page_title: A Contract with God
section_title: "Cookalein"
hierarchical_section_title: A Contract with God / Content and plot summaries / "Cookalein"
caption_attribution_description: English: Silver Lake, near Woodridge, NY, USA
context_page_description: A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Will Eisner published in 1978. The book's short story cycle revolves around poor Jewish characters who live in a tenement in New York City. Eisner produced two sequels set in the same tenement: A Life Force in 1988, and Dropsie Avenue in 1995. Though the term "graphic novel" did not originate with Eisner, the book is credited with popularizing its use.
  Four stand-alone stories make up the book: in "A Contract with God" a religious man gives up his faith after the death of his young adopted daughter; in "The Street Singer" a has-been diva tries to seduce a poor, young street singer, who tries to take advantage of her in turn; a bullying racist is led to suicide after false accusations of pedophilia in "The Super"; and "Cookalein" intertwines the stories of several characters vacationing in the Catskill Mountains. The stories are thematically linked with motifs of frustration, disillusionment, violence, and issues of ethnic identity.
context_section_description: "Cookalein" is a story of tenants of 55 Dropsie Avenue vacationing in the country.  To be alone with his mistress, a man named Sam sends his wife and children away to the Catskill Mountains, where they stay at a "cookalein" (Yiddish: kochalayn, "cook alone", a place for boarders with access to a kitchen).
  A clothing cutter named Benny and a secretary named Goldie are staying at an expensive hotel near the cookalein, both hoping to find someone rich to marry; they mistake each other for a wealthy target, and when they discover this, Benny rapes Goldie.  Herbie, an intern Goldie had earlier turned down, takes her into his care, and Benny goes on to court an heiress.  An older woman seduces Sam's fifteen-year-old son Willie at the cookalein; they are discovered by her husband who, after beating her, makes love to her in front of the boy.
  At the end of the summer, the vacationers return to Dropsie Avenue.  Goldie and Herbie are engaged, and Benny believes he will be marrying into the diamond business.  Willie is affected by his experiences, but does not express them, and his family plan to leave the tenement.  For the 2006 edition Eisner added an extra page of Willie from a rear-view perspective, looking out from his balcony.
  "Cookalein" was the most overtly autobiographical of the stories—Eisner used the real names of his family members: his parents Sam and Fannie, his brother Petey, and himself, "Willie".  Eisner called "Cookalein" "an honest account of [his] coming of age" that was "a combination of invention and recall".
caption: Silver Lake, Woodridge, New York, a lake in the Catskill Mountains
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