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Overview
Chicago reporter and author of Compulsion, Meyer Levin won critical acclaim with this debut novel based on his own coming of age in the west side of Chicago. It follows the lives of nineteen teenagers—eleven boys and eight girls—who grow up together in the same working class Jewish Chicago neighborhood. The children of immigrants, these young people strive to forge their own paths in the aftermath of World War I and the struggles of the Great Depression.
With compassion, intimacy, and photographic detail, Levin captures not only the lives of this unique “bunch,” but also the life of a generation from the Roaring Twenties through the New Deal and the Chicago World’s Fair. First published in 1937, The Old Bunch “brilliantly succeeds in taking the reader on a memorable tour of the world in which the old bunch lived” (The New York Times).
“Written in good hard-driving colloquial prose, full of sharp characterizations . . . A very fine novel.” —New Republic
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781625670878 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 964 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
BOOK ONE Boys and Girls Together
FLAPPERS AND JELLYBEANS
After graduation, there was no excuse for Harry Perlin to meet anybody, except taking a walk down Twelfth Street — pardon me, Roosevelt Road — on the chance of running into somebody looking over the movie stills in front of the Central Park.
Harry meandered as far as St. Louis Avenue, taking a squint through the drug store window to see if Rudy Stone was behind the counter, Rudy wasn't there. Harry turned on St. Louis, thinking maybe he'd run into Lou Margolis, who lived in one of the newer three-story red brick fronts that were stuck in, breaking the gray rows of identical two-flat houses. Fellows like Lou Margolis had something that always kept a crowd turning around them; in fact they had to make excuses to get away from people.
Kids were playing peg. One of them slammed a peg that hit Ham's ankle. "That's all right," Harry forgave, glad to see the scared look fade off the kid's face. The kid doubled down and began to count the sticks. It had been a good long hit.
These summer days, kids stayed out late, playing. The twenty-first was the longest day of the year. It gave Harry a kick to remember facts like that. Motorists turn on lights at 7:40. Automatically, he looked at his wrist-watch. It had the latest radium-lite numerals.
Now it was getting towards dark; the air was the same dirty gray as the stone building fronts. Suddenly he heard a bunch of kids yell: "Yay!" then realized the street lights had just gone on. He had used to yell Yay himself, and straighten up with wonder every time the lights went on.
Now he turned up Douglas Boulevard. Naturally this was a sweller street; most of the buildings were six flats, six room apartments, red brick sunparlor fronts. Occasionally there remained a large private residence, built when the Irish ran the neighborhood.
Signs hung in the lighted basement windows of many of the apartment buildings: Spartan A.C., or Bluebirds, or Aces. The Lawndale Sportsmen even had a special blue and white electricbox sign, but they could afford to be fancy, they were in good with Rube Moscowitz, who even gave them baseball uniforms. A bunch of fellows would be hanging around in front of each club, making cracks at girls who paraded in pairs along the street. Just taking a walk. On Friday and Saturday nights a lot of the clubs would have victrolas going, and the girls, having accidentally met the fellows, would stop in for a while; there would be dancing.
It was Harry Perlin's idea not to have a club like those other clubs: most of them existed only for a baseball team or to have some fun with the broads. But Pearly thought if fellows like Lou Margolis and Rudy Stone and maybe Mitch Wilner and Joe Freedman could be drawn into the club, serious-minded fellows, they would have a club of a higher type, and they would keep something alive.
Turning again onto Independence Boulevard was like walking up the last side of a rectangle bounding that world. Almost everybody lived inside that rectangle. Well, Sam Eisen lived down on Troy Street, and the Meisels over on Sixteenth; but the half mile square that he had bounded was somehow warmer, full of life, it was the body containing the guts of the neighborhood though there might be limbs spreading outward.
Across the parkway that ran in the middle of the boulevard, making it such a swell street, Harry could see some of the girls gathered on the stairs of the Moscowitz house. He blushed, even though they were at such a distance.
It was funny how on some streets one side seemed dead, the other alive. Take in business. Rudy Stone had told him that Mrs. Kagen's drug store was a dying proposition because it was on the wrong side of Roosevelt Road. Rents on the other side were twice as high, but worth it. The Central Park was on the busy side.
But further along the boulevard, when he saw Joe Freedman getting into the Buick, he waved and crossed over. They circled around to Garfield Park and back, Harry listening to the motor. The valve tappets were making a racket again.
"I'll come over Sunday morning and tighten them up," he offered. He got out and lifted the hood of the engine; he could just make out the valves popping. If there had been a little more daylight left he would have started to work right away. Joe was a lousy driver and was killing the car. Between him and his sister Aline what chance did a car have? But you could hardly blame Aline as girls are always hard on a car.
"She had it out yesterday," Joe complained. "Every time she has it out she comes back with something on the blink."
Aline emerged. She was wearing a bright red little skirt, like all the girls were wearing. It had white buttons. Through her georgette waist he could see the straps of her chemise. "Well, what's the matter now? Hello, Harry," she said, and he could feel her standing near him. He wanted to offer to drive her wherever she was going, but after all it wasn't his car.
She was just going over to Rose Heller's but Aline was so lazy she bad to take the car even if it was around the corner to the grocery. She admitted it: "What's the use of walking if you have a car?"
As she clashed gears, the fellows looked at each other, wincing.
The Freedman house had one of those high English basements, ideal for a clubroom. Harry figured he could build a crystal set and have it at the club; everybody would take turns listening on his set.
"Say, nobody uses that basement of yours, do they?"
"No," Joe said. "The old man has some ideas of renting it, but you know how he is, he wouldn't spend the dough to fix it up first."
"It's got a nice entrance all right."
"Yah. My mother has got it in her head that I ought to be a doctor, just so I could have an office there," Joe said sarcastically.
"I'll bet it would make a swell clubroom," Harry said.
Joe cast a glance at the dark windows. "They don't want a club in the building. It's supposed to cheapen the building." He grinned.
"Greetings and salutations. What can I do you for?" Rudy was wiping glasses behind Mrs. Kagen's soda fountain. He came out and sat down with Joe and Lou Margolis, ready for a conference.
The first idea was to limit the club to ten.
"If we have it at all," Joe Freedman said, "it ought to mean something to belong. I mean we want something different. We don't want just another club."
Joe's idea was to have each member represent some different field of interest. For instance, Rudolph, going into medicine, could represent that. And Lou naturally would be the law. Joe, himself, would represent, well, the arts. Everyone would bring something to everyone else.
That was a good idea, Rudy agreed, but wouldn't it cut out too many good fellows? For instance, they would want Mitch Wilner.
"Oh, sure."
"Oh, sure."
But that would make two doctors.
"Well, it wouldn't have to be strictly that way, I mean ..." The main idea was fellows that would do something. Fellows that weren't just ordinary.
Each leaned back a little. Now they were looking around themselves, seeing what fellows they would go with, whom they would recognize.
"How about Sam Eisen?" Lou offered. This was strange coming from him as everyone had thought Lou and Sam were on the outs. Something funny had happened between them when Lou, as editor of the Ogdenite, refused to support Sam for re-election as school mayor, and put in that goy McGowan instead. But that school stuff was all over. Lou, at least, was showing that he harbored no grudges.
"Sam's a fine fellow. He'll get somewhere," Rudolph agreed.
They discussed Mort Abramson.
"All Mort would be in for would be the social end," Joe pointed out.
"Well, I haven't anything against being social," Rudy said, "but —"
"Well, I mean, according to that idea we had — what could Mort contribute? He'll probably end up in his old man's business."
"It might be a good idea to have one business man!" Lou Margolis cracked.
Just then they realized that Dave Plotkin had come into the store.
"What is this, the Black Hand?" Runt said, sitting down with them. Trust him to horn in on anything.
He put in Sol Meisel, because Sol was a star athlete, and had been on the championship basketball team — Dave Plotkin, manager. Then they had to have Ben Meisel, because he was Sol's brother.
That made nearly ten.
Harry Perlin was almost left out, as there was nothing special about him, but his friend Joe Freedman insisted that the club had been Pearly's idea in the first place.
Lou Margolis pulled in his shadow, Big Ears Lou Green, who wasn't much. Big Ears soon had another name. It was Second-the-Motion.
"The Ten Aces," Chesty Meisel offered for a name.
"How about the Ten Spot?" Runt Plotkin said.
"The Decas," was Mitch Wilner's studious idea.
"The Ten Turks," Lou Green suggested, with his eyes hopefully on Lou Margolis.
Lou went his shadow one better and said: "The Ten Terrible Turks." There was laughter, but Second-the-Motion thought it was a good name, seriously.
"The Ten Spot," Runt Plotkin insisted. Once he got something in his head! "I move we put it to a vote!"
"Any second?" Lou Margolis asked.
"Point of order!" cried Droopy Ben Meisel.
"There's a motion on the floor."
"A point of order is always in order," Ben argued, and they argued about that. Finally Lou conceded: "Well, what's your point of order?" "I forgot," Droopy said, and he didn't hear the last of that all night. Whenever an argument about anything got hot, Lou Margolis would mimic: "I forgot," and that would send the fellows into convulsions.
Other names suggested were the Ten Stars, the Ten-Alls; then somebody said did the name have to have Ten in it, and they thought of the Rainbow, the All-Stars, the Independents, the Kibitzers Klub, the Eagles, the Hawks, the Lions, the Tigers, the Bears, the Black Cats, the Blue Elephants ha ha ha, now get serious fellows, the Arrows, the Owls, the White Owls, then Harry Perlin said:
"How about the Big Ten?"
"Naw, that's — well, that's conceited."
"No, I mean like the Big Ten colleges." Some of the fellows had never even heard of the Conference; but Harry suggested that each club member could represent one of the schools.
Runt Plotkin said it was no better than the Ten Spot. Sol Meisel, to kid Runt, suggested the Little Ten, and Ben Meisel made a motion, Lou Green seconded the motion, and Big Ten it was, six to four.
"Point of order," Lou Green said, as the vote was counted.
"What's it about?"
"I forgot," Lou burbled, convulsed with his own laughter. But somehow the joke wasn't as funny as when the Sharp-shooter did it.
Harry offered to calcimine the place if some of the boys would come over Sunday morning and help him. It was okayed for him to go ahead and buy the stuff and the club would repay him.
He came over and did the job, but there was only one brush so Joe Freedman mostly stood around watching. Runt dropped in just as the job was finished. The calcimine had cost 74 cents and Harry gave the bill to Runt, who had somehow become Secretary-Treasurer. It was never paid. He could take it out of his dues, but that would make him feel a piker.
In the Morning, in the Evening
Lil beaded her lashes. With her round little face stuck almost against the mirror, and her big round eyes, everybody said they were big round eyes, held hard open, she fingered the twitching lid and carefully brushed a drop of the black goo onto the edge of her lashes. My, she had long golden lashes, but what good were they if they didn't show? After the stuff had hardened she moved her eyelid slowly downward in an experimental wink at herself. She turned quick to catch herself unexpectedly. She dropped a quick wink. She ran her palm up her arm to feel the delight of herself. All up and down her arms and along her sides she felt little wiggles and jumps of delight. ... In the morning, in the evening, ain't we got fun! ... She had many kinds of lipstick. Her father owned the building on the corner of St. Louis and Roosevelt, in which there was Mrs. Kagen's drug store, and she liked to vamp old Dr. Meyerson who was always hanging around the drug store. Mrs. Kagen had a special little drawer, where she dropped the samples that salesmen left. Lil would go into the store and rubber through the counter; every time a salesman left a new lipstick, trust her to get hold of it. Kissproof! That was the latest. "What do you want with Kissproof?" Dr. Meyerson growled. "Wouldn't you like to know!" and she stuck out her lips at him. It was all for Rudy Stone's benefit, he was afraid of her. He always hid behind the prescription partition. "Look at the little vampire!" Dr. Meyerson would remark, trying to slap her behind as she skirted past him. "Would you believe it, only last year she would come in here to steal all-day suckers, now lipstick! Kissproof! Flappers!" he would philosophize. He was a nice man with a fat bald head and she had him completely vamped. "I'll tell your father!" he would promise, all the while Mrs. Kagen sighed resignedly.
Now Lil had got the Kissproof on her mouth, she put her lips out toward the mirror. "Oh, you beautiful baby," she said. "Oh, you beautiful baby," keeping her mouth out in the shape of a kiss. They said that in swell finishing schools for society girls the girls had to sit for two hours a day saying prunes and prisms so their lips would come out in a bow. Prunes and prisms, oh, baby, her lips were a perfect cupid's bow! It just comes to me natural!
She jumped up, bent over to straighten her stockings.
"Flappers!" her father would say. "Sixteen years old! flappers!" And while he was lecturing her, she would bend down just like this to fix the roll of her stocking because that was what got him mad and yet he couldn't say anything. Stockings had to be pulled up every so often and she liked to do it right in the street. Right when standing talking to Mort Abramson or Lou Margolis she could just bend down and pull up her stockings and they tried to keep on talking making fresh and clever remarks.
Lil set the stocking an inch above her knee, so that almost any movement swishing around would flash the naked flesh above the stocking. It almost scared her sometimes, being so daring. I've got rings on my fingers and bells on my toes. ... She stared at her face in the mirror lid of her big box purse, licked her lips, worked her beaded lashes carefully up and down. ... That would be a cute idea, bells on your toes. Little weentsy sleigh bells. Gee, if she only dared start a fad like that! She touched the tip of her finger to her tongue and slicked the golden spit curl that made an S on her forehead. She had practiced and she could make it into an O for Oscar but she didn't know any Oscar. It would be terrible if she fell in love with a T or a W! But S was her natural. Who it stood for was a secret. It might be Sol Meisel. Or maybe Sam Eisen. Boo, wouldn't Sam die if he knew! Serious Sam. Two S's. It was nice when her head went back into the cup of a boy's hand. Sol had great big hands, he was an athlete. Lil shivered and danced with herself, she felt so full of life, and she had a big green-stone ring that she put on her engagement finger to kid the kids, rings on my fingers and bells on my toes, and as she walked out onto Roosevelt Road she felt she could almost hear the little bells of herself ringing all around her as she walked. ... The rich get richer and the poor get ... (children!). ... Oh, but honey, ain't we got fun!
Passing Rosen's barber shop, Lil Klein looked inside because at a certain angle you could see your whole figure mirrored, and who should be sitting there but Estelle Green! She was getting a bob! Celia Moscowitz was standing beside her holding her hand and giving directions to Mr. Rosen.
Oh, mygod, Lil thought, if I had beautiful red hair like that I would never have it cut! And why didn't Estelle have her own father bob her hair, he was a barber and they didn't have dollars to throw away. Bet she would catch it when she got home!
Mr. Rosen, finishing, held up a mirror for Estelle to see the back. Estelle's shoulders began to shake; Lil couldn't tell whether she was crying or laughing. Then Estelle jumped out of the chair and ran for the door.
"Kid, I've gone and done it!" Estelle burst out, meeting Lil. She stood trembling as if one word would make her cry.
"It's beautiful!" Lil said. "Honest!"
"Oh! Does it look all right? Honest?" Estelle clutched Lil's arm.
"Honest, kid! Oh, it's awful cute! It makes you look so snappy!"
"Honest?" Estelle said, staring first at Lil and then at Celia. And suddenly she wailed: "Oh, my mother'll kill me!"
"Oh, don't be a gump," Celia said. "You look cute."
"Oh, you don't know my mother." She began to tremble all over. "I can't go home. She'll kill me!"
Lil and Celia had to pull her into a side street, as everybody was stopping to stare at Estelle.
"My mother didn't like it either at first," Celia said, "but now she says she's going to get her own hair bobbed."
"Anyway, what can she do, it's cut," Lli pointed out.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Old Bunch"
by .
Copyright © 1937 Meyer Levin.
Excerpted by permission of Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Dedication,
Author's Note,
Book One: Boys and Girls Together,
Flappers and Jellybeans,
Beginnings of Wisdom,
Early to Rise,
Book Two: Forever Blowing Bubbles,
Weight, Counterweight,
Conquering Heroes Come,
Book Three: Anything but Love,
Political Economy,
Love and Marriage,
Comparative Religions,
Capital and Labor,
Book Four: Each in His Place,
Home, Home,
Chicago, The Beautiful,
All Good Men,
A Century Of Progress,
Also by Meyer Levin,