What do you think?
Rate this book
Inside, Outside
From the world of faith to the world of show business, the theater of war to the theater of presidential politics, a novel traces one Jewish family's dramatic, often hilarious adventures on the way to the American dream. Reprint.
655 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
764 people are currently reading
1298 people want to read
About the author
Herman Wouk
160 books1,389 followersHerman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.
Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.
Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.
While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.
He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."
In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday.
Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.
Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.
While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.
He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."
In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
January 12, 2023
Inside, Outside is the delightful and rambling history of America and the diaspora of the Russian-Jewish people to America during and after World War II. At the heart of this epic tale is Israel David Goodkind as he learned of the hopes and the aspirations of his immigrant family in the free country of America far, far away, across the ocean -- a Golden Medina. David Goodkind, a corporate tax lawyer, finds himself inexplicably appointed as a personal assistant in the Nixon Whitehouse at the height of the Watergate scandal, primarily because of the need to have him as a laison to the Israeli government. But for the most part, there isn't a lot for Goodkind to do in his new position except when he is called into service. Sitting in this office, he begins to reflect on his life realizing what a rich history there is in his Russian-Jewish family. For reasons that we will soon know, he names his memoir/ autobiography April House. And then we must just enjoy the ride as we are taken through the four generations of this wonderful Russian-Jewish immigrant family, weaving back and forth between times spanning the Roosevelt administration, Prohibition, the stock crash of 1929, the Big Band era, Broadway productions, World War II, Viet Nam and the Yon Kippur War.
But at the heart of this beautiful heartwarming story, most likely autobiographical in its essence, is the Jewish faith and its roots and importance in the Goodkind family and in young David's life as he is growing up in a tenement house on Aldus Street in the Southeast Bronx. It is here, as a young boy, David learns the difference between what transpired on the inside versus his assimilation into the outside world. It is this dichotomy that makes for a very interesting book. Herman Wouk has long been one of my favorite authors, this being one of his earlier books. While not one of his best works, it just grabbed my heart early on as I found myself riveted to the life of Israel David Goodkind and that of his friends and family. Mazel tov.
"Fortunately for my peace of mind, the bookcase in this large gloomy room contains, amid rows of dusty government publications, the seven volumes of Douglas Southall Freeman's 'George Washington: A Biography,' and Churchill's six volumes on the Second World War. I dip into these now and then to reassure myself that things were not very different in the days of those great men. Churchill calls the Versailles Treaty, the product of combined wisdom and long labor of all the top politicians of Europe, 'a sad and complicated idiocy.' From what I see here, this description can be extended to almost all politics. No wonder the world is such a god-awful mess, and has been it appears, since Hammurabi ordered his cuneiform scribes to start scratchng his great deeds on clay tablets."
But at the heart of this beautiful heartwarming story, most likely autobiographical in its essence, is the Jewish faith and its roots and importance in the Goodkind family and in young David's life as he is growing up in a tenement house on Aldus Street in the Southeast Bronx. It is here, as a young boy, David learns the difference between what transpired on the inside versus his assimilation into the outside world. It is this dichotomy that makes for a very interesting book. Herman Wouk has long been one of my favorite authors, this being one of his earlier books. While not one of his best works, it just grabbed my heart early on as I found myself riveted to the life of Israel David Goodkind and that of his friends and family. Mazel tov.
"The lights of Israel are gone. The kaddish song has ended. So has my book. It is a kaddish for my father, of course, start to finish; but in counterpoint it is also a torch song of the thirties, a sentimental Big Band number that no one has ever heard until now, and its name is 'Inside, Outside.'"
September 9, 2012
I read and admired another Wouk title a couple years ago. He was brought to mind again by an article on the recent passing of Gore Vidal. Specifically, that article questions the assumption (held by certain gatekeepers, I suppose) that "the great postwar novelists" were Vidal, Mailer, and Capote. Herman Wouk is of the same generation, and the article says his fiction easily surpasses theirs (as does the work of a completely forgotten writer named Ross Lockridge, who's now in my reading queue). (I nurture a sense of irritation with unjustified recognition for some works occurring at the expense of others.)
Anyway, in this story, I. David Goodkind is a Jewish scholar hired by the Nixon White House to write first drafts of speeches and to facilitate interaction with a new Israeli ambassador. His job is not demanding, and he ends up spending his free time writing a chatty family history. The description of his family's origins in Russia and his own early years in New York has a deceptively spontaneous feel, with frequent interruptions in the narrative for insertion of background info (e.g., "A reader here and there may not know the old deerfly chestnut, and it's vital to my story, so here is a quick run-through..."). Nevertheless, it's as good a coming-of-age novel as we're likely to find, with a depth of texture and detail that makes it feel a lot more like personal history than fiction. He comments at one point that he's providing a "stereoscopic view" of his youth -- "one eye that of a boy, the other that of a chilly old tax lawyer, with little in common but the name." That dynamic is basic to memoir.
The book's title has to do with the discontinuity between family/cultural traditions and the intrusive outside world of Shaygets (i.e., heathens) -- a world in which even many Jews no longer bother to eat kosher or observe the Sabbath. Goodkind discusses many of the restrictions that are put on the line when he interacts with that world (not writing on Shavuos, for example -- a problem when Shavuos coincides with his college exams). There's a significant period in his life when he "misbehaves," as a friend puts it, but for him, soul-searching about his identity leads to a reaffirmation of the Inside world. (His first initial stands for Israel, a name that causes him so much trouble while he's growing up that he feels defensive about it. So the story's conclusion is rather moving:
And what do they call you, Israel or David?"
Slight pause. Then Pop's Yisroelke, enjoying a wry Yankee joke she may not get, smiles back.
"Call me Israel."
In that respect, this reminds me very much of another significant novel written at about the same time, Angle of Repose .
Despite his bestseller status, Herman Wouk may indeed be underrated. I intend to read the rest of his works.
Anyway, in this story, I. David Goodkind is a Jewish scholar hired by the Nixon White House to write first drafts of speeches and to facilitate interaction with a new Israeli ambassador. His job is not demanding, and he ends up spending his free time writing a chatty family history. The description of his family's origins in Russia and his own early years in New York has a deceptively spontaneous feel, with frequent interruptions in the narrative for insertion of background info (e.g., "A reader here and there may not know the old deerfly chestnut, and it's vital to my story, so here is a quick run-through..."). Nevertheless, it's as good a coming-of-age novel as we're likely to find, with a depth of texture and detail that makes it feel a lot more like personal history than fiction. He comments at one point that he's providing a "stereoscopic view" of his youth -- "one eye that of a boy, the other that of a chilly old tax lawyer, with little in common but the name." That dynamic is basic to memoir.
The book's title has to do with the discontinuity between family/cultural traditions and the intrusive outside world of Shaygets (i.e., heathens) -- a world in which even many Jews no longer bother to eat kosher or observe the Sabbath. Goodkind discusses many of the restrictions that are put on the line when he interacts with that world (not writing on Shavuos, for example -- a problem when Shavuos coincides with his college exams). There's a significant period in his life when he "misbehaves," as a friend puts it, but for him, soul-searching about his identity leads to a reaffirmation of the Inside world. (His first initial stands for Israel, a name that causes him so much trouble while he's growing up that he feels defensive about it. So the story's conclusion is rather moving:
And what do they call you, Israel or David?"
Slight pause. Then Pop's Yisroelke, enjoying a wry Yankee joke she may not get, smiles back.
"Call me Israel."
In that respect, this reminds me very much of another significant novel written at about the same time, Angle of Repose .
Despite his bestseller status, Herman Wouk may indeed be underrated. I intend to read the rest of his works.
June 7, 2020
The story of a deeply religious Jewish boy....there is joy and laughter, sorrow and pain. Dozens of relatives some good and some bad, funny quirky relatives, money grabbing relatives, deeply religious uncles, gossiping aunts, grandmothers who cook wonderful food, mothers who show off their kids. Girls, when can we kiss them? Do we marry a Gentile?
We have it all with slight variations......
Only Wouk makes it all so wonderful!
We have it all with slight variations......
Only Wouk makes it all so wonderful!
March 22, 2009
Thanks, Khay for pointing out such an eggregious error! As I was reading this for the fourth time last week I was thinking, if only I could give more than five stars - it didn't even occur to me I gave LESS!
This book is a masterpiece and I learn something new every time. It is in the most superficial yet not least enjoyable way a memoir, but one packed with charm, wit and insight. The underscoring conflict is one I love, which is that of being a Jewish American/American Jew and all its complexitites. In this way, Wouk traces generations of people chasing an American dream and confusing tradition in the process, and Wouk's own American dream is encapsulated by the aptly named Bobbie Webb who entraps him with her beauty and 'otherness' while also representing something he can never truly have. After all, you can leave the kosher rules aside, but the identity of a Jew is called itno question much more sharply when it means walking away entirely from your heritage.
I/O is most charming to me in some ways because of how Wouk cherishes his memories. In this way he simply assumes you will find them as compelling and fascinating as he does, and in turn, you do. His characters are so well drawn, his conflicts so real and human, his foibles so forgiveable. His mother epitomizes everything about a Jewish mother but in so much more of an appealing way than his friend the thinly (read- hardly) disguised Philip Roth could ever do. There is no anger or real mockery here, simply a retelling of cherished events and reflecting on how he got to where he got to, how each piece ultimately mattered.
It is a beautiful, beautiful beautiful book.
I would add that Wouk's portrayal of Bobbie;s and his obsessive love versus the woman he ends up with whom we hardly hear about raises such an interesting question that I battle every time I read it, and has been raised in Wuthering Heights along with who knowsd how many other classics - does obsessive love imply healthy/effective love, is it always a sign that it's 'right' if you can't let someone go, how do you resolve those sorts of love - the one you marry versus the ones you felt you couldn't escape from, what does each mean, how does each compare with the other, does Jan feel she can never measure up or does she realize that in being the one he married that she is truly the better fit, and pple can love a lot of pple without it actually meaning anything?>
This book is a masterpiece and I learn something new every time. It is in the most superficial yet not least enjoyable way a memoir, but one packed with charm, wit and insight. The underscoring conflict is one I love, which is that of being a Jewish American/American Jew and all its complexitites. In this way, Wouk traces generations of people chasing an American dream and confusing tradition in the process, and Wouk's own American dream is encapsulated by the aptly named Bobbie Webb who entraps him with her beauty and 'otherness' while also representing something he can never truly have. After all, you can leave the kosher rules aside, but the identity of a Jew is called itno question much more sharply when it means walking away entirely from your heritage.
I/O is most charming to me in some ways because of how Wouk cherishes his memories. In this way he simply assumes you will find them as compelling and fascinating as he does, and in turn, you do. His characters are so well drawn, his conflicts so real and human, his foibles so forgiveable. His mother epitomizes everything about a Jewish mother but in so much more of an appealing way than his friend the thinly (read- hardly) disguised Philip Roth could ever do. There is no anger or real mockery here, simply a retelling of cherished events and reflecting on how he got to where he got to, how each piece ultimately mattered.
It is a beautiful, beautiful beautiful book.
I would add that Wouk's portrayal of Bobbie;s and his obsessive love versus the woman he ends up with whom we hardly hear about raises such an interesting question that I battle every time I read it, and has been raised in Wuthering Heights along with who knowsd how many other classics - does obsessive love imply healthy/effective love, is it always a sign that it's 'right' if you can't let someone go, how do you resolve those sorts of love - the one you marry versus the ones you felt you couldn't escape from, what does each mean, how does each compare with the other, does Jan feel she can never measure up or does she realize that in being the one he married that she is truly the better fit, and pple can love a lot of pple without it actually meaning anything?>
June 18, 2018
It was a pleasant read, I suspect largely biographical for Herman Wouk, about a gag writer-turned lawyer-turned Nixon adviser who grew up in NYC in a very Jewish household only to become a skeptic.
While there were plenty of historical references, it reads much more as a romp like “Don’t Stop the Carnival” than it does historical fiction like “Winds of War”.
There really aren’t a lot of themes or take-home messages, at least not for me. I actually prefer books that do have themes, but for its genre it does well and Herman Wouk is just a great writer.
I became fatigued reading 200 pages of the main character David Goodkind’s “lost love” Bobbie. That got old for me and I felt those pages dragged too long. But clearly it was the story Wouk wanted to tell and he was trying to show just how hard it can be to cut off a relationship despite its toxicity!
While there were plenty of historical references, it reads much more as a romp like “Don’t Stop the Carnival” than it does historical fiction like “Winds of War”.
There really aren’t a lot of themes or take-home messages, at least not for me. I actually prefer books that do have themes, but for its genre it does well and Herman Wouk is just a great writer.
I became fatigued reading 200 pages of the main character David Goodkind’s “lost love” Bobbie. That got old for me and I felt those pages dragged too long. But clearly it was the story Wouk wanted to tell and he was trying to show just how hard it can be to cut off a relationship despite its toxicity!
October 22, 2021
I love Herman Wouk!
September 16, 2012
This is my favorite or second-favorite novel. Even though I didn't grow up in the '30s, I feel like I know, or want to know every itsy-bitsy corner of Israel David Goodkind's life. I want to see his Bronx, his Washington, DC during the Nixon administration, HIS meetings with Golda Meir, his gagwriting sessions for radio, his learning Talmud with his grandfather.
I feel like I know these people, like I grew up with some of them, would have LOVED to have met others, and ran as far as I could from some others.
If you have any connection to Orthodox Judaism in New York, there's a good chance you'll love this novel.
I love the women in this book too. He doesn't go into too much detail about some of them, but that just makes me want to get to know Sandra and Jan more.
I don't want to spoil it for you. BUY THIS BOOK.
I feel like I know these people, like I grew up with some of them, would have LOVED to have met others, and ran as far as I could from some others.
If you have any connection to Orthodox Judaism in New York, there's a good chance you'll love this novel.
I love the women in this book too. He doesn't go into too much detail about some of them, but that just makes me want to get to know Sandra and Jan more.
I don't want to spoil it for you. BUY THIS BOOK.
December 25, 2012
I'd agree that the narrative has a disjointed "frame," perhaps the result of Wouk's trying to wrap it into the then present day, but this is the Wouk book I'm most drawn to re-reading. Perhaps because of a fundamentalist Christian upbringing (ironic but true), I can relate to the MC's pull between love for his family and desire to escape some of the confines of his religion (even as he holds on to his faith).
That alone is worth the read, but the chapter on his grandmother making sauerkraut in the new apartment is something on par with Thurber. :-)
That alone is worth the read, but the chapter on his grandmother making sauerkraut in the new apartment is something on par with Thurber. :-)
February 25, 2015
A very interesting look at a young jewish man and the life he lives inside and outside of his faith. It was very, very long though.
October 16, 2024
Inside, Outside is about three things:
1. A young Jewish man coming of age in pre-WWII Bronx.
2. The 1973 Yom Kippur War.
3. Richard Nixon's final days as president.
Inside, Outside is narrated by Israel David Goodkind. The title is a reference to the fact that, according to the narrator, all Jewish people have an inside name and an outside name. The narrator's inside name is Israel. His outside name is David.
The narrator is a tax lawyer who, in the present-day 1973 plot, works for Nixon. He writes the rest of the book during his free time, of which he has much because of Watergate and all of the related fallout.
There's a lot of good in Inside, Outside: the characters are well written. The action is fun and engaging. The portrayal of pre-WWII Judaism is fascinating and everything is well explained. If you want to learn about American Judaism from an inside perspective, then this book provides a good place to start.
There's also a lot of bad: the narrator likes Nixon and describes him as a sympathetic, tragic, figure. The author and his narrator are unapologetically pro-Zionist. Towards the end of the novel, there's a lot of crowing about the power and strength of the amazing Israeli army and how they won the Yom Kippur War. The problem with this is that the author (and his narrator) conveniently ignore the significance of the Samson Option*. Golda Meir's letter to the president makes an appearance, but the author does not explain it and chooses to trumpet about military might instead. There's also the narrator's attitude towards women- in short, they're either nags to be placated or vixens to be used.
Wouk was a gifted writer. I've absolutely loved the other works of his that I have read. But I almost quit this one halfway through, because of the Nixon portrayal and because of misogyny. So read with caution, I suppose.
*for those who don't know, the Samson Option is Israel's threat to nuke everyone if it looks like they're going to be defeated and overrun. It was this threat that motivated Nixon to send the American airlift that ended the Yom Kippur War, and not solely Israeli military might.
1. A young Jewish man coming of age in pre-WWII Bronx.
2. The 1973 Yom Kippur War.
3. Richard Nixon's final days as president.
Inside, Outside is narrated by Israel David Goodkind. The title is a reference to the fact that, according to the narrator, all Jewish people have an inside name and an outside name. The narrator's inside name is Israel. His outside name is David.
The narrator is a tax lawyer who, in the present-day 1973 plot, works for Nixon. He writes the rest of the book during his free time, of which he has much because of Watergate and all of the related fallout.
There's a lot of good in Inside, Outside: the characters are well written. The action is fun and engaging. The portrayal of pre-WWII Judaism is fascinating and everything is well explained. If you want to learn about American Judaism from an inside perspective, then this book provides a good place to start.
There's also a lot of bad: the narrator likes Nixon and describes him as a sympathetic, tragic, figure. The author and his narrator are unapologetically pro-Zionist. Towards the end of the novel, there's a lot of crowing about the power and strength of the amazing Israeli army and how they won the Yom Kippur War. The problem with this is that the author (and his narrator) conveniently ignore the significance of the Samson Option*. Golda Meir's letter to the president makes an appearance, but the author does not explain it and chooses to trumpet about military might instead. There's also the narrator's attitude towards women- in short, they're either nags to be placated or vixens to be used.
Wouk was a gifted writer. I've absolutely loved the other works of his that I have read. But I almost quit this one halfway through, because of the Nixon portrayal and because of misogyny. So read with caution, I suppose.
*for those who don't know, the Samson Option is Israel's threat to nuke everyone if it looks like they're going to be defeated and overrun. It was this threat that motivated Nixon to send the American airlift that ended the Yom Kippur War, and not solely Israeli military might.
May 13, 2025
It's not my favorite Herman Wouk book. It took a while to get into. I'd give it a 3 and half. the Hope, Glory, War and Remembrance, and Winds of War were much better. (historical fiction) This book was more personal narrative based on his father's life.
April 11, 2015
Yes, I know. Only two stars for a Wouk book has to be some kind of sacrilege, but there are several reasons for this:
1. The book was boring. The most interesting parts were those in the past, but even those were too much of the same old over and over and over again. Yeah, I get it. David's mother was strong. His father was insightful and kind. His sister was--well, what was she? There's not much at all about her. And David, he was wise beyond his years (and a total ass).
2. The main character, David, was unlikable. He worried too much about the wrong things, and never seemed to worry about the right things. Plus, he was immature, hateful and mean-spirited. There is one scene where he is laughing his head off as someone sings horrid, degrading jokes in Hebrew or Yiddish about his boss--a man he purports to respect and care for. Yeah. Let's make fun of someone in front of them in a language they don't understand. That is so mature!
3. The naming of the characters was amateurish and far below what you'd expect from someone of the stature of Wouk. There's the gentile woman who keeps drawing David back to her named Webb--Get it? Like a spider web? There's the guy who pays David far more than he is worth named...wait for it...Goldhandler. How clever is THAT? (Not very!) And then David and his family--Goodkind of which David is neither--He is neither good nor kind. (See Point #2.) Come on, Wouk! Give your readers at least a bit of credit! On the nose names like these are an insult to both your talent and your readers.
4. The book was too long for what it covered. Yes, I realize I touched on this problem in Point #1, but a short boring book is so much more enjoyable than a long boring book. Unfortunately that's what this is--a long boring book.
1. The book was boring. The most interesting parts were those in the past, but even those were too much of the same old over and over and over again. Yeah, I get it. David's mother was strong. His father was insightful and kind. His sister was--well, what was she? There's not much at all about her. And David, he was wise beyond his years (and a total ass).
2. The main character, David, was unlikable. He worried too much about the wrong things, and never seemed to worry about the right things. Plus, he was immature, hateful and mean-spirited. There is one scene where he is laughing his head off as someone sings horrid, degrading jokes in Hebrew or Yiddish about his boss--a man he purports to respect and care for. Yeah. Let's make fun of someone in front of them in a language they don't understand. That is so mature!
3. The naming of the characters was amateurish and far below what you'd expect from someone of the stature of Wouk. There's the gentile woman who keeps drawing David back to her named Webb--Get it? Like a spider web? There's the guy who pays David far more than he is worth named...wait for it...Goldhandler. How clever is THAT? (Not very!) And then David and his family--Goodkind of which David is neither--He is neither good nor kind. (See Point #2.) Come on, Wouk! Give your readers at least a bit of credit! On the nose names like these are an insult to both your talent and your readers.
4. The book was too long for what it covered. Yes, I realize I touched on this problem in Point #1, but a short boring book is so much more enjoyable than a long boring book. Unfortunately that's what this is--a long boring book.
February 23, 2019
I struggled with how many stars to give this one. On one hand, it has much to recommend it, and it is better than most books. On the other hand, it is... I don't know, not perfect.
I will start with what I most liked. The depiction of the narrator David's relationship with his one-time girlfriend Bobbie Webb was sensitively wrought and beautiful. The portion of the story that deals with David's upbringing and young adulthood in New York was also very well-done. There are many passages that are funny and passages that are funny-sad. All of this is good.
Where I thought the book broke down the most was when the story moves to Israel. These segments are not well-written, and this aspect of the novel simply doesn't work. I appreciate that Wouk was trying to create a complete picture of Jewish identity that includes Israel, but perhaps this goal was ultimately overambitious. His lack of familiarity with Israeli life was very obvious, especially when compared with his intimate familiarity with New York Jewish life, which he depicts in the same novel. It felt as though the most profound thing he really had to say about his Israeli characters was that they don't have inside names! Actually, that could potentially be an interesting subject if explored properly, but it is not explored properly here.
I also thought the novel would have benefitted from having a traditional rather than back-and-forth timeline. In a traditional timeline the end the novel would be the end of David and Bobbie's relationship, as that is the story's natural end. Everything that comes afterwards doesn't add anything and seems unnecessary. But this structure might have made Inside, Outside seem overly similar to Wouk's masterpiece Marjorie Morningstar, which, incidentally, I cannot recommend highly enough.
I will start with what I most liked. The depiction of the narrator David's relationship with his one-time girlfriend Bobbie Webb was sensitively wrought and beautiful. The portion of the story that deals with David's upbringing and young adulthood in New York was also very well-done. There are many passages that are funny and passages that are funny-sad. All of this is good.
Where I thought the book broke down the most was when the story moves to Israel. These segments are not well-written, and this aspect of the novel simply doesn't work. I appreciate that Wouk was trying to create a complete picture of Jewish identity that includes Israel, but perhaps this goal was ultimately overambitious. His lack of familiarity with Israeli life was very obvious, especially when compared with his intimate familiarity with New York Jewish life, which he depicts in the same novel. It felt as though the most profound thing he really had to say about his Israeli characters was that they don't have inside names! Actually, that could potentially be an interesting subject if explored properly, but it is not explored properly here.
I also thought the novel would have benefitted from having a traditional rather than back-and-forth timeline. In a traditional timeline the end the novel would be the end of David and Bobbie's relationship, as that is the story's natural end. Everything that comes afterwards doesn't add anything and seems unnecessary. But this structure might have made Inside, Outside seem overly similar to Wouk's masterpiece Marjorie Morningstar, which, incidentally, I cannot recommend highly enough.
December 16, 2020
After being thoroughly entertained by Marjorie Morningstar, I pulled this book off the shelves to revisit. I read it shortly after it came out, which was 35 years ago, so I'll forgive myself that I didn't remember anything about it. A few bits came back to me while re-reading, but I can't say it was a great book. I see where's he trying to go in summing up the American Jewish experience, maybe even as a response to the earlier Morningstar book, which was just as long and had an even more colorful family but was primarily concerned with just telling a good story. Inside Outside has its own charms, but it's just too long to support the material. The narrator David's early childhood memories are the most interesting, I was just put off by the interminable off again on again relationship with his first great love, which isn't helped in that Wouk gives away the result up front. When I first read this book I was around David's age at the time of that relationship, while now I'm around the age of the framing material that takes place in the 1970's. That change in perspective has informed other books I've re-read decades apart, but not this time. But I'd still like to delve into some more Wouk, I've only otherwise read War and Remembrance, which I want to revisit, along with Caine Mutiny.
June 12, 2018
I have enjoyed reading many of Herman Wouk's other novels over the course of my lifetime, so I don't understand, when I began reading this specific novel back in 2012, why it bored me to tears by the time I had completed the second chapter.
For reasons I cannot fathom, I found it pedantic, plodding and dull and without even bothering to finish the book I wrote up a harshly judgmental review that could have been interpreted as anti-Semitic. For that I apologize deeply.
Therefore I've decided, thanks to someone who was concerned enough by my 2012 review to reply to it, that I'm going to immediately place a hold on this novel at my local library and reread it again, because this novel deserves a much better review than the one I posted originally
For reasons I cannot fathom, I found it pedantic, plodding and dull and without even bothering to finish the book I wrote up a harshly judgmental review that could have been interpreted as anti-Semitic. For that I apologize deeply.
Therefore I've decided, thanks to someone who was concerned enough by my 2012 review to reply to it, that I'm going to immediately place a hold on this novel at my local library and reread it again, because this novel deserves a much better review than the one I posted originally
July 28, 2008
My cousin suggested I read this book, and I'm so glad she did. It gave me a lot of insight into what it means to be Jewish. It's just a good book with a lot of laughs...it can get a bit R-rated in places, so if that's a problem, skip over those parts. Maybe because I"m a child of the 60s, I really loved it. I know that for many of today's kids, they don't get a lot of it. All I know is that I really enjoyed it.
August 30, 2014
I've been on a Herman Wouk kick lately. Just finished Winds of War and have The Hope to look forward to.
My, he's a stylist.I love the way the story of his immigrant family is embedded in the dying days of the Nixon administration. He can just dash off a line or two of characterization like the IRS examiner: " a weasly fellow with a ferret face."
My own family seems so dull not growing up along with the Goodkinds. But they would probably have driven me crazy.
My, he's a stylist.I love the way the story of his immigrant family is embedded in the dying days of the Nixon administration. He can just dash off a line or two of characterization like the IRS examiner: " a weasly fellow with a ferret face."
My own family seems so dull not growing up along with the Goodkinds. But they would probably have driven me crazy.
Read
May 24, 2011While Wouk's style and storytelling is intriguing, this novel did not hold together for me. The book seems more a series of anecdotes rather than a novel that is moving in a clear direction. The anecdotes are interesting, especial those dealing with the Jewish community in Minsk. Wouk’s storytelling seems better suited to stories that demand a larger view such as his series on World War II.
November 27, 2010
This is an epic novel of David Goodkind's story. David is born into an Orthodox Jewish family in New YOrk. This is the story of his lives both "inside" the Jewish community and "outside". A story both of family and a great love "outside". Quite detailed as Wouk is wont to be. Not as good as Winds of War, etc., but interesting.
August 13, 2009
This is one of the best books I have ever read. Insightful, interesting and culturally accurate, set in a time seldom learned about.
October 14, 2009
One of the best books I've ever read. Such a vivid picture of Jewish immigrant life in New York during the early 1900's. I really loved it.
August 25, 2016
I read it years ago and plan to read it again soon.
May 12, 2020
Good old-fashioned novel.
January 16, 2024
I am not “Wouk.” (There’s a homophonic pun there that might no longer make sense in two to three years. At the moment, it seems a bit funny to me.)
My father never talked the writer down; that was never my father’s style since he believed in the capacities of everyone. Still, without any of the snobbery that I have developed in my own graduate training (and I think I may have less of it than many I know), Wouk always seemed a comfortably middle-brow writer. The things he did – fat paperbacks that told us things we generally already knew – haven’t aged well. I enjoyed the praise he received in his many obituaries from a few years ago, ones that wondered why someone once so successful in his sales would have fallen into comparatively strange obscurity, but I don’t think it’s as mystifying as many seemed to imply.
The answer, I think, is that the space he once occupied has been taken over by an even more ephemeral set of texts in our culture. Why read Wouk when you can watch episodes of Law and Order (which, by the way, I have generally found a very well written show)? Why plow through 700-page novels when you can scroll through Facebook?
At the other end, why read a book that generally affirms what you already know when there are other, more challenging novels out there? Why settle for fiction that’s comforting (since there are so many other comfort texts out there) if you can wrestle with some of our Pulitzer and Booker finalists?
In other words, there’s been a shrinking of the middle in the middlebrow economy. There’s more lightweight fare, and the heavyweight end is more accessible.
And, intriguingly, that’s a large part of what this book considers. Maybe it was prescience, and maybe it was anxiety, but a major thrust of this auto-American-biography (in the sense that it shows us how an immigrant came to feel a part of America – so much a part of it that he helps a flailing President Nixon navigate the end of Watergate and the politics of supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war) is how he sees both the high and low (culturally speaking) writers who limn his experience.
At the “low” end, we have Goldhandler, the radio script writer who takes (Israel) David Goodkind under his wing. As an associate “gag man,” David learns the ropes about being funny, about speaking to a broad swath of America. And, in something of a surprise in what I’d expect from the genre, he gets good at it, but never as good as Goldhandler.
Goldhandler, as I understand it, is based on Fred Allen, the goysiche radio comedian whom my father, among many others, acknowledged as the gold standard of the genre – better even than the better remembered (at least to me) Jack Benny.
Wouk makes his “Fred Allen” Jewish. He does so, he seems to say, because he sees him as one facet of how a Jew can be “inside” America while David – embracing the religious tradition much more directly (even reading Talmud in his White House office) – feels more often “outside” it. (Sometimes the poles are reversed, and “inside” refers to inside the Jewish tradition, but the point is the same.) I think, though, he does so for the additional reason that he sees such “lowbrow” success as one direction he might have gone with his career.
At the other end we have David’s longtime friend and occasional frenemy, the hugely successful Peter Quat. Quat is obviously a Philip Roth stand-in, a writer whom all the Jewish cultural leaders condemn and whom all Jews nonetheless read and discuss. He’s ribald and provocative.
Again, I’m pleasantly surprised that Wouk doesn’t dismiss such a possibility altogether. Just as he gives us much to admire in Goldhandler, he has David serve as Quat’s lawyer and quasi-agent. David believes in Quat and, while he thinks some of what he is doing is merely smut cast as philosophy, he still supports and at times admires it.
For me, then, the heart of this book is not the long-time romance with the gorgeous shikse showgirl Bobbie but rather the way it navigates between such ‘low’ and ‘high’ instances of literature. Wouk seems to want to assert that there is such a space, that we need writers like him to occupy and articulate a mostly comfortable move from a sense of cultural outsiderness into the halls of influence.
I’ve made clear that I think that space has vanished – at least for the novel. We have no more Wouks (or Leon Urises or Gore Vidals (who’d hate to be so painted, but I will)), and I’m not sure we miss them.
This novel is too long, and it makes me value what I call the “curatorial imagination” all the more. It’s also irritatingly self-secure in its status as speaking from individual experience to something broader.
But, there is a sweetness here, a love for Jewish tradition and America, that’s easy to see as something that would have comforted his wide readership. And, in the way it explores the writing that contrasts with it, it rises to levels of honesty that I can’t help admiring.
My father never talked the writer down; that was never my father’s style since he believed in the capacities of everyone. Still, without any of the snobbery that I have developed in my own graduate training (and I think I may have less of it than many I know), Wouk always seemed a comfortably middle-brow writer. The things he did – fat paperbacks that told us things we generally already knew – haven’t aged well. I enjoyed the praise he received in his many obituaries from a few years ago, ones that wondered why someone once so successful in his sales would have fallen into comparatively strange obscurity, but I don’t think it’s as mystifying as many seemed to imply.
The answer, I think, is that the space he once occupied has been taken over by an even more ephemeral set of texts in our culture. Why read Wouk when you can watch episodes of Law and Order (which, by the way, I have generally found a very well written show)? Why plow through 700-page novels when you can scroll through Facebook?
At the other end, why read a book that generally affirms what you already know when there are other, more challenging novels out there? Why settle for fiction that’s comforting (since there are so many other comfort texts out there) if you can wrestle with some of our Pulitzer and Booker finalists?
In other words, there’s been a shrinking of the middle in the middlebrow economy. There’s more lightweight fare, and the heavyweight end is more accessible.
And, intriguingly, that’s a large part of what this book considers. Maybe it was prescience, and maybe it was anxiety, but a major thrust of this auto-American-biography (in the sense that it shows us how an immigrant came to feel a part of America – so much a part of it that he helps a flailing President Nixon navigate the end of Watergate and the politics of supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war) is how he sees both the high and low (culturally speaking) writers who limn his experience.
At the “low” end, we have Goldhandler, the radio script writer who takes (Israel) David Goodkind under his wing. As an associate “gag man,” David learns the ropes about being funny, about speaking to a broad swath of America. And, in something of a surprise in what I’d expect from the genre, he gets good at it, but never as good as Goldhandler.
Goldhandler, as I understand it, is based on Fred Allen, the goysiche radio comedian whom my father, among many others, acknowledged as the gold standard of the genre – better even than the better remembered (at least to me) Jack Benny.
Wouk makes his “Fred Allen” Jewish. He does so, he seems to say, because he sees him as one facet of how a Jew can be “inside” America while David – embracing the religious tradition much more directly (even reading Talmud in his White House office) – feels more often “outside” it. (Sometimes the poles are reversed, and “inside” refers to inside the Jewish tradition, but the point is the same.) I think, though, he does so for the additional reason that he sees such “lowbrow” success as one direction he might have gone with his career.
At the other end we have David’s longtime friend and occasional frenemy, the hugely successful Peter Quat. Quat is obviously a Philip Roth stand-in, a writer whom all the Jewish cultural leaders condemn and whom all Jews nonetheless read and discuss. He’s ribald and provocative.
Again, I’m pleasantly surprised that Wouk doesn’t dismiss such a possibility altogether. Just as he gives us much to admire in Goldhandler, he has David serve as Quat’s lawyer and quasi-agent. David believes in Quat and, while he thinks some of what he is doing is merely smut cast as philosophy, he still supports and at times admires it.
For me, then, the heart of this book is not the long-time romance with the gorgeous shikse showgirl Bobbie but rather the way it navigates between such ‘low’ and ‘high’ instances of literature. Wouk seems to want to assert that there is such a space, that we need writers like him to occupy and articulate a mostly comfortable move from a sense of cultural outsiderness into the halls of influence.
I’ve made clear that I think that space has vanished – at least for the novel. We have no more Wouks (or Leon Urises or Gore Vidals (who’d hate to be so painted, but I will)), and I’m not sure we miss them.
This novel is too long, and it makes me value what I call the “curatorial imagination” all the more. It’s also irritatingly self-secure in its status as speaking from individual experience to something broader.
But, there is a sweetness here, a love for Jewish tradition and America, that’s easy to see as something that would have comforted his wide readership. And, in the way it explores the writing that contrasts with it, it rises to levels of honesty that I can’t help admiring.
June 30, 2023
L'chaim! Ye God, what an incredible novel. I've rarely enjoyed a book with such a blend of pathos and comedy done so well by the master novelist of Winds of War and the Caine Muntiny.
Inside, Outside is such an aptly named novel. Our Jewish hero is 58-year old lawyer I. David Goodkind who works as a minor aide to President Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal in the late summer and autumn of 1973. Seen as a nobody within the administration, David is cheerfully content to be ignored with nothing to do. This gives him the perfect opportunity to delve into writing his memoirs.
Looking back over the last 53 years of his life, Goodkind leads us on a fantastic, indepth journey of childhood, youth, and young manhood growing up in America (a.k.a the Golden Medina). David's life is comprised of two juxtaposed existences. One is as a student or citizen getting by on the streets or in the schools and offices of New York City, which is known as his "Outside" life. In contrast, his "Inside" life is the insolated experience of synagogues, studying the laws of Talmud and celebrating barmizfas, weddings or special holidays as an active jew who rebels as an apostate before falling back into his practices later on.
In the course of these reminiscent musings, we are introduced to a hilarious cast of characters. David's indomitable battleaxe mother the Green Cousin. His overworked father Alex, strong willed sister Lee, Pious and zionist grandfather Zeda, ice princess Dorsi Sabin, childhood bully Paul Frankenthal, lifelong buddy and novelist extraordinaire Peter Quat, employer gag man Harry Goldhandler, Holy Joe Geiger, Mark and Abe Hertz, and many more....
Yet all are eclipsed in our hero's recollections by the beautiful and stunning burnette showgirl, Bobby Webb the first and most passionate love of David's life.
In the couse of the book The buildup to Bobby took FOREVER to get to and the reader was constantly teased about this character constantly waiting on the horizon...but when we finally do get to Bobby Webb and April house, the payoff is certainly worth all the waiting.
At times the pacing was somewhat rough and plodding but over all this story was a great one.
A fantastic book and my favorite Wouk novel with the exception of the Winds of War.
Inside, Outside is such an aptly named novel. Our Jewish hero is 58-year old lawyer I. David Goodkind who works as a minor aide to President Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal in the late summer and autumn of 1973. Seen as a nobody within the administration, David is cheerfully content to be ignored with nothing to do. This gives him the perfect opportunity to delve into writing his memoirs.
Looking back over the last 53 years of his life, Goodkind leads us on a fantastic, indepth journey of childhood, youth, and young manhood growing up in America (a.k.a the Golden Medina). David's life is comprised of two juxtaposed existences. One is as a student or citizen getting by on the streets or in the schools and offices of New York City, which is known as his "Outside" life. In contrast, his "Inside" life is the insolated experience of synagogues, studying the laws of Talmud and celebrating barmizfas, weddings or special holidays as an active jew who rebels as an apostate before falling back into his practices later on.
In the course of these reminiscent musings, we are introduced to a hilarious cast of characters. David's indomitable battleaxe mother the Green Cousin. His overworked father Alex, strong willed sister Lee, Pious and zionist grandfather Zeda, ice princess Dorsi Sabin, childhood bully Paul Frankenthal, lifelong buddy and novelist extraordinaire Peter Quat, employer gag man Harry Goldhandler, Holy Joe Geiger, Mark and Abe Hertz, and many more....
Yet all are eclipsed in our hero's recollections by the beautiful and stunning burnette showgirl, Bobby Webb the first and most passionate love of David's life.
In the couse of the book The buildup to Bobby took FOREVER to get to and the reader was constantly teased about this character constantly waiting on the horizon...but when we finally do get to Bobby Webb and April house, the payoff is certainly worth all the waiting.
At times the pacing was somewhat rough and plodding but over all this story was a great one.
A fantastic book and my favorite Wouk novel with the exception of the Winds of War.
November 26, 2025
Pretty good novel/crypto-memoir of a particular kind of American Jewish experience, if somewhat meandering and rambling. I think the flashbacks to his ancestors stories in Eastern Europe and their struggles in America are excellent and tie in well with his own semi-autobiographical account of the main characters upbringing. I feel the scenes set in the modern era (early 70s during last days of Nixons presidency) are perhaps more disconnected thematically, particularly regarding Israel and US foreign policy. Zionism played virtually no part in the minds of his immigrant ancestors as he tells it so introducing that element seems more like trying to make a contemporary political statement. I might have preferred if the story left out the modern politics and talked about how he ended up marrying within the tribe after his topsy turvy affair with the goyish show girl Bobbie.
One of the interesting aspects of this book is the frankness with regard to sexuality while mostly set in a period when people were outwardly very prudish about it. It helps that the author was old enough to really remember those times so we’re seeing a kind of window into how people actually behaved and talked about sex in the 20s and 30s. The conceit of writing the memoir at a later time when it was finally permissible to publish such frankness I think actually works in this case.
One of the interesting aspects of this book is the frankness with regard to sexuality while mostly set in a period when people were outwardly very prudish about it. It helps that the author was old enough to really remember those times so we’re seeing a kind of window into how people actually behaved and talked about sex in the 20s and 30s. The conceit of writing the memoir at a later time when it was finally permissible to publish such frankness I think actually works in this case.
July 15, 2024
I would ordinarily have less-than-no interest in a book about a tax lawyer's coming-of-age stories, especially if they focus mostly on the embarrassing episodes of his youth and his lost loves. It's only because of the convincing story-telling and believable tone of one of my favorite historical fiction novelists, Herman Wouk, that I was able to finish this one. The subjects covered as the author makes his comparisons between the "inside" life of Jewish culture and faith vs. the "outside" involvement in the American melting pot and politics are dry and would have been entirely uninteresting, had it not been for Wouk's exceptional skill at getting the delivery just right.
I would recommend this book to a Jew of sincere faith seeking a clever commentary on integration with American culture, or anyone who is already as big a fan of Wouk as I am. For all others, I would steer them to his WWII or Israel historical fiction instead.
I would recommend this book to a Jew of sincere faith seeking a clever commentary on integration with American culture, or anyone who is already as big a fan of Wouk as I am. For all others, I would steer them to his WWII or Israel historical fiction instead.
October 21, 2024
'Tis a beautiful thing to feel such emotion from the written word.
As one who inhaled historical fiction I moved into this tome with ease. Much was the story of my parents' generation . In the memories of the beautifully fleshed out main character David, I relived much that I have known either second hand ( lower Eastside, the depression, war years ) or remember from the 60s on.
If you lived with or are curious about the "yiddishkeit" influence on entertainment as it grew in the American experience in the 20th century then dig into this book. I smiled, I nodded in understand and even welcomed some tears as my memories melded with the author's. To all readers I wish you the same.
As one who inhaled historical fiction I moved into this tome with ease. Much was the story of my parents' generation . In the memories of the beautifully fleshed out main character David, I relived much that I have known either second hand ( lower Eastside, the depression, war years ) or remember from the 60s on.
If you lived with or are curious about the "yiddishkeit" influence on entertainment as it grew in the American experience in the 20th century then dig into this book. I smiled, I nodded in understand and even welcomed some tears as my memories melded with the author's. To all readers I wish you the same.
July 5, 2018
As narrated by Israel David Goodkind, whose Zaydeh from Europe moves in and insists on the family strengthening their religious observance, the conflict is balancing his Inside (Jewish) and Outside (American) identities.
Probably the best American-Jewish autobiographical novel where the author is not at war with himself, his family, or his heritage. Unlike Philip Roth (in the novel parodied by the character Peter Quat) and other Jewish writers whose coming of age is cynicism and self loathing, Wouk writes about his family with love both his socialist cousin who unionizes his father's laundry and Rabbi grandfather.
Probably the best American-Jewish autobiographical novel where the author is not at war with himself, his family, or his heritage. Unlike Philip Roth (in the novel parodied by the character Peter Quat) and other Jewish writers whose coming of age is cynicism and self loathing, Wouk writes about his family with love both his socialist cousin who unionizes his father's laundry and Rabbi grandfather.
September 3, 2021
Fun idea for a setting of the story, which evolves around one of the staff people for the US president and several periods of his past. Like in Cain Mutiny, the relationship between the people and their jobs/professions is very coincidental. The respect of David for especially his father and grandfather is very apparent from his stories, and to some extent for Goldhandler.
Quite a large part of the book evolves around the affair with Bobbie Webb. This part was fun to read, but I am not sure what the message here was exactly. It is clear that David grew as a character during this affair, but to me it is not so clear how and why.
Quite a large part of the book evolves around the affair with Bobbie Webb. This part was fun to read, but I am not sure what the message here was exactly. It is clear that David grew as a character during this affair, but to me it is not so clear how and why.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews