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This is a really good historical memoir. Gold tells the story of his childhood as the son of Jewish immigrants, peasants from Hungary and Romania, who fled pogroms to immigrate to the tenements on Chrystie St. on NYC’s lower east side around the turn of the century.

Lots of childhood memories, cultural details, and timeless immigrant stories of his parents’s backgrounds, struggles and aspirations, and his family’s significant setbacks. Definitely a period piece in the details of religious tension, culturally segregated blocks, political corruption, partial assimilation, and development of the industry and suburbs of NYC in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but while some of the details have changed, the struggle is timeless. Very quick and easy read that captures a ton of detailed memories and some insightful story design and metaphors.

There is also a thread the book develops as Gold’s father struggles through the economic caste system of his, and all times, that explores regulatory reform and how it can provide more opportunities for prosperity and chances of achieving the American dream.

In the end it becomes a story about poverty. Take for instance this quote, “kindness is a form of suicide in a world based on the law of competition.�