I lived in the Bronx from 1980 until 1985, in and around the area where Corman's protagonist, Steven Robbins, grew up and eventually left. So I understand why many people did not want to stay there, even though the neighborhoods north of 200th street and the Grand Concourse were safe for the most part. I enjoyed my time there, but I would never have wanted to settle there permanently. By the time I lived there, much of the lower Bronx looked like a war zone, with decrepit and destroyed buildings and debris everywhere. It was not like that in the 1940s. But still, most young people growing up there in the 1940s and 50s wanted to leave the old neighborhood in their quest to become successful. That meant moving to Manhattan. Steven Robbins leaves his humble beginnings behind after being offered an ad-job in California. He becomes a successful advertising man, marrying a beautiful woman--Beverly--along the way, and raising two daughters with her. They live first in California, where she grew up, and then move to New York when he is offered an ad-job he can't refuse. Beverly is no slouch, and she eventually finds her niche in terms of using her art education. They both become successful after a time, but they end up growing apart as a result. It is Beverly who wants out of the marriage; Steven is perfectly willing to put the effort in to save it. But they're at different places in their lives when they divorce; after a summer apart at Beverly's request, she tells Steven that she wants only more success, whereas Steven, who has not been happy with his success in quite a long time, doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life. He just knows two things--that he doesn't want to work in advertising anymore, and that he doesn't want to lose Beverly, but he does.
Corman writes matter-of-factly and succinctly for the most part, but there are parts that tug at your heartstrings, especially when he describes Steven's relationship with Sam the Bookie and his experiences playing basketball with the locals. Steven finds the happiness he's looking for when he returns to live in the Bronx area where he grew up after he and Beverly divorce. It draws him out of his lethargy and depression. He rediscovers himself and what matters to him. But eventually the people around him there change, die, or move on, and he faces another emotional life upheaval. He ends up moving to Manhattan and opening a collectibles/antiques store called The Old Neighborhood, where one can find items from a distant past. You can go home again or you can carry home within you, Corman says, and you can be happy. But you cannot hang onto the past anymore than you can hang onto a dead relationship or outmoded ideas. Life has a way of changing you, pushing you onward, and that is where the melancholy seeps in. Because we do change and move on, even if we sometimes think we have remained the same person no matter what. We haven't. Perhaps our values remain the same, because they were formed by the upbringing we had. But we are not the same. Even if we return to where we grew up, we cannot recapture what was. That would be the wrong reason for returning. But we can appreciate it for what it meant and means to us, for what it tells us about ourselves and why it makes us happy, we can savor the memories and relationships, and then let it go like we must let go of all things eventually. Life is about stepping out into the unknown, about taking risks, about trying and failing and trying again. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we don't. Corman understands that, and he has written a lovely story about a man who found himself and what mattered to him at mid-life. Well-worth reading.
