Scan barcode
A review by nothingforpomegranted
The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Adam Zignelik - a Jewish, white, Australian-born historian whose father was one of the dominant lawyers of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and whose career at Columbia University is quickly expiring as he fails to find or pursue any research topic
Lamont Williams - a Black probationary employee at Memorial Sloan-Kettering after serving a prison sentence, convicted mostly of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, who befriends a patient who enthralls and horrifies him with his memories of the ghetto and Auschwitz
Charles McCray - Adam’s friend and the first Black man to serve at the head of the Department of History at Columbia, whose father worked closely with Adam’s father in the 1950s and 1960s, pushing for civil rights for Black Americans
Michelle McCray - Lamont’s cousin and Charles’ wife, a social worker in New York
Henryk Mandelbrot - a cancer patient at Memorial Sloan Kettering who develops a friendship with Lamont and shares his story of resistance and survival during the Holocaust
Henry Border - a 1940s psychologist whose recorded works are discovered by Adam and open a world of historical exploration
This masterful multiple timeline novel weaves among the stories of these characters, plays with their relationships, and pulls at the heartstrings of its readers while educating them. Though I am often skeptical of historical fiction based on a true story, this enraptured me. I was fully immersed in every moment of the story, and I loved watching each character develop and discover more complicated elements of the world as they know it.