Rich Man, Poor Man

This ever and everlasting novel, proceeding with styleless ease in the most readable fashion possible, spans some twenty years and the three lives of the Jordache children from their divided beginnings to their unified endings in middle age. First Gretchen, from her slatternly start at 17 with a rich failure who to a degree is instrumental in all their lives. Gretchen goes on to New York and a lackluster marriage, to Los Angeles and an exciting one with a film director until his untimely death. Then there's Thomas, the insolent delinquent who disappears for years to become a prizefighter, whom Rudolph (he's next) helps unknowingly, and who repays his debt to society and to the family fully. And last Rudolph, handsome, cautious, acquisitive, who does become a rich man but a responsible one. . . . Mr. Shaw's story keeps going with a self-perpetuating interest and with the kind of professionalism that say Jerome Weidman manifests although forfeiting anything which qualifies at a literary level. But it should be eminently marketplaceable. (Kirkus Reviews)



This is the story of brothers Rudolph and Thomas Jordache and their sister, Gretchen. The Jordaches are German-American, their father a 1920s immigrant who fought on the wrong side in the First World War and now in 1945 works in a down-beat bakery selling stale cherry pie in New York. Embittered, brutal and miserly, Axel Jordache holds little charm for his defeatist wife or their disaffected offspring. Rudy, the dutiful son, is smart, diligent and quiet, working hard at school because he sees education as a passport to the better life he wants. He is the good guy. Tom is wild, indolent, aggressive, sees nothing beyond today and wants only to use his fists. He is the bad guy. As for Gretchen: naive, beautiful and restless, Gretchen just wants a guy. Three young people, all in their individual ways bright kids and all, in their individual ways, wanting out. But this is post-war America. Nothing is going to come easy. Who will make their fortune and how? It's the premise for a novel the like of which hasn't been seen in 30 years. And it doesn't disappoint today. Covering two decades while it whisks the reader from coast to coast in the States and over to the South of France, this is one of the original blockbusters to achieve - justifiably - the status of a classic. In some ways a take on the American Dream, Shaw's heroically written book found immediate relevance when it was first published in 1971, becoming one of the first enormously successful television mini-series. It was in the wake of Vietnam so maybe hope in adversity and success through single-minded endeavour struck a chord. Irwin Shaw died in 1984. This great sprawling saga, his best-known work, recalls just how good a good read used to be.