Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop

I purchased this book because I enjoyed Lleyveld's work at the New York Times and thought his autobiography would be of interest. It proved to be interesting for other reasons, as well. Firstly, it provides a glimpse of what it life must have been like for rural Jews in early-20th century America. As a native of Alabama, I've wondered how life must have been like for Jews then, and this book certainly answers that question. Also, as a reporter, Mr. Lleyveld is able to research his early years and effectively establish or disprove the validity of his memories. This proves very interesting and he deserves a lot of credit for this. It must have been very difficult to rely on objectively researched clues for the story of his life, instead of his own memories, especially considering that oftentimes his own memories proved false.

my confession first, since this book is a quasi-memoir (the author calls it a memory loop, though it reads like a mobious strip of guilt, pain, poignancy, and truth-seeking), i was attracted to this book because joe lelyveld's father was my rabbi growing up in cleveland. i really didn't enjoy going to fairmont temple as a youngster, not on sundays and certainly not twice a week for hebrew school when around 4:30 p.m, once a week, we filed into the chapel, and the rabbi would lead us through the standard prayers. i rarely, rarely, rarely go to temple these days ( six months on a kibbutz in the negev when i was 19 did wonders for my belief in cultural judaism at the expense of religiousity). but this book is a confrontation between memory and loss in the attempt to untangle destiny from fate. the battleground is the uneasy relationship between father and son, arthur and joe, with his mother providing the drama that sets things spinning off-kilter. the pages are thick with loss and regret; there is none of the philip roth's comic shtick that jumps at the reader in his autobiographical writings (or thinly veiled fictional renderings.) i applaud mr. lelyveld for having the courage to confront his past, especially as he must look far back in time, decades, to pry loose shards of recollection. know thyself, socrates counseled. this book satisfies the author's need to know, though it would be foolish to expect a complete and full answer. so just how close were father and son? not very. towards the end of the book, the son lets fly this awareness: "we seldom quarreled and we were never close." nor did they engage in much shop talk; rabbi lelyvled was one of the most prominent rabbis in america, and his son rose to become the man in charge at the ny times. but they steered clear discussing their jobs or careers. which to me, is, frighteningly pathological. perhaps the need to avoid conflict at all costs was what drove this arrangement, but as a reader, i wanted to know about the schisms that had to exist, especially in matter of political coverage that the times devoted to the arab-israeli saga. naturally, with an emotionally distant father, joe needed another father figure to project his hopes and desires as he entered his adolescence, and the figure who emerged is a complicated rabbi/communist/friend of his father who occupies the moral center--and about 50 pages--of this slim book. it's here that joe's reportorial skills are in full display as he pieces together the mysterious life of ben goldstein/ben lowell. as for my own recollection of rabbi lelyvled: I remember the newspaper photo of him in his blood-soaked shirt following a vicious beating by white thugs in the south in the early 60s. I was seven or so when this occured. and i remember his rather stiff and aloof demeanor during religious services. anyway, i was too young to make sense of any of his sermons. but every time he stood in front of the congregation, I would keep picturing the

Joseph Lelyveld's "Omaha Blues", a recollection of his growing up years, is a book that touches all emotions. Having only known the author through books like Seth Mnookin's "Hard News" and his (Lelyveld's) appearances on programs such as Charlie Rose, I felt a certain draw to read "Omaha Blues". I was not disappointed. Had the term "dysfunctional" been around in the 1940s and 1950s, Lelyveld's family could be described as such. Uprooted every few months it seems, Lelyveld spent much of his childhood with different family members (other than his parents) and with total strangers (the Jensen family in Nebraska). One wonders how this nomadic life can affect the maturity of any child, but he seems, somehow, to have taken much of this in stride. It certainly gave him a foundation for his own independence, to which he alludes. A large section of the middle of the book is devoted to his boyhood "friend", Ben Goldstein, (aka Ben Lowell, aka George B. Stern) who seems to have served as the author's mentor or avuncular presence. While Lelyveld and Goldstein appeared to have known each other for only a brief few years, the older man certainly played an enormous role in the life of the budding foreign correspondent. That so much of this relationship is left to the imagination of the reader, Lelyveld nonetheless fills in the pieces of how Goldstein was connected to his own family...that story, in itself, is worth the read of "Omaha Blues". I appreciate the author's candor regarding his own recollections of these formative years. While he was nicknamed "the memory boy", Lelyveld is not above letting us know that his own memory is sometimes very faulty. This admission adds to the charm of the book and allows him to be as human as possible. "Omaha Blues" is told straight from the author's heart. I highly recommend it to any reader who wishes to explore the depths of his or her own family relationships. Joseph Lelyveld has given us his remembrances in a most affective way.