Today, Sunday, September 9, 1979, Long Island's
Newsday reviews Richard Grayson's short story collection
With Hitler in New York in Section C on page 23. The back cover of the paper has a teaser for the review: "Best Seller for a Newcomer?":
Book Review
Saturday-Night Hitler
"WITH HITLER IN NEW YORK AND OTHER STORIES," by Richard Grayson
(Taplinger, 190 pp., $7.95)
Reviewed by Ethel Shapiro Sarrett How would the Jewish residents of Brooklyn react if Hitler came to visit them today? This is the premise of the title story of a book that marks the debut of a promising Jewish comic author. At 27, Richard Grayson has the wild sense of humor of a "Saturday Night Live" regular. Some may find his gags offensive; others will be laughing all the way to the analyst's couch.
In the title story, the narrator picks up a German chap named Hitler at Kennedy Airport and brings him back to Brooklyn to the general apathy of everyone concerned. ("Ellen's mother does not talk to Hitler except to say, 'Pass me the salt bagel.'") Hitler gets stoned over the Belt Parkway, translates a Yiddish song on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, and comforts the narrator when his grandfather dies. What is the reader to make of this? Is Grayson saying that the post-Holocaust generation is so jaded in 1979 that they would not care very much if another Hitler appeared? Or is he, since his Hitler is not a Nazi leader but a college student and brewery worker, trying to rid Jewish-Americans of their irrational (if understandable) antipathy to things and persons German? Grayson seems to want to have it both ways.
In the section titled "Family," Grayson gives us portraits of normal Jewish life – with a lot of mishigass thrown in. Great-Grandma Chaikah can't understand why no Jews ever make strikes on "Bowling for Dollars." Grandma, forced to rely on Social Security, shops for groceries by removing price stickers until she gets to a price that she likes. Grandpa spends most of his time watching "Eyewitness News " and wondering whether Farrah Fawcett has a foreign accent.
But there is poignancy here as well. In "Wednesday Night at Our House," Grayson employs a question-and-answer format to schematize the dreary, immobilized lives of a Brooklyn family of five, each member to weak to help the others.
Grayson takes risks. Sometimes his jokes fall flat. But more often than not, the reader is dazzled by the swift, witty goings-on.
Ethel Shapiro Sarrett is a free-lance reviewer.
The Penn State Daily Collegian reviews Richard Grayson’s With Hitler in New York on page 15 in its September 19, 1979 issue:
Rapid-fire style
‘Hitler in New York’: Notes from the front
By MARK VANDINE
Daily Collegian Staff Writer
“With Hitler in New York” and other stories by Richard Grayson, Taplinger, $7.95, 190 pages.
Richard Grayson teaches at a college I’ve never heard of. The slipcover for this book boasts that his stories have appeared in more than 125 literary publications, none of which I’ve ever heard of, either. And, unfortunately, he writes stories that, for the most part, I won’t ever remember.
Grayson uses a rather set reserve of subjects to write about: old people (mostly grandparents), death, sex and being a very unspecial person.
Nothing wrong with that list of subjects, except they’ve all been given the literary work-over several times. Nothing wrong with that either, but you’d think that if a writer was going to try a used subject he’d try a new angle. That is what’s wrong here.
Grayson has an interesting rapid-fire style, but he doesn’t say much worth reading. He’s mastered the basic points of prose only to discover that he hasn’t got anything to say.
This problem is further frustrated by what seems to be a conflict of motives.
Grayson will have his moments as a successful comic (for example, in a piece called, “Chief Justice Burger, Teen Idol”) or as an analytical observer of people and events, but sometimes he doesn’t seem to know what he wants the story to do. Should it be funny? Should it have a message? He seems confused or, what may be worse, he may be trying to do both, a job for writers of higher caliber.
Grayson’s efforts are further hampered by his tendency to present as stories what seem to be more like plot outlines for what will eventually be stories.
He will introduce a situation, sprinkle in a few quickly introduced characters and proceed to have them interact. There is no meat here. Whey do they do what they do? Why do they say what they say?
Certainly some degree of this can be implied, but Grayson brings the reader in too close too fast. If he wants us to note the quirks in a character’s behavior his attitudes, we simply need to know more. Without the background, the reader is left with a blank check for the story’s message.
These flaws (or perceived flaws, if you want to be fair) are characteristic of fully two-thirds of the stories contained in this book. The remaining third does work, and they work well. They may not completely justify the cost of the book, but they do go some of the way toward indicating a promising new American writer.
