The Manhood of Benjie Lasser

The Manhood of Benjie Lasser is a coming of age novel full of the sights, sounds and smells of Brooklyn and the Bronx in the 1950s. Benjie Lasser is a young boy preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, the religious rite symbolizing passage from boyhood into manhood. But, Benjie is also preparing for manhood in other, less tangible ways. Prompted by the desire to spend more time with his wife and son, Benjies father, Herman, moves his family from Brooklyn to the Bronx, a block from the fruit and vegetable store where he has been employed for twenty years. This is also a move away from family, however: from Bubbe, Benjies grandmother, the mainstay of the family, who is slowly dying of cancer, and from Uncle Max, a man with his own heartbreak, finding his way back to life after the death of his wife. In the course of a few years, Benjie and the family that surrounds him, make a tremendous journey. The reader will enjoy traveling with them in this evocative novel.