In my book The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, Adam Jacobs visits his grandfather (named Grappa) at Grappa’s house during the winter of 1966 and the spring of 1967. In the novel, Grappa gives Adam his Leica camera and he also teaches Adam how to make black-and-white photographs in a darkroom, which he has in his basement. Adam’s grandfather is an inspiration as Grappa puts an anti-war bumper sticker on his car, while the Vietnam War is raging on.
In real life, I had my own Grappa, my mother’s father. His name was Leo Fish, and outside of my father, he was the greatest guy I ever knew. In real life, Grappa was a photographer and he had a darkroom in his basement, as does his character in the novel. When I was young, I remember being in the darkroom and smelling the chemicals, but I don’t recall actually seeing Grappa making a photographic print. (He had moved on to color slides by then.) In the novel, Adam becomes much more involved in the printing process, as he and Grappa develop photographs of Adam’s twelve year-old friend Sally Fletcher; his older friend, the blacklisted author named Gladys McKinley; Gladys’ housekeeper named Honey; as well as legendary musician Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a collection of my real grandfather’s photographs, and here are three of them. Photo 1 and Photo 2 show his house in Larchmont, New York, in the wintertime, where the fictional Adam would have gone to visit his Grappa. Photo 3 shows my real Grappa at the Duck Pond, where I used to skate when I was a kid in the 1960s. (I have an important scene at the Duck Pond in The Martin Luther King Mitzvah.) Grappa’s photographs were taken in the 1930s and 1940s, and they bring back great memories of what it was like to grow up and live in Larchmont, which in the novel is the fictional town of Beachmont.
Oh, and in real life, Grappa did put a bumper sticker on his car to protest against the war in Vietnam. As I said, he was quite a guy.
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah (to be published by Fitzroy Books in 2018), my main character Adam Jacobs’ father takes Adam to Yankee Stadium on June 9, 1967 to see a New York Yankees game against the Chicago White Sox. The Yankee pitcher is Al Downing, the first Negro pitcher that ever played for the Yankees. I chose to highlight this game with Al Downing pitching as it works along with the Martin Luther King theme of the book. In my research, the historical reference of this game just fell into place and so I used it, as I did many of the other historical incidents in this book. My research led me from Martin Luther King speeches to Pete Seeger concerts to New York Mets and New York Yankees baseball games, and it’s all in the book.
In real life, my father took me to many Yankee games when I was a kid, at the old Yankee Stadium as described in the novel. Here, they had these pillars holding up the grandstands and the ball when hit to the outfield would pass between the pillars and you’d have to catch a glimpse of the ball as it came in and out of view. It was the house that Ruth built, where the right-field home runs did not have to be hit as far as the home runs to center and left field.
I saw many Yankee games with Dad in 1961 when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were battling it out in the home run derby, as they called it then, and which Roger Maris eventually won as he beat Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record with 61 home runs. I went to Yankee games with Dad in 1967, when I was thirteen, and we may well have gone to the game when Al Downing pitched against the White Sox. Dad was a huge Al Downing fan, probably because (as I explain about Adam’s father in the book) he did like underdogs. Also, he respected Al Downing as a Negro pioneer in a white man’s league.
On June 16, 2009, I was fortunate enough to see my beloved Yankees play the Washington Nationals at the new Yankee Stadium that was opened that year. I missed the pillars and the smell of the cigars that I remembered from my youth in the old Yankee Stadium, but it was still the Yankees and I was happy to be there. In Photo 1, I am standing outside of Gate 6, and the exterior looks similar to the old stadium; in Photo 2, I am waiting for the game to begin near my seats along the first base line in right field. You can see the Yankees doing their pregame stretches in the background at left. In Photo 3, the great Mariano Rivera pitches the Yankees to victory with a scoreless ninth inning as the Yanks won the game 5-3. You can see Rivera on the pitcher’s mound near the center of the photograph.
I wasn’t planning on including a Yankees game in my novel, but when I came across the reference to Al Downing, I just had to go for it.
I was introduced to movie producer Brian Grazer yesterday and being curious (he’s known for that), he asked me what my new novel was about. I told him it was called THE MARTIN LUTHER KING MITZVAH and explained a few things about it. He quietly listened and I look forward to seeing him again. Meanwhile, I found this interview he did at the Aspen Institute and I learned a lot from it. A video of the interview is at this link:
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, it is Halloween, and Adam Jacobs wants to go trick-or-treating with his new friend Sally Fletcher. Unfortunately for Adam, Sally Fletcher is Catholic, and in the fictional town of Beachmont, New York in 1966, Jews and Catholics just don’t mix. Sally has an older brother named Peter, and he confronts Adam and his friend Jimmy at a fountain outside of St. Catherine’s Church on Halloween and tells Adam to stay away from Sally, then calls Adam a derogatory name. Adam and Jimmy continue their trick-or-treating, but Halloween has lost its allure for Adam. The damage has been done.
In my hometown of Larchmont, New York, on which the fictional Beachmont is based, there is a bronze sculpture called The Mermaid’s Cradle in the center of Fountain Square, down in the Manor, the historic section of Larchmont that is closest to the Long Island Sound. It was commissioned by Larchmont benefactress Helena Flint and created by sculptress Harriet Hosmer. Flint donated the sculpture to the village of Larchmont and the mermaid was installed in 1894 in Fountain Square, where St. John’s Episcopal Church was being built. The sculpture depicts a mermaid lulling her baby to sleep by playing a double pipe. In my novel, St. Catherine’s Church is a Catholic church, and at one point later in the story, Adam finds himself inside the church with the other Catholics who are praying for Sally’s recovery from an illness.
When I did a tour of Larchmont on June 18, 2009, I visited Fountain Square and took some photographs of the mermaid and of St. John’s Church. This square is only a few blocks from my house on Hazel Lane, where I spent most of my youth. In Photo 1, you can see the mermaid and how beautiful Fountain Square is. Imagine it’s 1966 and kids are trick-or-treating, and Peter Fletcher confronts Adam at this fountain. Photo 2 gives you a closer look at the mermaid playing her double pipes. Photo 3 shows the entrance to St. John’s Church, which looks out at Fountain Square and the mermaid, which would be off to the right, out of frame.
Great memories of my hometown, and bittersweet because of the anti-Semitism that did exist in Larchmont back in the 1960s. I deal with it in the novel, and I hope my story helps people of all faiths to learn to live with each other.
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, Adam Jacobs and Sally Fletcher, two twelve year-olds from Beachmont, New York, a suburb of New York City, meet Martin Luther King for the second time after his speech at a union convention that is being held in the Americana Hotel, which used to be on Seventh Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets in New York. Their friend Gladys McKinley, a blacklisted author, takes them into the city to see her old friend Martin, and when they meet the great man in the Royal Box Supper Club, which was in the Americana, he tells them that he has “seen the Promised Land.” I think it’s a great scene, and I had fun looking at old photographs of the Royal Box Supper Club as part of my research.
In 2009, I was visiting Crown Publishers in New York City (I have written numerous books for this great publisher), and I took some photographs at Broadway and 55th Street, just outside the Random House building at 1745 Broadway. As it happens, this is only three blocks away from where the old Americana Hotel stood. The Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel is at that location now.
In Photos 1 and 2, go straight across Broadway at 55th Street for one block, then go south on Seventh Avenue for two blocks and you get to 53rd Street; then you will be where Martin Luther King was on May 2, 1967. In Photos 3 and 4, go down Broadway for two blocks, take a left and walk over a block, and you’ll be at the same location where MLK visited the old Americana.
Imagine the world in 1967, with the war in Vietnam raging on, and the civil rights movement in full flower as well. Does this sound similar to today’s world? I think people will enjoy reading The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, and will hopefully be healed by the story contained in the novel. Perhaps it’s not too late to listen to Martin Luther King’s message, which is as relevant today as it was in 1967.
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah (to be published by Fitzroy Books in 2018), my main character Adam Jacobs is a twelve year-old boy with a crush on his seventh grade classmate Sally Fletcher, and he follows her home along Beach Avenue in the fictional town of Beachmont, New York. The inspiration for Beachmont is my hometown of Larchmont, a bedroom community in Westchester County and just up the coast from New York City.
In June of 2009, I took some photographs of my old neighborhood, including Beach Avenue right in front of the house where an author named Phyllis McGinley lived in 1966. I modeled a character after her in my novel, named Gladys McGinley, and Gladys’ house is on Beach Avenue as well, on Adam’s route home.
In Photo 1, you are looking north on Beach Avenue, back in the direction of Adam’s school, Beachmont Elementary. It’s about a ten-block walk back to school, but Adam has other things in mind, namely Sally Fletcher and her bouncing ponytail in front of him. In Photo 2, you have turned around in the same spot as Photo 1, and you are looking south on Beach Avenue toward Long Island Sound. Where the sidewalk stops and there is a right turn, you can see where I walked down Hazel Lane to my house (Adam lives on the fictional Oak Drive in the novel.) In Photo 3, you are almost at my house on Hazel Lane, which is two houses down from here on the right, but the house is hidden. It’s really a beautiful walk home for a kid.
If you go down to the end of those double yellow lines and go around the corner to the right, you will be on Kane Avenue, and my house was on the corner of Hazel Lane and Kane. In Photo 4, you are looking down Kane Avenue at my house on the left, where the double yellow line goes around the corner. I usually approached my house from Kane Avenue, but in the novel, I have Adam go down Beach Avenue almost all the time…because that’s where Sally is walking. In Photo 5, you can see the gate (which was an unpainted wooden gate and a lot older when I was a kid) that I opened in order to get to my house, which I usually entered through the back door which leads into the kitchen.
So this is my old neighborhood, and this is what I visualized as I wrote The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, which is a love letter to Larchmont and those great days of the 1960s, when Martin Luther King was giving speeches about civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, and Pete Seeger was singing his heart out for social justice.
