The Christmas Kid

And Other Brooklyn Stories

By: Pete Hamill

Narrated by: Henry Leyva

Pete Hamill's collected stories about Brooklyn present a New York almost lost but not forgotten. They read like messages from a vanished age, brimming with nostalgia: for the world after the war, the days of the Dodgers and Giants, and even, for some, the years of Prohibition and the Depression.

The Christmas Kid is vintage Hamill. Set in the borough where he was born and raised, it is a must-read for his many fans, for all who love New York, and for anyone who seeks to understand the world today through the lens of the world that once was.

"Hamill, a master raconteur, mines his own roots in this enchanting new anthology."-New York Times

Matter of taste

The first and last stories are true short stories. They come across the best, The remainder ore short short stories, their brevity limits the development of plot and characters. The endings tend to be unsatisfying and often dark. Hamill's prose is fine throughout and his evocation of Brooklyn is spot on. So it depends whether or not one appreciates the "short, short" genre.