Word: halberstam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Michael Halberstam, 46, cardiologist and author, Washington. Halberstam chooses real estate investments, largely because he regards his knowledge of stocks and bonds as "minuscule." But, he reasons, "I do know that the home I bought ten years ago has appreciated 300%. That is certainly not the case with the stocks in my mutual fund...
This week's "Cheer of the Week" has been brought to us by David Halberstam '55. In regard to his participation in a forum at the Kennedy School on the changing American presidency last week, Halberstam commented. "It's an honor to be seated with the professors (J.K. Galbraith and Richard Neustadt) who gave me C's when I was an undergraduate...
That's understandable, of course: partly because there are so few Jewish politicians on the national scene to serve as stereotypes, and partly because Halberstam and O'Connor have written about two very different topics. The Last Hurrah comes across as O'Connor's dirge at the death of traditional Irish-American society, and Frank Skeffington, the larger-than-life caricature, served quite neatly as a symbol of a vanishing way of life. The Wanting of Levine, by contrast, takes on no such broad sociological theme. A.L. Levine's odyssey is an intensely personal one, the maturing of a fascinating...
...worry about the excesses of plot. A.L. Levine is what this book is all about, and Halberstam's hero rises to beat back any challenge. Levine is a marvelously charming character: a poor Jewish orphan who works his way up from the seediness of the Bronx to the sweaty good times of a travelling salesman in the South, onward into the cushy, three-piece suited life of a millionaire real-estate developer and Democratic Party kingmaker, stopping off in countless bedrooms at every chance. Weaving together flashbacks and scenes from Levine's suddenly conceived campaign for the Presidency, Halberstam chronicles...
...Halberstam intended merely to write a pleasant fable of American political life, he would have done well as an entertainer; happily, he has done more than that, and succeeded on both counts. For Levine's uniqueness, his drive as a character, comes not from his charm or his vision or his money, but from his Jewishness. He exudes Jewishness--not the Orthodox-rabbi variety, but the every-day brand, with all the stereotypical strengths and weaknesses. But Levine is not a cardboard man; he snatches up all the stereotypes in himself and twists them, turns them around, shatters them...