Great Neck

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a historical novel, but without the tinny, gimcrack writing that term usually implies. It's akin to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or V, both in the sprawling canvas and the amazingly realized historical detail, which I imagine must have been worked up from painstaking research by the author. Any book where you find yourself arguing (sometimes out loud) with the characters is fine by me. To those who complained of the writing style, I would say the book rewards patience.

"Great Neck" is one of the most distinctively creative books I have read. Cantor brilliantly interweaves, and depicts a quite plausible interconnection between the impact of the civil rights movementand the Students for a Democratic Society of the late '60s/early '70s as a reaction to the search for sanctuary from anti-semetism, and the Holocaust specifically, in the affluent oasis of Great Neck, Long Island. However, in his tale the author indicates that this quest was quixiotic, that in fact the legacy of the Holocaust cannot be escaped and that their religion's heritage of ethics and responsibility eventually compells Jews to venture from what is safe to advocate for social justice. The irony of the book (in Cantor's rendering) is that as a response to persecution Jews won hard sought after success and moved to Great Neck as a sanctuary to savor their achievements, only to find peace elusive. To those familiar with the actual Great Neck, LI, the book may come as a surprise. It in no way validates stereotypes of shallow self absorbed exceedingly affluent suburban New Yorkers. This is a complex book that attempts to depict the angst of the experience of a group of the now Jewish upper middle class in a segment of Long Island, who find their tortured heritage impossible to escape. "Great Neck" is an engrossing, substantive and thought provoking book.

Great Neck is one of those few big novels that comes along and simply sweeps the reader into a world that is radical, idealistic, naive, romantic, and scary as hell. The 60s were tranformational, and somehow Jay Cantor has managed to write with authority and eloquence in the mulitiple voices of that time. How Cantor knows so much about SDS 'kids', drugs, Black Power, and Holocaust survivors, for just a start, is remarkable. The book is not an easy read but it is written so well that you cannot put it down. For anyone who wants to go deep into the sociology of this American Generation,Great Neck is a must read.

In Great Neck, Cantor displays not only a masterful grasp of language, but also of personality, wit, and style. It is a full and beautiful novel, seeped in humanity, with all the passion, pain and pleasure therein. Encompassing much of the turbulent 60's and beyond, Great Neck is part fiction, part fact, and as gripping as it is intricate. We are treated to absorbing, layered, and nuanced glimpses into a mixed cast of intellectual revolutionaries and civil rights activists, drawn primarily from the privileged elite of Great Neck, Long Island, burdened with a sense of guilt over their wealth and opportunity, and driven to find a way to make things right in the world. Stories sometimes told in parallel, sometimes asynchronously, Cantor's prose is woven together with a masterful sense of style and timing that can only be accomplished by great authors and auteurs. Admittedly, Great Neck is neither a light read nor a whimsical journey, but give it the time and attention it deserves and you will be richly rewarded. Five well deserved stars.