The Messiah Comes Tomorrow
Subtitle: Tales from the American Shtetl
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: November 1, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 131
ISBN-13: 9781558492837
Subjects: American studies; Jewish studies; Urban communities; Minority Studies - Ethnic American; Jewish - General; Jews In The U.S.; Massachusetts - Local History; Sociology; History; History: American; USA; Jews; United States - State & Local - General; Boston (Mass.); Social life and customs; Ethnic Studies - General; Biography; Boston; Massachusetts
First sentence: In the 1940s and into the next decade, my friends and I lived in a neatly circumscribed world, an often comfortable place that would soon fall apart in the face of automobile ownership, television sets, the interstate highways, and suburbia.
Description: "In this selection of columns and profiles, Lupo evokes the poetry, passion, and daily struggles of common men and women. We meet the aging burlesque comedian, the bookie who swore he would not rat on his Mob associates, the dealer in secondhand clothing, the aunt and uncle who would never move up to a better apartment.

Lupo captures the humor as well as the pathos of people in transition from insularity to assimilation, delineating their lamentations and wisecracks, their fatalistic humor and street smarts. The book is both a portrait of and a tribute to a culture gradually disappearing from the American scene."--BOOK JACKET.