The Golem of Brooklyn

Read Time: 3 Minutes

Len Bronstein, a stoner art teacher in Brooklyn has been pilfering blocks of clay from his school for years. While high one day, he accidentally creates a nine-and-a-half-foot golem. Not just any golem either, but The Golem, straight out of Jewish legend. The Golem quickly soaks up language and culture by binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm until he sounds like a slightly confused Russian uncle with broken English.

It’s a short book at just over six hours, and the humour is more “light chuckle” than laugh-out-loud. The Golem is the standout character of the story though as it tries to parse idioms and acclimates to modern society. It’s both funny and oddly endearing, and at the same time it’ll bring devastation to its enemies.

The Golem doesn’t just want to learn slang; it has its traditional purpose deeply ingrained. Once it hears about a white supremacist rally in Kentucky, it’s set on marching down there and ripping off arms and legs.

Len is more “culturally” than “actively” Jewish and so is mostly disconnected from ritual or tradition. He builds The Golem out of boredom rather than a need to protect the people. He partners with Miri Apfelbaum, ex-Hasid, lesbian, and bodega counter jockey, to help initially with translation and to get a meeting with a Rabbi.

Miri’s sharp tongue plays well against Len’s slacker vibe, and their back-and-forth adds some spark and good banter. Kind of “odd couple” vibes again The Golem’s deadpan delivery. Len and Miri are both central and oddly peripheral at the same time, maybe because The Golem inevitably steals the limelight.

The Golem has ancestral memory, passed along from its previous summoning’s. There’s a bit early on where Len expounds on an idea for a novel he has. It sounded more like a thought experiment about how society might react to memories passed down through DNA, which evolved into trading memories through to reparations for past traumas.

While I think it was used as a bit of a throwaway background to Len to introduce the idea of ancestral memory to us, if that was actually a book, I’d certainly be adding to my list to listen to!

There are some interesting historical tidbits added too that help round out The Golem. Previous masters it has served and the crisis at the time that called it into being. The Golem’s memory and deeds passing forward like a baton is an old story, but here it’s dropped into today’s political climate, where hate rallies and culture clashes are painfully current. .

Narration-wise, Danny Hoch was fun and easy to listen to. It might have been just me, but (as mentioned up top) The Golem sounded to me like a Russian with broken English. Not a bad thing, just a note I made about the voice. Production was clean with no obvious issues I noticed.

Overall, The Golem of Brooklyn was a fun, topical listen that didn’t overstay its welcome. At six-and-a-half hours it’s short, quirky, and has just enough bite to balance the humour. I don’t know that I’d rush back for a relisten, but I can see myself queuing it up again one day. For the $4.50 I grabbed it for in an Audible sale, it was more than worth it.

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