AUDIOBOOK
About
This enchanting true story, written when the author was ninety-three, is a moving tale of working-class life, social divide, and forbidden love on the eve of the first World War.
The narrow street on which Harry grew up appeared identical to countless other working-class English neighborhoods-except for the invisible wall that ran down the center of the street, dividing the Jewish families on one side from the Christians on the other. The geographical distance may have been yards, but socially, it was miles. Families on either side did not speak or meet.
But when Harry's older sister fell for the boy across the street, Harry became a go-between for the lovers, crossing the great divide to hide their secret. When the truth inevitably came out, Harry had to decide, at a very young age, what he believed was morally right. Prologue
Part 01 - Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Part 02 - Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
"John Lee superbly captures the intricacies of various accents-the young Russian rabbi, the guest from Leeds, the headmaster of the fancy school, the drunk shopkeepers…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award."
"A groundbreaking story of family secrets and forbidden love told in plain, beautiful prose through the eyes of a young Jewish boy…the chapters are tense with danger and with tenderness."
"Young Harry serves as a wide-eyed guide to a world since dismantled…True to a child's experience, it is the details of domestic life that illuminate the tale…Yet when major world events touch the poverty-stricken block, the individual coming-of-age is intensified without being trivialized, and the conversational account takes on the heft of a historical novel with stirring success."
The narrow street on which Harry grew up appeared identical to countless other working-class English neighborhoods-except for the invisible wall that ran down the center of the street, dividing the Jewish families on one side from the Christians on the other. The geographical distance may have been yards, but socially, it was miles. Families on either side did not speak or meet.
But when Harry's older sister fell for the boy across the street, Harry became a go-between for the lovers, crossing the great divide to hide their secret. When the truth inevitably came out, Harry had to decide, at a very young age, what he believed was morally right. Prologue
Part 01 - Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Part 02 - Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
"John Lee superbly captures the intricacies of various accents-the young Russian rabbi, the guest from Leeds, the headmaster of the fancy school, the drunk shopkeepers…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award."
"A groundbreaking story of family secrets and forbidden love told in plain, beautiful prose through the eyes of a young Jewish boy…the chapters are tense with danger and with tenderness."
"Young Harry serves as a wide-eyed guide to a world since dismantled…True to a child's experience, it is the details of domestic life that illuminate the tale…Yet when major world events touch the poverty-stricken block, the individual coming-of-age is intensified without being trivialized, and the conversational account takes on the heft of a historical novel with stirring success."