| In A Member of the Working Class, Milton Wolff probes his childhood and youth to create a rich, sensuously detailed tale of a boy growing up as a first-generation American in Brooklyn during the 1920s and 1930s. Wolff wrote this book after young people at many of his speaking engagements asked how he and others ended up volunteering to fight in the Spanish Civil War. |  A Member of the Working Class tells how Mitch Castle, kid from Brooklyn and protagonist of Another Hill, ended up going to Spain and fighting in the Spanish Civil War. |
A MEMBER OF THE WORKING CLASS follows Mitch Castle, hero of Another Hill, from childhood to the eve of his departure for Spain. The youngest - and perhaps unwanted - child of ill-matched Jewish immigrants, Mitch avidly observes and tries to make sense of the world around him while his parents fling put-downs at each other and his older siblings alternately fight and form alliances. Neighborhood bullies demand battle; Italian children from a few streets down accuse the Jewish kids of killing Christ. In school, a teacher decides that Mitch, who loves to sing, is tone-deaf and must be a "listener," while the class Caruso surreptitiously pisses in Mitch's inkwell.
Yet Mitch's world is anything but bleak. Wondrous ships sail the walls of the family flat; a kindly teacher excites his love; he plants oats gleaned from workhorses' feedbags in a strip of dirt outside the house. Mitch and his friends explore the newly constructed beach at Coney Island, and later he helps his elder brothers earn spending money at a weight-guessing booth on the boardwalk. He reads tales of the Three Musketeers, dreams of becoming an artist, and goes to the local movie palace.
After dropping out of high school, Mitch joins the Civilian Conservation Corps so that his family can go on Relief. Back in Brooklyn, he finds his old friends active in the Young Communist League. He joins the group, returns to his high-school sweetheart, and gets a job as errand boy in the garment district - only to find himself rapidly involved in street-corner speech-making, a love triangle with his brother's Catholic girlfriend, and a stock-skimming operation at the hat factory where he works.
Personal and political tensions escalate until finally, when a YCL organizer asks for volunteers to go to Spain, Mitch raises his hand.