Vol. 1. np:The Authors, 2021.
There were lots of gangs in large American cities in the 1920s and ’30s, mostly as a result of Prohibition, and they naturally tended to reflect the ethnicity of the communities where they developed and which they came to control. And that includes New York Jewish gangs in Queens and the Bronx that were just as ferocious and bloody-handed as any mob of Italians or Irishmen. The two protagonists and territorial rivals in this graphic novel, set in 1938, on the brink of World War II, are the aging Levi Solomon, who has gotten wealthy running drugs, gambling, and other rackets, and the much younger Jonas Kaminskyy, who is still basically a cocky punk with ambitions.
The other difference between them is that Sol (a nickname he hates) is an observant Jew who is very aware of his heritage, while Jonas thinks religion of any kind is for suckers (even though he lives with and looks after his synagogue-attending grandmother). And, of course, each of the two would love the opportunity to bump off the other.
But then the new high-powered District Attorney has both men rounded up at a demonstration by the German-American Bund down at the docks and he lays it on the line for them. He has gathered enough evidence and documentation of their many and various crimes to put both men behind bars for life and the only way they can avoid that is to work together on a project the D.A. has in mind for them, and on which they will be required to cooperate. He wants to destroy the Bund, quietly and secretly, before the American Nazis drag America into the war they can all see coming — and on the wrong side. They’re welcome to use any gangland method or tactics they like — as long as they don’t actually kill any of them, the D.A. can’t condone that.
Solomon is all for it because he barely escaped the pogroms in Poland himself, but Jonas regards the Nazis as none of his business. What’s one gangster more or less? But that changes when Fritz Kuhn, leader of the Bund and (in his own mind) the future American Führer, orders the firebombing of the local synagogue and puts Jonas’s nana in intensive care. Suddenly, the old Jewish gangster and the young one discover they have something very much in common: Their hatred of Nazis.
It’s a pretty good yarn, almost a fairy tale for those of us who absolutely loathe fascists, whether past or present, domestic or foreign. The art is entirely representational, not at all comic-bookish, and is very well done. There’s a certain amount of reality-bending, but it stays within reasonable limits — even the climactic conspiracy. The titles page, by the way, calls this “Volume 1,” but the story is really complete in itself and there is no indication at Amazon or elsewhere about a continuation having been published.
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