Upper West Side Story

by Susan Pashman

Overview

Meet Bettina Grosjean, a professor of Women's History, and her husband, a high-ranking environmental policymaker in the New York City mayor's office. Once a pair of student radicals, they are now raising their two brainy children on New York's Upper West Side. Upper West Side Story is the tale of fierce parental love tested in a startling eruption of racial hostility and political chicanery within the very community they have long loved and helped to build. Despite the deep love and affection they have for each other, their domestic life is suddenly thrown into crisis by a shocking and tragic event: During a school field trip, their son Zach and his best friend, Cyrus, are horsing around when, in a freak accident, Cyrus falls down a flight of stairs. The fact that Cyrus is black, that his mother is Bettina's closest friend, that jealousy, suspicion and resentment have long been simmering in the community, and that there are powerful political forces at work as well-all conspire to reveal an ugly underbelly of the community the Grosjeans have worked so hard to fashion into a model of an enlightened, multiracial world. Upper West Side Story is also the story of a remarkable multi-racial friendship, a love of two women united by their ideals and their devotion to their children, then divided by events that spiral out of control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941861035
Publisher:	Harvard Square Editions
Publication date:	05/27/2015
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Susan Pashman is a philosophy professor and former attorney. While in law school, she served a year in the New York City Council President's office; some of what she learned there has found its way into this story. But most of this book derives from her experience of raising two boys on her own in Brooklyn. Many of her sons' childhood exploits, and the hopes and fears she had for them, became the heart of this novel. She resides in Sag Harbor, New York, with her husband, Jack Weinstein.

Editorial Reviews

2015-11-03
A liberal white professor contends with racial politics following her son's terrible mistake in this literary novel.Former student radical Bettina Grosjean, now a professor of women's history, is generally quite pleased with her life on New York's Upper West Side. Sure, her aging mother, a Holocaust survivor, has taken to hiding in her closet, and there's some "ugliness" with husband Stephen given his increasing cynicism in his work as director of environmental affairs at City Hall. But she is proud of her bond with Viola Nightingale, a black woman originally from Georgia with whom she built the "Special Enrichment Program" at the school attended by Bettina's son Zack, 13, and Viola's son Cyrus, who, like their mothers, are best friends. "By the time of that fateful October day," Bettina recalls, "we'd morphed into one beautiful rainbow-colored family." Then Bettina's bubble bursts: she, Stephen, and their younger daughter, Hallie, arrive home from a weekend jaunt to Vermont to discover that Zack, after returning from a school trip to D.C., is being questioned by police regarding a pushing incident that put Cyrus in a coma. A benumbed Viola retreats into grief, while Marcus Hake, "the city's most powerful black leader" and whom Bettina "secretly admired for years," makes hay out of the situation, ultimately landing Zack in juvenile detention. Only some crafty maneuvering can save the day. In this sophomore effort, Pashman (The Speed of Light, 1997) places a relatable, recognizable woman into the compelling cross hairs of America's enduring racial tensions. Zack's observations of racial realities and the simmering resentments expressed by some of the parents about the enrichment program are some of the saddest, most striking sequences of this book. Bettina's mother is a somewhat distracting side note to these proceedings, however, and this novel's ending feels like a bit too easy. Overall, however, Pashman has raised many issues here that ring true.A fascinating, cleareyed consideration of racial relations among close friends.

Kirkus Reviews