Amalgam: An Immigrant, His Labor Union, and His American Family in Brooklyn

by Frances Jetter

The narrative thread unspools with Abram, a Polish Jew who immigrates to America for economic opportunity and — much like his namesake — takes on a new name, ‘Abe’. He is a passionate arbitrator and advocate in his union but an unyielding patriarchal tyrant at home. Throughout, readers uncover the convictions and contradictions that make up the tapestry of his life and so many others.Amalgam is populated by impressionistic figures, rendered with piercing faces staring down the reader, as if out of an old photograph. Some pages are mini epics depicting the struggle of workers, others are haunting vignettes of abandoned dolls and forgotten friends. It’s also a love letter to Jetter’s mother, Rose, who hovers in the artist’s mind like a ghost — forever impressed upon the stairs, at once ephemeral and pervasive, like Rose’s lost paper doll. One’s life is not only one’s own, but hinges on every other.Twelve years in the making, Amalgam, true to its name, takes a multimedia approach to its story. Presented as a meditation on memory and legacy, a kind of summoning occurs out of the loving patchwork of linocuts, keyholes, and hinges — and the presence of the dead is felt once again. There is a profound, understated moral power in Jetter’s remembrance of loved ones, etching their essences in the same linoleum material that made up the floors of her childhood.

160 pages, Hardcover

Published October 8, 2024

Reviews

[Michael Daines · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5)

“Amalgam” covers three generations of the author’s family, starting with immigration from Poland. The grandfather lands in New York and enters the garment trade, aligning himself and future generations with the trade and the union.

The author is an artist known for her block-print illustrations in U.S. magazines. I liked the overall content of this family history, and it could act as an intro to the 20th century history of garment workers. The art style is interesting, but the text was sometimes hard to read.