Chicken Dreaming Corn: A Novel

by Roy Hoffman

In 1916, on the immigrant blocks of the Southern port city of Mobile, Alabama, a Romanian Jewish shopkeeper, Morris Kleinman, is sweeping his walk in preparation for the Confederate veterans parade about to pass by. "Daddy?" his son asks, "are we Rebels?" "Today?" muses Morris. "Yes, we are Rebels." Thus opens a novel set, like many, in a languid Southern town. But, in a rarity for Southern novels, this one centers on a character who mixes Yiddish with his Southern and has for his neighbors small merchants from Poland, Lebanon, and Greece.

As Morris resides with his family over his Dauphin Street store, enjoys cigars with his Cuban friend Pablo Pastor, and makes "a living not a killing," his tale begins with glimpses of the old Confederacy, continues through a tumultuous Armistice Day, and leads up to the hard-won victories of World War II. Along the way Morris sells shoes and sofas and endures Klan violence, religious zealotry, and financial triumphs and heartbreaks. With his devoted Miriam, who nurses memories of Brooklyn and Romania, he raises four adventurous children whose own journeys take them to New Orleans and Atlanta and involve romance, ambition and tragic loss.

At turns lyrical, comic, and melancholy, this tale takes inspiration from its title. This Romanian expression with an Alabama twist is symbolic of the strivings of ordinary folks for sustenance, for the realization of their hopes and dreams. Set largely on a few humble blocks yet engaging many parts of the world, this Southern Jewish novel is, ultimately, richly American.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Southern

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the book to read if you want to feel how history affects people, ordinary people. You follow a Jewish Romanian immigrant family from 1916 to 1945. They live in the South - Mobile, Alabama. You get Confederate Anniversary Celebrations, WW1, Ku Klux Klan, the Depression and WW2 and what it is like to be Black or Jewish in the South. The family has a store. The kids, three of them, grow up. They move; they leave the nest. This is a book about family. There is no way that a short book like this can cover historical events in detail, but it shows you how historical events changes ordinary people's lives.

What makes this book special is the jumble of different cultures and religions and races all found in the immigrant quarter of Mobile, Alabama. The mix of Yiddish and Irish and Cuban and Spanish and Romanian, Black and White, Jewish and Christian cultures all perfectly mirrored in the characters' dialogs. Songs and colloquial speech and fruits and scents and foods and sex (adolescent and adult) and brawls in a glorious jumbled mix. Life as it really is for an immigrant family in the South. Tears and happiness. Sorrow and joy. Read this book. You will be surprised at how good it is.

I did not understand all the terms. All the different languages! Past and present are jumbled too. But it is this very jumble that creates the special atmosphere of the book. I heartily recommend listening to the audiobook narrated by Toni Orans. She pulls it off - songs and dialects, kids and adults, ups and downs.....

The title is explained in the author’s note at the beginning of the book. It is a Romanian saying with a Southern twist.

[Kristi Lamont · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my people, not my culture, not my era(s), not my geography . . . for these reasons, this book was a little hard for me to get into, but I am very glad I stuck with it. Felt like a curtain had been pulled back, giving me an insider's perspective on a different time, a different world. Best compliment I know to give this author is to say that I will miss his Kleinmans.

[Zhelana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really have no idea what this book was about, and they killed more people than Game of Thrones. I am not a an of main character death. And they killed pretty much everybody. They even killed one person twice.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting history, in novel form, of the settling of my home town, Mobile, Alabama. The Kleinmans may be a fictional family, but many of the names mentioned in the book were flesh and bones real. As a Mobile native who has since moved away, it was fun to read and recognize familiar names of streets and the people living and working there. Many still call Mobile their home generations later. I shopped at Hammels, taught the Metzger and Holberg children, and lived down the street from the Pafandakis family. From my armchair, I was cheering for the Kleinmans, grieving with them over their losses, and shaking my head over some of the decisions of their children. This book was an enjoyable walk down memory lane and beyond.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was moved by this most enjoyable historical novel set in the deep-south port city of Mobile, Alabama, during the years 1916-1945 - a time when immigrants from all over the world met here. Evidence of this: the friends of the main character, a Jewish immigrant from Romania, were a Cuban, a Greek, a German, an African-American dentist, among many others, and his children continued this cosmopolitan pattern. This book is a well-written and researched look at the history of this port city through the eyes of these characters; an interesting and educational treat.

[Collin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another entry into my continued fascination with Southern Jewishness, and the first (I believe) novel.

Is it 2.5 or 3? I don't know. There was a little too much uncomfortable sex stuff, which is just... not my thing. It was weird.

On the other hand, I liked it! It reminded me of all those obnoxious historical Great American Novels you have to read about New York (meh) in school - except it was in my hometown! (Sort of - I claim Mobile as like a demi-hometown because it's the only city I live close to.) It was cool to read something about /my/ home. I'm definitely not Jewish or Romanian but the Kleinmans live on Dauphin Street and talk about churches and waters that I've seen with my own eyes. It's a completely different feeling than reading about New York or Chicago or wherever - even different from reading about New Orleans. It's special!

I found it really entertaining, too, more so than most historical novels like this. I liked all of the Kleinmans, even stupid Abe. I loved the love between the siblings, between the parents and children, between the spouses. It was nice. There were happy things, instead of them just being miserable all the time (another issue I have with New Yorky Historical Novels).

I don't know. It was pleasant. Nothing truly fantastic or anything, but good for my occasional historical fiction fix, for my Southern Jewish interest fix, and for my extremely rare Alabama fiction fix.

[Heidi Slowinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in turn of the century Mobile, Alabama, Morris Kleinman is a shop owner living among a tapestry of immigrants from across Europe and South America as well as people of color. Kleinman and his wife raise their family in the living quarters above their storefront while contending with war, the Great Depression, prejudice, antisemitism, and threats from the Ku Klux Klan.

Hoffman paints a picture of the early Southern Jewish experience in beautiful prose. The use of language is as charming as the setting of this story. Be prepared for an intimate tour of the Mobile bay area. The varied cast of characters each bring a unique voice to the story blending into the melting pot that was Mobile in the time period.

This is a wonderful portrait of art depicting real life. The Kleinman family experiences joy and hardship, love and loss. If you are a fan of To Kill A Mockingbird, this book is for you.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few yrs ago Roy wrote an essay that the St Pete Times printed, something about his daughter I think. I came home after long hard day, maybe 10-11pm, and read the paper including that essay, over a scotch. Made me cry. Re-read it. Sent him an email. He replied, answered my question very nicely and suggested I might like his books. He did not suggest one, so I picked this.

Loved it. Should have written this up then, now I forget how it ends. Focus on Jewish family life in 1916 Mobile, Alabama, a topic I had never considered and of which I had zero knowledge.

[Beth Kiesel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
I enjoyed this story of a Jewish family living in Mobile, of all places, in between the two World Wars.

[Yaya]

another novel for class lol

[Faye Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoffman, a descendant of Romanian Jewish refugees, has painted quite a fascinating multicultural portrait of one small corner of the South - Mobile, Alabama - that most people probably aren't aware of. Over the centuries the Gulf Coast became a destination for immigrants of various nationalities in addition to blacks, whites and Native Americans already living there. Beginning in the early part of the 20th century when wounds, literal and psychological, from the Civil War, were quite raw and the KKK was waging a fierce war of terror on black people, the novel follows the Kleimann family through the decades to the end of WW II. The characters are vivid, intimate and sometimes just huggable! There's laughter and tears and lots of Yiddish I didn't understand (but that didn't matter). In spite of antisemitism, economic struggles through the depression, two world wars and family tragedies, they make a life and even thrive in this unfamiliar culture and country. There's lovely descriptive writing that grounds the reader in a sense of place as well as the all too human interactions within family and community. It begins slowly, but before you know it, you are completely emersed in the drama of the family as they work hard to assimilated with other ethnic groups in the South while also maintaining their own traditions. It also a darn good read!

[Tupelodan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written tale of, well, many things. You've got to figure if Harper Lee liked it then it must be good -- and it was excellent. Mobile is a fascinating city now but Hoffman shows us what it was like "back in the day" from a Jewish viewpoint . More than a portrait of a Southern city, Chicken Dreaming Corn, is a beautiful, troubling, precise tableau of family ... above all else, family.

It felt like it was bogging down about 175 pages in, but Hoffman brought it all back together beautifully.

I had this book on my shelf for years before finally getting around to it. What a schmuck. Go find his book and read it.

[Erin Bottger (Bouma) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had many interesting elements- notably the Mobile community of foreign-born residents who formed a supportive family as minorities in the American South. It was well-written but the parts didn't always hang together or grip me with drama. Colorful characters did keep the book interesting and to imagine Jewish, Cuban and Greek families (and a few Blacks) surviving in redneck territory made for lively storytelling.

Somehow, I didn't find the characters or story as compelling as Hoffman's "Almost Family".

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The PBS documentary The Jewish Journey America reminded me that I had not finished reading Chicken Dreaming Corn written by Roy Hoffman who had taught a writing course at Chautauqua in 2014. With the new information, I reread and finished "Chicken" and found it to be entertaining and educational. I had never read anything about the huge melting pot of cultures in the gulf port of Mobile.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is The Great American Novel. The characters are vivid and varied, and they tell the story of the development of American culture.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A family saga that covers a lot in under 300 pages.

[Sari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant book about a Jewish family that settled in Mobile, Alabama.
I don't know why but Jews that settled in the South fascinate me.

[Wendy]

Mentioned in The Mockingbird Next Door