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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781590512135
ISBN number: 1590512138
Label: Handsel Books
Manufacturer: Handsel Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 360
Printing Date: April 18, 2006
Publishing house: Handsel Books
Release Date: April 17, 2006
Sale Popularity Level: 845312
Studio: Handsel Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A rich and suspenseful novel about two enterprising young women who unwittingly run afoul of the notorious Jewish Purple Gang in Prohibition-era Detroit.
The year is 1928, the height of Prohibition; the setting is a resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Bearwalds are the only Jewish family in town, owners of the local dry goods store. Cleo, the elder daughter, is a beautiful, autistic twenty-year-old who, in her own way, operates more successfully than her loved ones. Rebecca, eighteen, yearns to escape what looks to be a lifetime of 'taking care of Cleo'—the only role her parents see for her. Cleo herself has other ideas.
The novel's intricate plot is set in motion when Cleo discovers a beached bootleggers' yacht filled with illegal liquor. Using materials and tools from the boatworks where she is an apprentice boatwright, she renovates the yacht and coerces her sister into helping her to sell the liquor so that Rebecca, who is unaware of the plan, will have money to attend the University of Michigan. Cleo's activities cause the Purple Gang, famous Jewish gangsters out of Detroit, to mistake her father for a rival bootlegger, with near-fatal results.
Running through Taking Care of Cleo is a subtle and life-affirming reevaluation of autism, which becomes one bright thread in a novel that is by turns serious, ironic, and comic, and ends with a happy surprise.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Obviously well-researched and therefore fascinating, this book is most interesting for its portrayal of prohibition-era rural Michigan, with the added twist of being set in a resort town that varies between winter provincialism and summer urbanity. That said, the characters are also well-drawn and would make for an exciting story in any setting. Overall a pleasure to read; I would highly recommend this book.
Rated by buyers 
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Having met the author, and also born and raised in Detroit just 4 years after the events in the novel, I may be a bit biased. However, Bill Broder is a true word smith and a natural story teller. He recaptures the life and style of the location, Charlevoix Michigan, as well as the era. People yesterday probably cannot imagine the immense wealth along with the extreme violence that existed in the pre-depression time. Broder's setting of a northern Michigan resort is a perfect venue for the characters---masters and servants---pursuing their individual passions, hopes, ambitions. During the brief summer vacation period, what in daily reality is a gentile community, is suddenly populated with Jewish families coming from all parts of the midwest. There follows an accomodation from all sides without expectations of egalitarianism. To me the plot of the novel, while interesting and necessary, is incidental to the descriptive recapturing of the era and its players. A very satisfying read.
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