A father who won't pay for the young man's bar mitzvah. Further imagine a husband who, in the 1930s and '40s, forces his wife to manage household expenses for a family of five on a dollar a day, despite his being a fairly successful glass manufacturer. A husband who, unable to keep help, compels his wife to work at the unheated shop, inflaming her arthritis. A husband who, after separating from his wife, moves back home because he deems the potential alimony too high. His fists aren't used only for tightfistedness.
Truth Comes in Blows .
The title of Ted Solotaroff's memoir of his formative years first in Elizabeth and later Roselle Park, N.J., is taken from Saul Bellow's novel Henderson the Rain King . What Solotaroff describes is, in fact, a reign of domination he endured from first consciousness to the age of 20, the time frame of the book, and beyond. No wonder the inset photograph is of Solotaroff as a bare-chested tyke in short pants whose sweet smile is offset by a fixed gaze and cocked posture and hands sheathed in boxing gloves larger than his head. Yet for all his disgust with his father Ben's imperiousness, son Ted was often called Little Benny, facial resemblance being only part of the reason. Impatient and critical, father and son marry four times.