A dismal ride

by | Oct 16, 2015 | Book Reviews

The Sea Beach Line
Ben Nadler
Fig Tree Books, 2015
224 pages, $15.95

Author Ben Nadler has created a novel steeped in Judaica, yet a mystery.

Izzy Edel, not quite wasted on drugs, determines to search for his father, reported deceased, but possibly alive. What follows is almost picaresque, and might be tallied in the style of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. But, alas, such is not the case.

For all its setting on the dark side of New York, Coney Island, and Brighton Beach, involving the street merchants, the underworld, and the Hassidic community, The Sea Beach Line fails. It is like an endless train ride, going nowhere, exceedingly dull and takes forever to go nowhere.