Tending to his poor and sick neighbors throughout a Depression-era winter, New York City doctor James Delaney is haunted by memories from World War I and the disappearances of his wife and daughter, until his three-year-old grandson is abandoned on his doorstep.
The year is 1934 and New York City is locked in the icy grip of the great depression. Amid the hunger and suffering, Dr. James Delaney tends to the needy, mobsters and housewives alike. However, Delaney himself is suffering from the heartache of his wife's abandoning him and from the horrors he witnessed during the Great War. When his daughter leaves her two-year-old son on his doorstep, Delaney recruits Rose, a Sicilian maid, to help raise the child. Pete Hamill's atmospheric and lovely novel recreates a period of terrible hardship and shows how human decency survives despite the brutality.
- Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres, Fiction + Literature Themes
- Subgenre: Literary, Family + Friendship, Legal + Courtroom + Crime, Types of Characters
- Publisher: Back Bay Books
- Pages: 341
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Format: paperback
- Release Date: June 4, 2008
- Date Published: June 4, 2008
- Author: Pete Hamill