by R. D. Rosen
First published 2019
In 1935 New York, eighteen-year-old Sid Luckman dominates high school football at Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn. His athletic prowess earns him newspaper coverage across the city. Meanwhile, his father Meyer Luckman makes headlines for entirely different reasons. Meyer has murdered his own brother-in-law in a gangland killing that will send him to Sing Sing Prison for twenty years to life. Sid continues his football career at Columbia University, then joins the Chicago Bears as their quarterback. He becomes a Hall of Fame player and beloved sports figure. The press never connects the celebrated athlete to his imprisoned mobster father. For eight decades, this family secret remains buried. Sid builds his legend while Meyer serves his sentence, their lives running on parallel tracks that never publicly intersect. The story reveals how one immigrant family embodied two major forces shaping Depression-era America: the growing popularity of professional football and the violent world of organized crime in Brooklyn.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, parallel-lives
Setting: Brooklyn, Chicago, Columbia University, Erasmus Hall, New York, Sing Sing Prison
Period: 1935, Depression Era
281 pages · ebook · Atlantic Monthly Press
Content warnings: murder