POMERANSKI BY GERALD JACOBS
Mid twentieth century bustling Brixton bursts into screen-worthy authentic life in this moving - and amusing - novel. Written in Cambridge, it manages to flit around some unpredictable outlier locations - the Bahamas, County Mayo in Ireland - but always veers back to South London and its Brixton base.
Benny Pomeranski, son of an East End immigrant family, idealist; romantic, sensitive yet pragmati man of the world, is fresh out of the Army and a long stint in the Second World War’s Italian campaign. He is intelligent entrepreneurial and fast talking, he transfers to South London and into the rag trade, hastily learning its skills in a few brief weeks of tuition He soon gathers a group named after the area’s ‘beautiful doomed Astoria Cinema’ – not so much a gang as a band of brothers, All the Astorians have monickers, Benny is the fixer, Benny the Macher.
‘Being Jewish is what makes me tick’ Benny explains. ‘You don’t have to be a synagogue-goer for that to be the case. It’s all sorts of things. It’s those old traditions and customs that keep the whole glorious show on the road. It’s family. Jewish stories and storytellers, and jokes and joke-tellers. Jewish food. Belonging to a group’
The Astorians exist as an intellectual exercise as much as a bunch of mates keen to look after one another in often hostile territory
‘In setting up the Astorians, however informally, Benny Pomeranski felt very pleased with himself, pleased that he had accomplished something that, in his eyes, was worth accomplishing. Despite their various robberies and assaults, purportedly always and only directed at those ‘who deserved it’ – bullies, ‘real’ thieves, ‘nasty’ bosses, greedy companies, sexual exploiters, unreal - unreconstructed fascists – Benny never thought of the Astorians as a criminal ring.’
And in the course of this brilliantly written book he is proved right – and sometimes very wrong. The robberies and the scams were part of the fight-back in some way, an assertion of Jewish presence in a difficult competitive world. He is a man of many interests, he reads, loves music and his passion for boxing; the ringside atmospherics create a gladiatorial high
‘As for Benny, when the fight reached its astonishing climax, he was standing, roaring, his eyes alight and his mind oblivious to everything other than the battle with which he, too, was now joined.’
And his love of jazz takes him – and us – to some of the locations where this semi-fiction meets real life. In friend Monty’s club Benny first glimpses Ruth Ellis (the last woman to be hanged in Britain) and her boyfriend, but his whole attention is on Estelle, the woman who enchants – and tempts him into infidelity.
‘Benny . . .found himself . . placed at a table in privileged proximity to the Sly Fox club’s stage. He was seated next to his old friend Sam ‘the Stick’ Golub, whose eponymous walking stick was placed carefully along the door by the side of his chair. On Benny’s right-hand side sat the quietest Astorian, Max Baskin, known as Maxie the Gano. Facing them, on the other side of the table, were Estelle’s friend and off-duty managing hostess Ruth Ellis and her current boyfriend David Blakely.’
But it is Estelle who captivates him. He recounts to his co-Astorian the stylish, gay Spanish Joe, the magic of their first meeting, and the moment he first heard her on stage,
‘I felt she was singing to me personally and I bet every man in the room felt the same – even you might’ve done’ Benny added, and the two men laughed at such an unlikely prospect. ‘But really, Joe, my tongue was hanging out. She had a way of singing that was so... enticing. I was captivated.’ Benny always took delight in using words that stood out from the regular lingo of the Brixton crowd, especially when he was passionate about something – or somebody. ‘
The plot is unpredictable and by turns delightful in its surprises, the world of the South London music scene, and the brutal machinations of the boxing and betting scams come to colorful life. Yet what makes this book a stayer, an account of the life of real vibrant people, is the way they speak. In this passage, club owner, Monty, disillusions Estelle’s belief in the new French chef:
‘I overheard what you were saying. So, you’re a bit of a songstress? And for that poncey so-called chef round the corner. That crook from the East End with his made-up French moniker. His family came over from Russia! He was taught to cook by his mother, Tamara. His old man did odd jobs in Whitechapel. I bet he never told you any of all that, did he? His real name does sound a bit French. It’s something like “Andry”. But he’s about as French as a Russian salad. André Lafond? Do me a favour.’
‘What?’ Estelle’s eyebrows rose simultaneously with her mouth falling open. ‘You’re kidding me!’
‘No I’m not, darling,’ said Monty. ‘I can remember his old man. Nice old geezer. Probably never heard of France, let alone lived there. But, listen, if you really can sing, there might be a few bob in it for you. . , I was talking about it with my sister’s husband, Davy, only last night. He just got laid off by the BBC. Fiddler, he was, in the BBC Opera Orchestra. Straight up. BBC Opera Orchestra. B.O.O. Boo! You don’t believe me, do you? I can see by your face. Honestly. He’s been on the radio hundreds of times. If you want to pop in Monday afternoon – it’s your day off anyway, right? About four. We’ll have a listen to you.’
This book is ambitious. It ranges from stories of domestic violence, marital jealousy and themes of familial vengeance - to an over-arching sense of world politics - the execution of the Jewish American pacifists Ethel and Jule Rosenberg,. That it succeeds as an absorbing page-turner – is a tour de force that will keep it as a splendid celebration of the inventive and sometimes sublime lives of the Jews of London, their post war determination to live life to its limits in that forever vital urban village Brixton.
Pomeranski is published by Quartet Books
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