The Outsider

by Howard Fast

From 1946 through the 1970s, Rabbi David Hartman, Congregational minister Martin Cooper, and their wives maintain a friendship that withstands small-town prejudices and envies and larger turmoil

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Jewish, Historical

311 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1984

About the author

Howard Fast was one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century. He was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. The son of immigrants, Fast grew up in New York City and published his first novel upon finishing high school in 1933. In 1950, his refusal to provide the United States Congress with a list of possible Communist associates earned him a three-month prison sentence. During his incarceration, Fast wrote one of his best-known novels, Spartacus (1951). Throughout his long career, Fast matched his commitment to championing social justice in his writing with a deft, lively storytelling style.

Pseudonyms: Walter Ericson, E.V. Cunningham

Reviews

[Roberta Sallee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book at the library and thought I recognized the author's name from years ago...a series of books about some inter-related families in CA starting with the great fire in SF and including grape growing. I remembered enjoying them a lot.
This book centered on a rabbi with a small congregation in CT. It took me longer to read than usual. The beginning and ending were interesting, but the middle muddled down for awhile.
I ended up liking it. The time period covered(1946-1960)(the copyright is 1984) and it was intriguing seeing the author's perspective of that time's events through the main characters' eyes.
It wasn't until I had to look up by author and not title (so many newer books called The Outsider!) that I noticed that Howard Fast had, indeed, written the book I was thinking of originally...The Immigrants.
I think I will take it out and see if it is still as good as I remember!

[Rebecca I · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book long ago and struggled with it for a while. When I returned to it after a break, I found it far easier to understand. It is dated in a way, but concerns the ever relevant questions of life. Is there a God? What is faith? What is the nature of love? Why do we feel a need to separate ourselves from each other in petty distinctions? What is the meaning of life? The book seeks to ask the questions and not to answer them so much.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in the 80s

[Mary Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I ever read a book by Howard Fast before this, and I am very impressed. I had a bit of difficulty with the main character David, whose personality seems a little unreal to me, but I grew more comfortable with him as I read on. He is, however, really a construct to convey Fast's political beliefs and his questions about racism, war, god and faith. However, one has to credit the author, who does eventually make David seem real despite the burden of channeling so much philosophy. In the end, I liked the book very much and will try other books by Fast, who was himself quite an interesting man, progressive in politics, blacklisted for flirting with socialism, author of Spartacus, which movie helped break the blacklist. I recommend the book for anyone who also has asked themselves questions about the things that really matter. In some ways, this book reminds me of that old best seller Five Smooth Stones, which also came out of the civil rights era and asked similar questions, though Fast is a better writer without doubt.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve been told Robert Goldberg, who converted Marilyn Monroe, is the model for our protagonist, a war-hero, Reform rabbi, who takes on the thankless task of building a congregation in a WASPy Connecticut town. Written in the early 80s, the novel is a march through the touchstones of post-War American Jewish life: post-War prosperity, the Red Scare, Interfaith movements, Existential death-of-God worries, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Age of Divorce, and Jewish assimilation/intermarriage. As a tour, not bad. As a novel with believable characters—less successful. The dialogue is colorless and wooden, when it isn’t didactic; the women all weepy and exclaim improbable things like dialogue in films from the 1940s; the men are mostly brandy-drinking caricatures. Sadly, the pacifist rabbi figure who we spend the most time with is the most cardboard cut-out of all. Fast really amps up the American Patriotism, devoting lots of fawning praise to Congregationalism of all things.

[Tiffany S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book definitely put Howard Fast on my list of authors to read more of their works.
It follows the life of Rabbi David Hartman, who came back from WWII definitely a changed man. He was at the liberation of one of the concentration camps (Dachau). I cannot fathom being an American Rabbi doing that. He comes home, marries, and gets his first synagogue in a small New England town Leighton Ridge. The book follows roughly the next 30 years of his life in Leighton Ridge. The adjustment from New York to small town is hard on his wife which becomes hard on his relationship. They form a close friendship with Congregational minister Martin Carter and his wife. The book explores the struggles of a family, antisemitism, a changing America, and one man's journey through these. I definitely recommend. I received an e-book from NetGalley for reviewing.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sat on my shelf for many years. After the Immigrant I wanted more and more of Fast. I loved the Outsider as much - even more, as Rabbi David Hartman struggles with his call and his faith in many ways the same as my own struggle. I also loved the way he took us through the depression, the wars, McCarthy. I thought the relationship with Lucy, his wife was a bit strange and it did not last. I can't give it five stars because the rabbi's continuing angst grew old after a while. I would have liked a few lighthearted moments. but again, Fast tells a whale of a story and tells it well.

Publisher's comments.

[Maryetta]

I have read this book three times in my life since 1984.
I find it very interesting how much I forgot about the book.
I think this last read was more understandable since I'm a few years
older than I was in 1984.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A formulaic novel about a Rabbi in the rural Connecticut after World War 2. The rabbi is very liberal and a pacifist, mirroring Fast's own life and beliefs. The eternal questions are asked but not answered. Still Fast can really, really write; the story flows and I found it an enjoyable and thought-provoking read

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and found it profound in many ways. The book revolves around alienation and the search for belonging. The novel explores what it means to be an outsider—not just in terms of social status or background, but in a deeper, existential sense. The protagonist, a war veteran and former priest, struggles with his identity and place in a society that feels morally compromised and spiritually hollow.

Howard Fast proves again that he is a great writer.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

خواندن اثار هوارد فاست کمک می کند تا تاریخ آمریکا را به گونه ای دیگر، از درون آینه ی ادبیات بشناسیم. اگرچه نه به آن دقت و جزئیات که تاریخ یک قرن فرانسه را می شود از طریق خواندن آثار بالزاک شناخت، با این همه هوارد فاست یک آمریکایی ست که با همه ی دید انتقادی نسبت به فرهنگ و تاریخ ملتش، هم چنان دلسوز مردم و میهن خود باقی مانده است. مهاجران را باجلان فرخی ترجمه کرده و انتشارات اساطیر در 1371 منتشر کرده است. نسل دوم را به فارسی ندیده ام. با وجودی که در برابر دیگر آثار هوارد فاست آنچنان درخشش ندارد، اما کم اثری نیست و مهر روایت های هوارد فاست را بر خود دارد، با وصف شیرینی از شخصیت ها و شرایط اجتماعی و چگونگی زندگی آمریکاییان ساده دل ... "آخرین مرز" هوارد فاست، وصف شایان ها در جامعه ی آمریکاست؛ “غائله تمام شد" اما به راستی تمام نشده. وقتی 140 سرخپوست گرفتار به اردوگاه برده می شوند، تازه پایان یک آغاز است. آغازی برای از میان بردن یک فرهنگ، قتل هزاران نفر از یک ملیت که در سراسر زمینی پر از خون و اشک، در سرزمین خود هم از حق انتخاب گور محروم اند. (ص( 246 وقتی افسر فرمانده به سه رهبر “شایان" می گوید باید به جنوب بروند، پاسخ می دهند “یک شایان دستگیر شده، یک شایان مرده است. آنها مایل نیستند به جنوب بروند و…” دلم نمی خواست به سطر بعدی بروم، نمی خواستم بدانم چه می شود. می خواستم با این “شایان"های دستگیر شده بمانم. افسر به مترجم می گوید “غلط می کنند بر نمی گردند" مترجم که خود از شایان هاست، مکث می کند، به راستی باید این جمله را ترجمه کند؟ فاست وصف می کند شایان ها چگونه ایستاده بودند. آنها دیگر “گرگ کوچک"، “چاقوی کند "و "ابر راه رونده" نیستند، تنها سه “شایان" دستگیر شده اند، سه موجود شکسته شده با پاره جل هایی بر دوششان در زمستانی که استخوان می ترکاند، در دفتر سروان که از آتش بخاری گرم است، ایستاده اند. سه سایه ی بی نام که گوشه ای از اتاق را پر کرده اند. آنها که قبیله ای داشتند، با مردمانی و سرزمینی از خود که زیر پای “پونی"هاشان تخت سلیمان بود، اینک سه جنبنده ی بی نام اند، سه از دست رفته، سه شکست خورده که همه ی حیثیت و شرافتشان بر باد رفته، و هم چنان از جانب افسران و سربازان متجاوز “وحشی ها" خوانده می شوند. شاید این وحشی ها از خود می پرسند؛ خداوندا، مرز بین تمدن و وحش کجاست؟ مرز میان گرسنه ای آواره در سرزمین خود که زیر سایه ی چتری از آخرین مدل هواپیماهای بمب افکن مبهوت ایستاده است! فاست در ابتدای کتاب از پدرش تشکر می کند که سفارش کرده؛ “آمریکای گذشته و آمریکای فعلی را دوست بدارد". شایان های معاصر، خوب می دانند چرا مراکز گرسنگی، بیماری، درد، فقر، وحشت و تروردر سرزمین آنها مستقر شده. اسلحه ها را متمدین دموکرات می سازند تا “تروریست ها" را روی منابع زیر زمینی شان خفه کنند.
Reading Howard Fast helps to read American history with a reflection from the literature. No matter how critically Fast faces American society, he loves his father land, his culture and his nation, deeply and respectfully.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This long, mostly well-written if sometimes rather dry novel tells of the life of Rabbi David Hartman. After serving as an army chaplain in WWII he moves with his wife to the small town of Leighton Ridge and there we follow him through the following decades, from 1948-1977. David is a good man, an honest man, who always tries to do what he considers the right and moral thing. America is changing in so many ways and all of these changes come to Leighton Ridge to some degree or another. McCarthyism, the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, Women’s Lib – David has to face these often cataclysmic events and come to terms with them from both a religious and human point of view. There are a lot of conversations in the novel, in which these issues are discussed, and to some extent David Hartman is there as a mouthpiece for the author's own views and preoccupations, and at times this can slow the narrative down a little, but overall I found this a moving and compelling story of one man’s odyssey through life. It’s not perhaps great literature but it is an engaging narrative which gives an authentic portrait of one man and his family, and of life both in small town America and on the wider stage. A very good read.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rabbi David Hartman, fresh from witnessing the horrors of liberating Nazi death camps in World War II, has married and is looking for a synagogue; his mentor suggests a newly formed synagogue in Fairfield County, Connecticut, just outside New York City.

For David, who traveled with the army as a Rabbi during the last horrific World War, Connecticut is another world, but he and his new wife accept the challenge.

But he sees himself often ass an ‘outsider’ as he lives through the post World War Two American history – the Rosenberg tragedy, the McCarthy era, the Korean War, the Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam, and as he does, as all lives do, he and his relationships change.

This is a remarkable novel, since it traces what so many endured and celebrated during the last half of the 20th century in America – a lasting look at a history that changed us all.

[jill crotty · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow! In so many ways this was a heavy book to read. The main character is a Rabbi in a small CT town. He struggles with the classic philosophical questions like Do you believe in God?, If there is a God, why would he allow horrific events happen like the holocaust. He struggles with the concept he is a fraud. He finds it hard to be joyful "outloud" carrying the world on his shoulders. From 1946-1971 we follow this mans life and how he lives. He has a best friend who is a minister in a church and one of the lines I loved was, "we are so confused about good and evil that one man's saint is another mans monster." Overall I liked this book and the story behind it. I kind of felt sorry for him. He was way too serious and felt guilty for having a life filled with joy.

[Matthew Borgh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am giving it four stars only because it was thought provoking. I have a difficult time understanding some reads like this but this one was easier to understand than I thought it was going to be. Interesting life about a rabbi and his life in the northeast. Interesting topics like marriage, divorce, war, the holocaust, etc.

Not something I'd normally read but was pleasantly surprised. Only got confused a little bit.

[Marianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't like to give a book a "don't like" rating, but I must. I had to force myself to slog through this novel, filled with wandering individuals endlessly sloshing about staring at their navels! Not very happy people. So a downer of a bood.

[Cws]

F Fas

[Ladyjexie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read five of his with particular interest in the McCarthyism years

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was well-written and I enjoyed it, but seemed a bit pretentious for me.

[Luke Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Novel, I'm reading it now!

[Veronica Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Club Edition

[Mona Lisee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to finish this book. I found it hard to really relate to the main characters and the plot slow.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually hate these slow, plodding, introspective novels. Maybe I'm just getting really old, but I really enjoyed this novel. Take that for what it's worth.

[Sara Gabai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts are a little interesting. but Pretty much a waste of time. About suburban jewish america over the years. Very predictable.