Dear Constant Reader,
It’s Wednesday, so how about a book review?
Papa’s Burlesque House: Growing Up in a Burlesque Theater by Bernard Livingston (1971).
This novel, purporting to be an as-told-to story, is more of a thinly veiled autobiography. The point-of-view character grew up in a large Jewish family in Baltimore during the Depression. His weak-willed father, unable to support the family, is pushed into managing a burlesque theatre by a pawn-broker uncle who has acquired the unsavory building.
Family life focuses around the theatre, since the narrator’s father can rarely leave. Shabbos dinner is held with the entire family crammed in the ticket booth. While his parents refuse to enter the theatre, the narrator frequently sneaks backstage and dallies with strippers. He becomes increasingly resentful of his parents’ plans for his life (he’s to become a lawyer — his older brother is going to be a doctor), especially after he learns a few things about his father.
The theatre, called The Burlesk, but known as The Scratch House, is a filthy, seedy dump on the infamous Block. The comics are drunks and the girls are third rate. Some of the activity at the Burlesk is down right unsavory and it will come back to bite the family badly.
