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1953: Life on Long Island is not the holiday you might think it is..
A Long Island Story
What you need to know before your trail
A heat wave is sweeping across America and the Grossmans – Ben, Addie and their two children -are moving their lives from the political heart of Washington DC to suburban Long Island. Benny was a successful lawyer in the Department of Justice, but all that has come tumbling down. With the McCarthy era of paranoia, persecution and propaganda at its height, his past has come back to haunt him, forcing him to pack up his family and leave the capital behind.
With their future uncertain, life in Long Island starts to open old wounds for Ben and Addie, both start to wonder if they were meant for more, whether their future might look different than they planned, and whether their marriage – their family – is worth fighting for . .
Travel Guide
Washington 1953
You could see [the pollute] in DC too. The city landscape was polluted. shit steamed in the streets. Shits walked the streets (they were called republicans) and the faecal current swept across America, over the cities and the plains, polluted the rivers and the lakes, crossed the Rockies, stinking and malign. everyone breathed it, everyone was infected, it was almost impossible to escape.
Long Island
“A living Community proclaimed the brochures, but most of the residents regarded their tenure as temporary, until they could save up a deposit on one of the modest split level of ranch houses festooning the Long Island landscape. Only twenty years before, the island was largely agricultural land, Now within commuting distance to the city, it was sprawling suburbs, growing as relentlessly as a wart, and as unsightly.”
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
Despite the title, the setting of Long Island doesn’t really shine in this book – it’s more the story of a marriage and a failing one at that. A family who live on Long Island try to live the American dream and live in the Long Island post-war housing that is so popular in this uncertain political era. ben would like to be a writer but he settles for opening a law practice on the island. This is not the dream for Addie, his wife, however. She sees Long island as a suburban desert, lacking the excitement of the big city. This is a family in flux in every meaning of the word.
The political background is there in the distance – the uncertainty and the fear of the outside world. The hopes and dreams of that man in the White House who should be able to save them from the worst.
The story reads well – this is apparently a heavily fictionalised account of the own author’s upbringing. Not sure to what extent but that’s probably best left undiscovered. It’s a family in crisis, a family on the rocks and the ups and downs of the American dream. Not the story about Long Island I’d hoped for, but an insightful look into where it all goes wrong
Booktrail Boarding Pass: A Long Island Story
Destination : Washington DC, Long Island Author/Guide: Rick Gekoski Departure Time: 1953
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