast by his father, a Jewish lawyer who was hugely instrumental in the civil rights movement. When we first meet him, Adam is lying awake at night reliving moments in black American history—the desegregation of schools and how terrifying it was for the first black students in white schools, the 1963 church bombing that killed 4 black girls, and more. He is paralyzed by the future, and breaks up with his long-term girlfriend because he knows he won’t make tenure. His life turns around when he discovers a huge cache of first-person interviews with Holocaust survivors in refugee camps.
“Tell everyone what happened here,” says one of the women. “Tell everyone what happened here,” says Lamont at one point after he is false accused, yet again, of crimes he hasn’t committed. The Street Sweeper moves between vantage points and times, but it is ultimately a story of connection, of human beings, of unimaginable crimes but also of small beauties and justice. It’s an incredible book.
Leave a comment if you want to win. We’ll announce the winner on February 27.
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Elizabeth enjoys learning history through novels. This one made her thankful for the times and place in which she lives. Learn more at her blog Planet Nomad.
This sounds fascinating; I’d love to win.
It sounds interesting, and has received great reviews. Thanks!
Thanks for the giveaway for a great sounding book.
Thanks for featuring this fascinating novel.
This book interests me very much. thanks.
This sounds like a great book! I would love to read this. Thanks for the giveaway!
I am putting this book on my too read list. Thanks for the review.
A great story. I would enjoy this memorable book.
I’ve had this on my wish list, thank you for a chance to win a copy. I’m happy to hear it’s out in paperback.
Wow and I mean wow, what a fantastic storyline, this book does sound amazing from reading your review.
I would love to read it.
Sounds like a fascinating read.
I would enjoy reading this since I love historical fiction. Thanks.
The historic context interests me.
The book sounds like it has a great plot to it it. I would love to read it.
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Wow, this book sounds so good.
Sounds like a great book!
This sounds so entrancing! I read a lot of Jewish Historical Fiction so I am really atracted to this book. I really love that he did a lot of interviews with Holocaust Survivors.
CarolNWong(at)aol(dot)com
Sign me up! Sounds intriguing!
I love historical fiction and this sounds like a great story! Looks like one for the book club list.
This sounds like a great read!
This one sounds good.
Oooooh, this sounds like *another* good one for my bookclub. 🙂
My wife would like this one.
It sounds very interesting!
This sounds fantastic! I would love to read it!
Sounds like a very interesting read. I would love the history in this book.
You win, Anita! Please reply to this email with your shipping address.
I adore the cultures and story lines behind
this book! I would certainly enjoy reading
it right in front of our fireplace, late in
the evening for my alone time…
Many thanks, Cindi
Would enjoy reading this one too.
I like reading about things of the past.
This book sounds amazing to me.
My wife would like to read this one.
This one sounds very interesting.