Additional information
by Arthur J. Levy (Author)
The reader of Trouble in Flatbush is given a picture of 1948-50 Brooklyn in stunning detail through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. This account is a meticulous biography of place. The voice of the 12 year old is funny and sweet. His adventures are tumultuous and the schemes invariably lead to intrigue and trouble. The sensations of mid century Brooklyn are all there: rose bushes on chain link fences, odors of horse droppings behind horse drawn carts, the excitement and dare of rides at the otherworldly setting of Coney Island and the sanctuary of a dead-end street. The adventures that took place there were burned into the memory of the author. The pulse of Brooklyn in 1950 is there. The boy senses change in his family and seeks to discover the cause. The year was filled with secret plots, stealth and disobedience. Finally, during a seedy show in the Midway of Coney Island he discovers the root of the trouble and shares a secret with his father. The naive days of childhood are at an end.
Author Biography
The author was born, brought up and bar mitzvahed in Brooklyn. Living in a traditional Italian-Jewish neighborhood he perfected the values of guilt and blame. His writing skills were sharpened in Public School 226 by forging excuse notes from his father. When he traveled to upper Manhattan to attend the High School of Music and Art, he discovered that he was ethnic. After graduating from NYU and Dartmouth he received his PhD from the University of Virginia. It was there that he perfected the southern-Jewish-Italian accent. Although he tried to conceal his Brooklyn ethnic origins in the south, he was always revealed by the occasional "oy vey y'all" with an accompanying hand gesture.
