North River

The book starts off a little slow but then gets better. The narrator was not too good. Should have had different voices for women and the child.
Overall nice...but this was my first audio book.

I loved this book until I was about three fourths of the way through. The characters are well written, with very human flaws. There is great period detail, and the descriptions of New York and the the neighborhood really evoke the 1930's and the impact of the depression on the people of that period.

Unfortunately, after you get to know the characters, they begin behaving in a way that is not congruent with the picture that has been drawn. The ending was interesting, but seemed like the ending to another book.

Pete Hamill's writing is wonderful, and his love for New York is evident in every line. Overall, I recommend the book, but with a warning that the end may not satisfy.

Hamill definitely writes well, and the story of a doctor in a downtrodden section of Manhattan during the Depression years has a few heartwarming moments, as well some interesting tidbits of old New York City history. But there is no great suspense here, no feeling that the protagonist is ever in real danger or real trouble. That's why I'd call this "low stakes" as far as suspense is concerned. I finished this one because the characters, even some of the secondary ones, are very well developed, but nothing much happens to them. I could have stopped anywhere along the way and not lost anything.

One of the characters is toddler boy, and I found the baby voice characterization very annoying. However, that's not the narrator's fault; he's doing the best he can with the material.