A History of the Middle Eastside, written by Jonathon Narvey and published late last year, follows a long line of books exploring complicated political issues through satire. And it does it well.
Basically, History is a crime noir allegory for the history of Israel, starting with the influx of European Jews into Israel ( then known as Palestine ) in the late 1940's in the wake of the Second World War, and the Israelis' battle for independence following the withdrawal of the British from the Mandate of Palestine and the UN's creation of the Partition Plan for Palestine.
History's fictional world - 'the city' - is divided into four major territories, which are divided up amongst several gangs: Central Station, representing Central Europe; the Upper Eastside, representing Eastern Europe and Russia; the Upper Westside, representing the United States; and the Middle Eastside, representing Palestine and its neighbors. The book begins in earnest with the fall-out from a brutal gang war in Central Station, started by Gruber and his Brownshirts in a move on the respective territories of Herschel Polanski, Francois, and Big Ben, as well as on the Upper Eastside's Ivan and the Upper Westside's Washington.
Gruber stretches himself too thin and gets hammered into the ground, and Central Station becomes a part of Ivan's territory. But not before a group of beaten, haunted, members of Polanski's decimated crew - including Polanski's son, Zev - have made their way into the Middle Eastside and are taken in by a small-time crew of 'Yids' run by Uncle Hertzl.
This influx of Yids from the Middle Eastside, and the withdrawal of Big Ben from the Middle Eastside, sparks off a brutal scrabble for territory between Uncle Hertzl's crew and the respective crews of 'Fariq' and and his boss 'Nasser' ( perhaps inspired by the Arab Nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser ). After the Yids prove their mettle, a series of cease-fires and renewed conflicts ensues over a period spanning decades, with Zev Polanski emerging as the Yids' top enforcer, and the Yids themselves eventually emerging as a formidable gang able to hold its own against its neighbors - who are ultimately held at bay.
Toward the end of History, just as Uncle Hertzl's gang begins to really find its place in the Middle Eastside, we also see the development of groups of displaced fighters - not gangsters but not civilians either - launching a series of deadly strikes against both sides of the Middle Eastside's gang war, a rather chilling portrayal of Palestinian militancy's development.
Now, full disclosure time. I know Jonathon Narvey - in fact, he's my editor at The Propagandist. But he's done an excellent job with this book. It's a great piece of satire and political allegory, with a crime noir style that is a perfect fit for a narrative spanning years of bloody conflict and infighting. I would say that it suffers from a few little problems here or there, but over-all, especially for a first-time novel, A History of the Middle Eastside is fun, engaging, and well worth reading. Check it out.
