North River: A Novel

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 646 ratings

Price: 1.99

Last update: 02-12-2025


About this item

Recreating 1930s New York with the vibrancy and rich detail that are his trademarks, Pete Hamill weaves a story of honor, family, and one man's simple courage that no reader will soon forget.

It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they can't pay, he treats them anyway.

But in his own life, Delaney is emotionally numb, haunted by the slaughters of the Great War. His only daughter has left for Mexico, and his wife Molly vanished months before, leaving him to wonder if she is alive or dead. Then, on a snowy New Year's Day, the doctor returns home to find his three-year-old grandson on his doorstep, left by his mother in Delaney's care. Coping with this unexpected arrival, Delaney hires Rose, a tough, decent Sicilian woman with a secret in her past. Slowly, as Rose and the boy begin to care for the good doctor, the numbness in Delaney begins to melt.

Top reviews from the United States

  • Linda Linguvic
    5.0 out of 5 stars The magic lore of New York in the thirties rings true in a fine and touching story
    Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2011
    Pete Hamill writes about New York in a way that only a born and bred New Yorker can. My own family history is rooted in this town and I now live in the very area in which this novel is set. I walk down these streets every day and am familiar with every place he describes. The magic lore of New York during the thirties is alive for me through the stories I've heard from my parents and other relatives. And so I related to every word of this book, feeling its honesty and authenticity. It transported me back to a time and a place before I was born but that rings true in a way that touched me deeply.

    The main character is a doctor, a veteran of World War I, who sees patients in his home in Greenwich Village and who mourns for his wife who has disappeared. His grown daughter, who had run away to Mexico to become an artist suddenly returns with a three year old son. She leaves the boy with her father and goes off to Europe to look for her estranged husband. What follows is a tender story of how the doctor warms up to the little boy and how he and the woman who he hires to take care of the boy fall into a romance. All this is told against the backdrop of crime and violence that was endemic at that time. There are mob bosses and murders and corruption. There's Saint Patrick's day and drunkenness and family violence. There are medical emergencies and policemen and even the FBI. This is all part of this doctor's world.

    Some of the scenes are set in the places where the common people went to escape the harsh realities of the Depression - Coney Island and the Roseland Dance Hall as well as the local Italian restaurant. It is a fast read that I gobbled up in a very short time, smiling in familiar recognition of the New York landmarks and enjoying the well paced heartwarming story that felt very real to me. Basically though, this book is about love: love of the grandfather for his grandson; love of a man and a woman and love of a city that is going through hard times.

    I absolutely LOVED this book and know that anyone with a New York background will love it too. And as for the rest of the world, read it and learn about a New York that is no more but will forever live in the a plethora of rich memories.
  • Ashley Gardner
    4.0 out of 5 stars Tensely told
    Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2022
    Great love story set amid the cultural conflicts and backdrops of 1930s New York. Well drawn characters and defined narratives told in a tightly written style.
  • Franke
    5.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful read!
    Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2024
    I laughed and cried! I could not stop reading it. All the persons depicted in this book are very special characters. I was so very happy the way it ended!
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious storytelling
    Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2009
    Reading Pete Hamill's North River is like savoring a deeply satisfying and favorite meal. It is sited in the grim grayness of the Great Depression with its bread lines, soup kitchens, despairing post-WWI vets, and poverty, yet it brilliantly brings to life colorful and real people determined to make the best of their difficult world and survive the challenges of their personal histories.

    North River is a New York story and its streets, church basements, gangland clubs, restaurants, sports figures, music and ethnicities figure as importantly as war- and marriage-wounded Dr. Jim Delaney, his grandson abandoned by his radicalized daughter, and Italian immigrant Rose Verga, hired to help the good doctor take care of his unexpected new responsibility.

    The story is driven in part by Delaney's Irishness and Rose's Sicilian heritage in an environment that is a macrocosm of the two cultures. Hamill's writing is so real and vivid that you can smell the oil and garlic of an Italian kitchen, the infections and antiseptics of Dr. Delaney's dispensary, the stink of unwashed men in a soup kitchen, the pungent bite of a cheap cigar, and the perfumed scent of a woman's neck.

    North River is a compelling tale of a good man and a good woman who both have good reasons not to dare to hope for the best and end the pains of their past lives. As a grandfather myself, my heart wrapped around Delaney's love for his unexpected grandson, a totally charming not yet three year old. As the husband of an Italian who loves to cook and who brought a richly emotional new texture to my own life, when Rose was introduced I could only say, "Lucky you, Delaney. Lucky you!"

    I'm not big on love stories, but I loved this one for its toughness and tenderness. I think it's a book both men and women will relish. Maybe even for the same reasons.
  • Skylark
    4.0 out of 5 stars New York, New York
    Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2024
    Though we never met, Hamill and I shared somethings in common. We were close in age, both had knack for art, both of us were journalists, and we shared the same taste in music. But I could never write a novel as satisfying as this one. In other hands this might have been a boring weeper. Read his memoir, “A Drinking Life” and look for his other fiction for more great reads.

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