ALBIE'S STRUGGLE

A shy young Jewish boy growing up in mid-20th-century New York City experiences feelings of inadequacy and alienation at a boys summer camp in Steinberg’s debut novel.

Ten-year-old Albie Greenberg enjoys using his father’s binoculars to observe people from a distance from his apartment window. The boy feels very much apart from others, in part due to a “sense of strangeness” that permeates his family. He’s a sensitive and introverted child who seeks refuge in books and dreams from a world in which he doesn’t seem to fit. When his parents enthusiastically announce that he’ll be going away to Bear Lake sports camp for the summer, he understands instinctively that the vigorous atmosphere of male athletics won’t be for him. Once there, he immediately becomes the target of bullying from other boys and from counselors who punish disobedience and vulnerability with painful “noogies.” Albie finds his only friends among a handful of other “unwelcome and inept” boys. The atmosphere of danger only increases when the camp is placed under quarantine for polio. Albie finds that there’s a darkness in him as well as fantasies of escape. In re-creating Albie’s inner conflict, Steinberg’s narrative skillfully evokes the postwar trauma and denial that characterized 1950s America. For example, his immigrant father’s hearty attempts to assimilate into American culture seem to be part of an effort to put an ominous past behind him; the author also shows the effects of trauma on Albie’s uncle and grandparents and how his mother only cultivates a brittle optimism with the aid of regular purchases at the liquor store. The camp is a particularly vivid microcosm of a larger society that’s torn between dark fears and bluff arrogance. A brief flash-forward scene in which an older Albie visits relatives in Zurich feels more like a tantalizing distraction than a satisfying revelation. Overall, though, the novel is a realistic and affecting examination of the effects of societal pressure.

A sensitive portrayal of a sensitive spirit facing challenges in a complex era.