Subsequent to Face of a Hero, Louis Falstein authored five additional books – all novels. Listed here in order of publication, they are Slaughter Street (1953), Sole Survivor (1954), Spring of Desire (1959), Laughter on a Weekday (1965), and, The Man Who Loved Laughter (1968). He was also the main author of a sixth book: The Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland (1964). Only one of the novels – Sole Survivor – has any similarity to Face of a Hero, but that similarity is very slight.
But first, a major caveat: Of these six works, I’ve only read The Man Who Loved Laughter. So, my comments about the other four novels are based on intuition – I hope correct! – given their paperback format, cover art, and descriptive blurbs.
Assuming that all these books came to the attention of the literary world, only Sole Survivor and The Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland ever received reviews, the former almost perfunctory.
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To start, the cover blurb of the 1953 Lion Books’ edition of Slaughter Street states, “Mr. Falstein takes you down the dark back alleys of Slaughter Street, leads you past the prowling criminals and city scum, shows you the bleeding heart of people engaged in the everyday battle with evil and lust,” while the line atop the cover of Spring of Desire, “She loved both the men she was married to,” suggests that the two books – fast-paced, popular literature? – might be urban variations on themes of the socially marginal, violent, or damaged characters exemplified by the works of Flannery O’Connor. Maybe there was something “to” Slaughter Street after all, for the book went through five printings.
Here are images of covers of Slaughter Street.
This is Lion Books’ first edition from June, 1953, with cover art by Robert Maguire. You can view the digitized novel at Hathi Trust, where, though it’s downloadable, it can only be downloaded on an individual page by individual page basis. (Verily, “Aaaaargh!”)
Republished twice by Lion Books in 1957, this edition features cover art by Lou Marchetti:
With cover art by Victor Kalin, this edition was published by Pyramid in 1959. This edition isn’t listed at Worldcat.
According to WorldCat, the book was also published in Sydney, Australia, in the 1950s. Its last printing was by Hamilton, & Co., in 1961.
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Sole Survivor – simply going by the book’s cover art and descriptive blurb – takes a very different turn. The novel’s resonance with Face of a Hero lies in the persisting impact and legacy of the Second World War. Protagonist Antek Prinz, a survivor of the Shoah living in postwar New York City, seeks justice against the former concentration camp guard who murdered his family, a theme that’s long been explored in other books, on television, and in the cinema. An immediately obvious commonality (is it the only one?) between the two novels’ main characters – Sergeant Ben Isaacs, and Prinz – is that they are both Jews whose formative years have compelled them to seek, in however different the manner, a form of justice that is both personal and transcendent. Published four years after Face of a Hero gained nationwide attention and positive reviews, Sole Survivor garnered a mere two-sentence review by Anthony Boucher (at the time, primary editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) in the “Criminals at Large” section of The New York Times Book Review.
Criminals at Large
Anthony Boucher
The New York Times Book Review
October 10, 1954
A Polish-Jewish DP recognizes, in New York, a vicious Nazi prison-camp guard who has escaped war-crime prosecution; the Jew’s newly established American life must count for nothing as he sets out, partly for personal revenge, but chiefly to strike at the conscience of a world which has lightly and easily forgotten Buchenwald. This is the theme of Louis Falstein’s SOLE SURVIVOR (Dell, 25 c) – a theme so powerful and so deeply felt that one can overlook awkwardness of style and construction.
Here’s Dell’s sole printing of Sole Survivor, with evocative cover art by John McDermott:
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Now we come to Monarch Books’ 1959 edition of Spring of Desire, illustrated by Jim Bentley. The book was republished by World Distributors in 1960.
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Laughter on a Weekday, published by I. Obolensky, appeared in 1965, I believe only in hardback. To the best of my knowledge, the book takes a markedly different turn from Lou Falstein’s previous efforts, in presenting an upbeat, humorous view of the Americanization of a Jewish family with roots in Eastern Europe.
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The Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland, of 1963, for which Lou Falstein was the main – not only – author, marked a complete turn from his previous books in terms of genre, purpose, and content. By nature a work of non-fiction, the 500 page book is a work of history, and, a memorial album. Not presently having access to it I don’t know if the book contains any statement as to how, and why, Louis Falstein became its main author. Perhaps this was via his social and intellectual circle, in light of the awareness and sensitivity he displayed regarding the fate of East European Jewry in Face of a Hero, and, Sole Survivor.
A pithy review of the book by Polish-American writer Antoni Gronowicz was published in book review section of The Militant – why not a mainstream Jewish publication? – in December of 1966.
The book is presently (August, 2022) available through Mr. Bezos’ monopoly. Its list of martyred Jewish physicians has been digitized, access to this information being available through JewishGen.
REVIEWS and REPORTS
The Militant
December 26, 1966
THE MARTYRDOM OF JEWISH PHYSICIANS IN POLAND. Studies by Dr. Leon Wulman and Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum. Research and Documentation by Dr. Leopold Lazarowitz and Dr. Simon Malowist. Edited by Louis Falstein. Published by Medical Alliance-Association of Jewish Physicians From Poland by Exposition Press [1964, c1963]. Illustrated. 500 pp. $10.00.
The history of Jewish physicians in Poland extends almost to the birth of the Polish state. One of the first descriptions of life in that country (963-965) belongs to Dr. Ibrahim-Ibn-Jacob, special representative of the Calif of Cordoba, who stayed for some time in Poland treating nobility. Years later, from Spain, Italy and Germany other Jewish physicians were arriving and settling in Warsaw, Cracow, Lwow, Wilno, Poznan and other cities.
This book, divided into three parts, give the reader an abundance of well-organized material on all aspects of the lives of Jewish doctors in towns and cities through the ages. Part one entitled “A History of Jewish Physicians in Poland” is written by Dr. Leon Wulman and has three subdivisions: “From Earliest Times to World War II,” “Outstanding Jewish Physicians During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” and “Jewish Medical Institutions and the Role of Jewish Physicians in Their Development”
Part two, “Nazi Role in Poland and the Jewish Medical Professions” written by Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum brings to full view the tragedy of the extermination of the Jewish population in that country together with the complete destruction of the medical profession and medical institutions. It is difficult in a short review to describe Nazi cruelty, but the author who spent many years on the Investigation of Nazis in his native country, is probably the best equipped man to deal with such subjects as life in a ghetto, starvation, Nazi doctors experiments in freezing the human body, wound infections, transplant surgery and poison gas experiments.
The third and final part of this huge book is written and documented by Dr. Leopold Lazarowitz and Dr. Simon Malowist and gives 2,500 biographical sketches of Jewish physicians killed by the Nazis.
-Antoni Gronowicz
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The Man Who Loved Laughter – The Story of Sholom Aleichem, Louis Falstein’s last published book, was released by the Jewish Publication Society of America, in Philadelphia, in 1968. For a writer whose fiction manifested a grim and dark urban realism, or, focused on issues of life, death, and the meaning of course, the book marks an abrupt turn in tone, style, and pace. Let alone, subject matter. The book’s cover and interior illustrations by Adrienne Onderdonk Dudden.
Having had little prior knowledge about Sholom Aleichem (except for the 2011 documentary Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness), on reading the book I had the immediate impression that it was oriented towards an adolescent to young adult audience, albeit more in the sense of pace and writing style than content, which, for a book of its nature, is substantive. Given that the book is completely absent of features typical of scholarly or academic works (footnotes, bibliographic references, and the like), perhaps Louis Falstein collected tales, anecdotes, and information from archives and newspapers, both contemporary and historical. Then, by imagining and constructing dialogue, mood, and setting, he created a smoothly flowing, unified tale.
Well, I felt so. I enjoyed the story, and through it, gained an appreciation for Sholom Aleichem, and his fiction.
Mentioned Above…
Falstein, Louis, Face of a Hero, Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York, N.Y., 1950
Falstein, Louis, Face of a Hero, Steerforth Press, South Royalton, Vt., 1999
Falstein, Louis, The Man Who Loved Laughter – The Story of Sholom Aleichem, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, Pa., 5728 / 1968