Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing and Dismal Writing
Review: Although the premise of the story is a good one, the way it is handled literarily fell very short of expectations. I kept wondering whether his editor was on vacation for allowing the contant ranting and philosophical tangents, leaving absent the "showing" that might have been more appropriate to a novel. The story had interesting ideas to explore regarding holocaust victims and their children, but doesn't bring any light to the ideas, just a overblown ghost story which doesn't deal with the concept of "golem" at all and instead virtually slanders a generation of disturbed writers, despite the apology at the outset of the novel. I finished it only because I had assigned it for my book group and was embarassed to have done so. Steer clear.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and Dismal Writing
Review: Although the premise of the story is a good one, the way it is handled literarily fell very short of expectations. I kept wondering whether his editor was on vacation for allowing the contant ranting and philosophical tangents, leaving absent the "showing" that might have been more appropriate to a novel. The story had interesting ideas to explore regarding holocaust victims and their children, but doesn't bring any light to the ideas, just a overblown ghost story which doesn't deal with the concept of "golem" at all and instead virtually slanders a generation of disturbed writers, despite the apology at the outset of the novel. I finished it only because I had assigned it for my book group and was embarassed to have done so. Steer clear.
Rating: 
Summary: The Story Inside The Story
Review: Having enjoyed immensely Rosenbaum's other works (Second Hand Smoke and Elijah Visible) I had high expectations for Golems of Gotham. I was not disappointed. Once again, the author explores the familiar terrain of love, fear, atrocity, beauty, and art. However this time, he does so with a depth and patience that permeates every page and far surpasses his earlier work. Although the surface plot of the book is compelling and makes for a wonderful read - there is another story (found within that story) equally compelling and even more beautiful. It is found in the narratives and in the simplest of asides - and speaks of the highs (and lows) of parental love and the beauty (and ugliness) of the city of New York (a city which is so prevalent herein - and described with such sweeping prose as to qualify the 10023 zip code itself as a main character).Once again Thane Rosenbaum offers us an excellent book and a compelling glimpse into the realm of human emotional complexity.
Rating:
Summary: Not Impressed
Review: I bought this book in the interest of getting a sense of the work of some of the writers that Rosenbaum includes in his cast; I finished GOLEMS hoping that the rambling would led to a satisfying end. Neither of these ideas panned out. Reading Andrine's review, I was so relieved to read that someone agreed that book just didn't do anything interesting with its material. Also, based on the little research I've done on the topic and the other, better books I've read that include them, Rosenbaum's golems aren't even golems. What's going on with that? A much better book that includes the concept and some satisfying background information on its history is Marge Piercy's Body of Glass (published in the States as He, She, and It).
Rating: 
Summary: Drawn out
Review: I found the subject matter and storyline eduational and entertaining, but the author rambles on at times about a aspects of the character's lives One well-written paragraph is much more satisfying than four or five so-so paragraphs. Yet Rosenbaum's creativity is unique.
Rating:
Summary: Why Continue To Live?
Review: In this book, Rosenbaum has captured some incredible reflection on the concept of suicide. While the book is ostensibly about the Holocaust, wrapped in a fairy tale of kabbalistic spirituality, Rosenbaum's story, is only a vehicle. It is the mode by which he transmits so many thoughts and feelings on why people should go on with life, philosophically, not just biologically. Starting with several Holocaust survivors who committed suicide, Rosenbaum investigates the reasons why they might have done so. One would think that after Auschwitz, Buchenwald or Bergen-Belson, life would be a virtual cakewalk. Nothing could possibly be as bad as that again. And as a general class, that is true. Yet, there is a small component of Holocaust survivors, who eventually decide that they can no longer live with the memory of what they saw, and eventually take their own life. And not surprisingly, a high percentage of them are artists, poets and writers, the people who would be most susceptible to feeling the pain of others and themselves. In crafting his book, Rosenbaum illustrates many reasons to live. And he equally poses many questions about life. But in some respects, he does manage to find reasons to live, which are undeniable, if not difficult to accept sometimes. As an added bonus, Rosenbaum's descriptions of midtown Manhattan are some of the best present day representations of the area I have ever read in my life. Since he teaches at Fordham Law school, he would be quite familiar with 59th St. & Broadway. The incredible precision of his pictures of Manhattan are truly picturesque and artistic. Rosenbaum has succeeded in creating a truly wonderful work that handles difficult life subjects with great aplomb. It is recommended to those who think about life and the meaning therein.
Rating: 
Summary: Rings true not only for decendents of Survivors....
Review: It occurred to me while reading this excellent book that there are many families whose current generation need to face and address the family past. While my dad's family was in crisis/turmoil for some time before, there are many parallels between the aftermath of my grandfather's Navy service in the Pacific in WWII (including Guadalcanal & Tarawa) and the type of aftermath this family has. NOTE: they are NOT identical, just somewhat similar in the effects for the next generations, especially when things are not spoken of but hang in the air & take on a life of their own.
The only reason I knocked off a star is for a rather mundanely contrived ending, but it really doesn't effect the essence of the book. A great work!
Rating:
Summary: a little disappointed
Review: It's not quite fair to describe Rosenbaum's latest book as a novel. It actually reads much more like an essay. This is a message book...Rosenbaum has a rather heavy-handed message that he is bent on delivering. There is a tremendous lack of depth or realness in the characters and the plot is overly contrived and uninvolving. The reason is simply that the characters are only devices Rosenbaum uses to further communicate his message. Indeed, the characters are anything but fully fleshed out (no pun intended)...they as well as everything about this book exists for the sole purpose of preaching. Very uninvolving. The message itself is educational and somewhat interesting, but buyer beware - this is an overlong essay...not a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Fairy tale for adults
Review: The book seems to fall short on both levels - as a general observation as well as a personal one. The general statement is that the Holocaust was a "Grand Narrative" for the post-war Jewish generation, and that this narrative is slipping away - deconstructed by Big Bad Postmodern Wolves, frayed at the edges by Neo-Nazi revisionists or being simply forgotten by Jews and non-Jews alike. The very idea is questionable - being Jewish is not about grand narratives - it is about something else, which cannot be easily named, although can be glimpsed, and surprisingly, in the works of those Jewish writers who, unlike Mr. Rosenbaum, did not write the word "Jew" on every page. Of course, Jews reacted to Holocaust - by founding their own state, for example, and of course, every Jew has been affected by it - but assuming that it became a common myth, or that the whole generation has defined itself in terms of it, and writing a book based on this assumption, is a leap of faith which the book has not bothered to justify. None if this would matter if the book was convincing on personal level - you do not have to agree with the author's philosophy to read his books, and you do not have to agree with the views of the main character to feel for him. The problem is that as a literary work the book is equally mediocre. While Ariel's character is fleshed out well enough to evoke sympathy, Oliver (and the Golems) are not - he comes across simply as a whiner, and so, honestly, do the rest of the characters (and by associative guilt, the author himself). At the end, Oliver does get his act together, but his epiphany leaves as us cold as his suffering - Oliver merely followed what the rest of his generation has done long time ago, except he had to go through a fairly tale to arive at the same conclusion. I am also slightly disturbed that suffering of real persons was used to a merely literary end, but it was not intentional - and if the book were better written, that would have worked, too. As it is, the book trivializes every topic it touches - Holocaust, suicide, Jewish mysticism...
Rating:
Summary: Seven holocaust writers are surely spinning in their graves
Review: This book was almost impossible for me to get through. Not because of the complexity of the narrative, but because I felt like I was in the hands of an inept writer of fiction. (I forced myself to finish it for a book club). The premise of the book is interesting and indeed promising, but the execution falls dismally short of the mark of a good book. Thane Rosenbaum should stick to journalism. Although the author had some interesting things to say about a "holocaust family," they would have been better said in an essay or condensed into a short story (by a different writer). Clearly Rosenbaum has not taken the adage, Show don't tell, to heart--this book is almost entirely said and not shown. Aside from the preachy way this book is told, there are myriad other reasons that it simply doesn't work as a novel. Perhaps the most pressing one is that Rosenbaum doesn't know any of his characters. This is a book filled to the brim (and beyond) with empty and flat characters! Furthermore I'm sure the holocaust writers he dragged into the cast of his poorly resolved, poorly researched narrative are spinning in their graves. Did the author know anything, for example, about the lives or personalities of Primo Levi or Jerzy Kosinsky? These characters and even the main ones were hard to distinguish, and even harder to believe and give a damn about.
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