By
– August 30, 2011
This slight biography of Al Jaffee — longtime cartoonist for “Mad” magazine and only begettor of the “Mad Fold-In”— feels more like an extended magazine article than a book-length biography. Jaffee himself admits that while as an artist he did many things well, he was never sufficiently outstanding at any one thing to succeed as a “serious” artist. His biographer does little to counter this self-assessment, preferring instead to use the facts of Jaffee’s life to justify his eternal adolescence.
Not that the facts of Jaffee’s life need to be pressed into any such service, for they are fascinating in their own right. Jaffee’s youth was spent being bounced back and forth between various locales in America, his father’s preferred residence, and the ancestral shtetl of Zarasai, in Lithuania, to which his mother had a deep attachment. This portion of his biography contains sharply-etched portraits of life as a Jew in both worlds, from a child’s unique perspective: Was there any difference between being chased and beaten by goyim in Lithuania and goyim in Far Rockaway? Apparently, Jaffee felt he had the better of it in Lithuania, though he is grateful that his father spirited him back to the United States before World War II broke out (he never saw his mother again).
Told almost exclusively in Jaffee’s own words (few, if any, other sources still exist), this portion of the tale leaves us with a poignant sense of how children come to accept even the most extraordinary circumstances as normal. Despite years of therapy, Jaffee seems content to leave many of the deepest questions touching his existence— what was the relationship between his parents like? what exactly motivated his mother to sacrifice her family’s happiness, and ultimately herself, on the altar of tradition?— not only unanswered, but in many cases unasked.
Not that the facts of Jaffee’s life need to be pressed into any such service, for they are fascinating in their own right. Jaffee’s youth was spent being bounced back and forth between various locales in America, his father’s preferred residence, and the ancestral shtetl of Zarasai, in Lithuania, to which his mother had a deep attachment. This portion of his biography contains sharply-etched portraits of life as a Jew in both worlds, from a child’s unique perspective: Was there any difference between being chased and beaten by goyim in Lithuania and goyim in Far Rockaway? Apparently, Jaffee felt he had the better of it in Lithuania, though he is grateful that his father spirited him back to the United States before World War II broke out (he never saw his mother again).
Told almost exclusively in Jaffee’s own words (few, if any, other sources still exist), this portion of the tale leaves us with a poignant sense of how children come to accept even the most extraordinary circumstances as normal. Despite years of therapy, Jaffee seems content to leave many of the deepest questions touching his existence— what was the relationship between his parents like? what exactly motivated his mother to sacrifice her family’s happiness, and ultimately herself, on the altar of tradition?— not only unanswered, but in many cases unasked.
Barbara Bietz is a freelance writer and children’s book reviewer. She is currently a member of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee. Barbara is the author of the middle grade book, Like a Maccabee. She has a blog dedicated to Jewish books for children at www.BarbaraBBookBlog.Blogspot.com.
