Elliot Perlman

I was a bit intimidated to start this one, but when I did I was intrigued all the way until the end. Somehow the author managed to advance the story in a thoughtful way through so many characters' viewpoints without diluting the story or taking an unnecessary turn. To me, this book was about mental health and how it impacted the lives of so many people manifesting itself in so many (7 perhaps?) ways (substance abuse, depression, abuse, etc.). I am always critical of a lack of character development in a book - this one had it in spades!… (meer)

Occasionally you come across a book that rips your insides into ribbons or makes you feel like you are underwater and in danger of having your lungs burst. When you do, you find you have to stop, lay the book aside, and come up for air. I felt that way a number of times while reading The Street Sweeper. The horror of what men will do to one another, have done and still do, is somehow overwhelming, no matter how many times you have encountered it before.

Perlman achieves a perfect balance between the past and the present in this novel, and he explores some of the hardest issues we face as human beings, our prejudices against one another, our ability to see the “other” as less human than ourselves, the complete suspension of compassion in some, and the horrid evil that lurks in others. It is subject matter that has been explored before, particularly with regard to the Holocaust, but Perlman does it so well that it feels freshly horrendous, sickening and unspeakable.

From his characters Lamont Williams, a man who has spent six years of his life incarcerated for a crime he did not commit; Adam Zignelik, a history professor who is facing the collapse of his career and personal life; William McCray, an early civil rights lawyer who wants his son and others who have benefited from the struggle to recognize that it is on-going; Dr. Border, who attempts to record the history of those who have survived the attempted annihilation of their race, and Henryk Mandelbrot, a man who endured the unthinkable in Auschwitz and wants no one to forget what happened there, Perlman squeezes every drop of emotion and injustice and hope that can be salvaged.

History can provide comfort in difficult or even turbulent and traumatic times. It shows us what our species has been through before and that we survived. It can help to know we’ve made it through more than one dark age. And history is vitally important because perhaps as much as, if not more than, biology, the past owns us and however much we think we can, we cannot escape it. If you only knew how close you are to people who seem so far from you...it would astonish you.

Indeed, that is the reason for history and also the reason we need to read books like this one and have writers like Elliot Perlman who are willing to face the atrocities of both the past and the present, pull them into the light, and ask us if we cannot be better than this going forward.

There were no towers with armed guards surrounding the Mecca, the malnutrition that the children tearing around the foyer screaming at one another suffered was subtle, and no one was being shipped off to be exterminated, but this was unequivocally a ghetto. It was the ghetto one got in a country pretending to be at peace with itself. Where did you put your slaves when you were no longer allowed to keep them? Henry Border knew a ghetto when he saw one.

This book is well researched and all too real. It cannot fail to make you stop and think about your own life, to look a bit more closely at the lives of those around you, and, if you are a praying man, it will force you to your knees.
… (meer)

(8.5) Well this book really slowed the reading process down. I thought being over 600 pages it would be good to read on kindle but with 3-4 swipes for every page it felt an even longer read. Where to start?
The plot revolves around the events pertaining to the kidnap of a young boy, Sam, by his mother's, Anna, ex-college boyfriend Simon, whom she has not seen for 10 years. Meanwhile Simon has been obsessing about her and believes that by taking her son he will get to see and speak to her again.
The book is divided in to seven sections, each giving voice to a different character in the story and hence projecting different points of view on to the events pertaining to the alleged kidnap.
The book opens with the voice of the psychiatrist Alex. This is the section I struggled to engage with the most. As he is addressing Anna about Simon, it would appear later in the last section that these were extracts from his personal journal. It moves through the various characters voices, Angela/Angelique, a prostitute whom Simon befriends and indeed she falls in love with him despite his problems with alcohol and declining mental health. Joe, who works in the stockmarket, Anna's husband and Sam's father who is visiting Angelique professionally every week for two years. Anna, of course, who is unhappy in her marriage and engaged in a platonic affair with a lawyer she met through her husband. Simon with his relationship with Angela and the friendship that develops with Alex his psychiatrist, which sees Simon lose his professional perspective of Simon's mental decline. Mitch, Joe's business associate, whom Joe perceives as his closest friend but Mitch actually resents Joe and has a totally different perception of their relationship and following an accident seeks Angelique out professionally and finally Rachael, Alex the psychiatrist's daughter, ten years on is reading her father's journal, where we find the outcome of the trial and what has become of the various characters.
Sounds confusing but they do become distinct and each voice moves the plot line forward and provides insight into modern lifestyles and the somewhat materialistic values that reflect contemporary life and impinge on everyday life and relationships.… (meer)