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Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue

mark kurlansky

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It’s the boom years of the 1980s, and life is closing in on Nathan Seltzer, who rarely travels beyond his suddenly gentrifying Lower East Side neighborhood in New York City. Between paralyzing bouts of claustrophobia, Nathan wonders whether he should cheat on his wife with Karoline, a German pastry maker whose parents may or may not have been Nazis. His father, Harry, is plotting with the 1960s boogaloo star Chow Mein Vega for the comeback of this dance craze. Meanwhile, a homicidal drug addict is terrorizing the neighborhood.
With its cast of unforgettable characters, Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue is a comedy of cultures, of the old and the new. It’s about struggling to hold on to life in a rapidly changing world, about food and sex, and about how our lives are shaped by love and guilt.

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 29,2005

This edition

Format
336 pages, Paperback
Published
February 28, 2006 by Random House Trade
ISBN
9780345448194
ASIN
0345448197
Language
English

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mark kurlansky

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 40 votes)
5 stars
12(30%)
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17(43%)
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40 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Kmanmaster
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book is a little chaotic narration wise, but I think the reason it’s done in this way is because there are so many different walks of life that that kurlansky writes about, it sort of adds to the flavor of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed reading it, but sometimes the narration came off as a bit jarring.
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apajen
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I was immersed in the story, not so much for the writing but rather the stories of the characters and the neighborhood as a whole. I felt like I was a bystander witnessing the developments of the Lower East Side of New York.

The reason I am not rating the book higher is because while I did find the premise and plot interesting, the narration and overall presentation wasn't that engaging to me. I did appreciate the details that come in scenes regarding food though.

I think I'd recommend this to someone looking for a "slice of life" type of read, especially specific to New York.
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bubble
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Boogaloo attracted me almost solely based on its title. Then I peeked at the blurb and discovered it took place in the East Village during the late 80's. The first 75 pages or so drag the hell on as they introduce an assload of characters that live in the neighborhood and therefore make up the fabric of the book. The main character is a more-or-less lapsed Jew named Nathan that owns a small copy shop and is having a semi-midlife crisis. The book picks up after everyone is introduced and they start to interact. It's a quirky lil book that keeps you reading because every character could be someone you lived next door to at some point in your life.
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JChow1
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Boogaloo on Second Avenue by Mark Kurlansky
At first I thought this would just be a fun read and it was, but so much more. Talk about a melting pot, this one melted and morphed, fused and fomented. The eighties weren't good times for NYC yet what a rich family life the Seltzers had. We should all live in such an interesting place with so much family around us and fascinating neighbors. Yet what secrets everyone carried and of course pain. The surprises were great, as was the humor and pathos. LOVED IT!!!
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uty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Not sure I would have approached this were it not for admiration for Kurlansky's non-fiction food/historical writing, but this is a charming novel with intriguing characters.

Set in the just pre-gentrification East Village of the 1980s, the narrative gets most of its color from the contrasting ethnicities: still quite observant Jews who emigrated in the early 20th century, Puerto Ricans, Italian bakery owners and cops who don't live in the neighborhood etc. Also, the small business owner vs drug dealer symbiosis is prominent as is the looming gentrification, expressed by outside chains wanting to buy out the local businesses and the wave of newcomers willing to pay what seems like astronomical rents.

The story itself could be set in other milieux; a man in his 30s of no great ambition with an appealing wife and precocious young child, from a somewhat obsessively tight-knit family of Holocaust survivors, is briefly distracted by an old flame.
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Harsh234
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I've recently made a few wonderful trips to New York City, so was excited to find this book about gentrification in 1980’s NYC in the neighborhood book box. To be sure, it is an amusing read, and I learned much about the distinctions between various Latinx ethnicities, and how they stereotype and discriminate against each other. This book is written about a more carefree time when some landlords were much more relaxed about whether or not their tenants even paid rent.

Despite the overall silly tone of the book that was hard to take seriously (and sometimes hard to read if I wasn't in the mood), there are some biting observations about humanity that will make you stop and ponder. It is a portrait of one young father’s desire to go outside the bounds of his marriage and indulge in someone forbidden (non Jewish, and possibly the descendant of a nazi). The claim of this book is that the fact that the woman is forbidden is what makes their relationship and their time together so desirable to him.

Another nugget of wisdom that made me stop short— when it is revealed that there are no prior nazi’s in the neighborhood, but that by being German and in Berlin at the time, he still held some personal responsibility.

“Victor Stein was my oldest friend," said Moellen. "We grew up together. He and his wife and two children lived in our building. They took away his job. Then they made him leave our building, Then they took them all away."
"And killed them" said Karoline's mother
"And killed them" Moellen confirmed.
"What does that have to do with you?" said Karoline.
"Exactly" said Moellen. "That is what I said, too. Why should I do anything? So my oldest friend and his family are robbed and murdered. What does this have to do with me?"
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Kurac02
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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An excellent story about a NYC neighborhood and the characters that inhabit it.

The thing w/ this book is you don't feel like you're reading the author's story, but the neighborhood's and its people's.
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