Shirley Russak WachtelReviews

A Castle in Brooklyn by Shirley Russak Wachtel What a slog this book was! I was ready to DNF half way through, but since it was only 255 pages, I bored myself silly with the last half. Lots of potential here, but never realized. The main characters were not likable and very distant. Other characters appeared for a chapter, didn't advance the plot, and were never seen again. The story began in Poland in 1944 where our protagonists escaped a Nazi firing squad and eventually ended up in New York City. The story ended, thankfully, in the 1970's. 2.5 Stars I got this free from Kindle in January 2023.½

A lovely story so beautifully written.

Thank you to Goodreads, the author and the publisher.

Another good historical book. I've read so many of them lately that they tend to blur together but this one stood out because it was about Jacob and Zalman who ended up building their "Castle in Brooklyn" where Jacob and his wife Esther lived for years. Zalman lived with them for a while after being coerced from where he was living on a farm in Minnesota. It was his house as well since he thought up the blueprints and they built it together.

The almost ending was sort of mishmosh to me with all the tenants after Esther moves to FL, but in the end it all comes together finally.

1944, Poland. Jacob Stein and Zalman Mendelson meet as boys under terrifying circumstances. They survive by miraculously escaping, but their shared past haunts and shapes their lives forever.

This is a story of a house built in Brooklyn, NY, by Jacob Stein, his wife Evelyn, and his best friend Zalman. Zalman was a self-taught architect and drew the plans for the house. When the house was finished Jacob and Evelyn invited Zalman to live with them which he did for many years. However, Jacob and Evelyn had only one child, Gary, who died in a tragic baseball accident when he was young. Both parents withdrew for a while which left Zalman to try to pick up the pieces. After a confrontation, Zalman left to go back to Minnesota and marry Miriam, the farmer's daughter who he fell in love with when he first began working on their farm. The rest of the book is about the various families who lived in the "Castle in Brooklyn".

This novel starts during WWII but is more about the effect on the lives of two young men who managed to survive and move to America. It covers their lives and the lives of their from 1944 - 2010. Even though they had a good life in America, the loss of family and their daily struggle to survive the war was never far from their minds.

Jacob was hiding in a barn loft in Poland when Zalman showed up looking for a place to hide. At the time Jacob was 18 and Zalman was 12 and they had both fled from their family homes to keep from being sent to the camps. They were discovered by a Nazi patrol and taken out into the woods to dig their graves but managed to escape. From that beginning chapter, the story jumps to 1952. Both men have emigrated to the US. Jacob is working at a factory and attending English classes in the evenings and Zalman is working on a farm out west. When Jacob first saw Esther in class, he wanted her to be his wife. After a brief courtship, they marry and he goes to work for her father. Now he can finally build the house that he dreamed of during his days in hiding. He asks Zalman to return to New York and help him build the house and to live with he and Esther. For all three of them it's a castle and their happy home. When tragedy happens, their lives are totally changed. Zalman returns to the farm to work, Jacob starts working long hours on his job and in her loneliness, Esther goes back to school to get a degree and become a teacher. Zalman is totally estranged from his former friends and told to never come back but that doesn't stop Jacob from thinking about his friend and how far they've come in their lives. His pain begins to affect his marriage with Esther and she realizes that even if they stay together, she needs to create her own life and find her own happiness.

This book was an interesting look at the effects of war that lasts for years. It's a story about creating a family from those that you care about and about the importance of friendship and the final effects if that friendship is ended. My only problem with the book was the introduction of several new people near the end who I didn't think added much to the story. This is a debut novel for this author and based on my overall enjoyment of this book, I look forward to her future books.

Two young Jewish men were orphaned during the Holocaust, but by hiding together, survived. They eventually achieved passage to the United States. They learned English, and one fell in love with another Jew who left before the Holocaust. This new couple married and started to establish a life. The other, with a longstanding interest in architecture, built them a house in Brooklyn. From there, this story unfolds with tales of love and loss, of affection and serendipity, and of things that stand the test of time.

The main story focuses on the love of two brothers and one’s wife. This story was emotionally compelling and left me turning the pages. The human strengths and failings of the characters are all too real. The buoyancy of immigrants – and of Jews in particular – amidst adversity is thematically all over this story. In that sense, it is a story of human triumph within loss and survival.

This book is set in history, but is not really historical fiction. Other than the Holocaust, its moorings are essentially timeless and not specific to a certain location. Some of the later stories of other tenants did not catch my intrigue and seemed a bit unnecessary for the main plot.

Life commonly has many starts and restarts. This book underscores that and should draw an audience interested in human perseverance and determination. The characters are strong. This story also speaks of the power of place to house human drama. Lovers of literary fiction will be drawn in because of the appropriateness of these three’s love for each other. Yes, much like each protagonist, this book has a few shortcomings, but not enough to hold back the work from ultimate success.