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THE GOLDEN DOOR
by Kerry Jamieson
Flame, February 2005
356 pages
6.99GBP
ISBN: 0340830980


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Kerry Jamieson's hero, Will Carthy, is an Irish immigrant to New York in 1930 who has been fortunate enough to find a job despite the Depression. He is a riveter building one of New York's skyscrapers.

The picture she paints of Will's life in the stifling summer heat working with a team of four high up in the air by day and lodging in a dingy room by night is very vivid. There are telling details of the 1930s in New York -- for example the stinking slums contrasted to the elegant homes of the privileged -- and the status of an Irish immigrant is clearly positioned against the native New Yorkers and the other immigrant groups.

Will has brawn certainly -- he is described as 6ft 4ins -- but also brains, charm and ingenuity. He sets off enthusiastically to meet his half sister Isabel on her arrival at Ellis Island but she is not there. He quickly establishes that she sailed on the boat, the Aurora, and even finds a witness to her presence on the small boat landing at the island but then she is not listed as passing through passport control.

Will is anguished at the loss of his only relative and follows various leads in his search for her while continuing his normal job during each day. His fellow lodgers and workers are well characterised as are the wealthy couple, the Trichardts, and the charismatic and dangerous union agitator, Foxy Nolan with whom he becomes separately entangled.

The tension of Will's search over a few weeks is well maintained and eventually all the disparate happenings of the tale are brought together in an explosive and tragic finale -- as the book's cover states "When the American Dream became a nightmare . . ." Will changes from a bewildered pawn in other people's machinations to an angry man with a realisation of the pattern of events and a burning desire to prove his theories and, if possible, punish the perpetrators.

Some of these changes are, perhaps, sketchily explained but the overall portrait of an immigrant in New York is cleverly shown with accurate period detail kept to a sensible level.

Reviewed by Jennifer S. Palmer, March 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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