Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood

Rating:
Summary: An unintentionally poetic inspiring memoir
Review: Good fortune was with me when I happened upon this book last year. It is now one of my all-time favorites and I went on to read the two books that chronologically follow this one. My only complaint is that Ms. Simon died before she had the chance to tell us every minute detail about her unextraordinary, extraordinary life. A Jewish immigrant household in the Bronx shaped Kate's wonderful and unique personality. She shares her childhood - engrossing tales of urban fairy tale embedded in the real world of poverty -with the aplomb of a grand story-teller. If only I could have met her. She is the baudy humorous glamorous grandmother we all wish was our own.

Rating:
Summary: Jewish immigrant comes of age
Review: Kate Simon's little book will doubtless become a classic of the genre: memoir, coming of age, the immigrant experience, sexual awakening, life on the stoops in the Bronx...
Told unsentimentally and with a refreshingly straightforward style, Simon manages to convey both the sense and the essence of her unusual childhood to her readers.

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes uncomfortable...
Review: The frank portrayal of Simon's relationship with her father in this book is refreshing, as are many of the stories about daily life as a girl growing up Jewish in the Bronx after WWI. However, the parts dealing with sexual advances of older man and, in general, older people's sexual opportunism with younger people were things I found really disturbing. Simon tells these anecdotes well and evenly, but as a reader, I felt frustrated and helpless reading so much about the way the taboos of sexuality trapped kids into silence about their victimization.