Reviews for The House of Moses All-Stars

The average rating for The House of Moses All-Stars based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-23 00:00:00 Roy Barquet I'll round up to four stars on this one, though if I could break it down more granularly I'd go with a slightly lower grade. The House of Moses All-Stars are a Jewish basketball team traveling the United States in a converted hearse to make money playing games during the Depression. There are seven players, six Jews and one Irish-American who just wants to play. They grow long beards to play up their part, which only invites more hatred and incivility in the places they visit. Each man is running from something, with an end destination of Los Angeles, at least for the trip, though several of them want to keep rambling on after the tour ends. Rosen does a nice job of individualizing each man; they all have their own stories and personalities, though the book is told in first person through the eyes of Aaron Steiner. Steiner's marriage is crumbling in the wake of the loss of a daughter, who died three days after birth due to serious medical issues which would have made her life miserable. He's unhappy enough with his wife that he has an affair with one of his high school students. Though he doesn't love her either, he invites her to join him in LA when the trip ends. It's yet another poor decision in a long list of them. Though each player is flawed, they also each have redeeming qualities and you do root for them to do well or at least do the right thing. They face prejudice at every turn, with more than their share of misadventure, including one horribly depressing event that I won't give away, but you'll know it when you hit it. One of the strong themes of the book is prejudice and how ugly and pervasive it is in society. I'll guess most Jews have it easier now in America than they did in 1936, but there's still plenty of prejudice in this country to make this message all too relevant. The biggest fault I found with the book was Rosen's habit of getting a little heavy-handed with that message. There were several episodes that felt manufactured, such as Aaron's conversation with a black player after a game, his completely random visit with a hermit in an ice-fishing tent, the Jewish general on the army base they visit in Colorado, and maybe a couple others. There's enough hatred being thrown at these guys throughout their journey that these contrived conversations don't really further that message, and in a book that's nearly 500 pages long, some of these seem like they could have been tightened right out of the book. I read a lot of baseball books and always appreciate when the baseball parts are realistic, to the point where bad/unrealistic portrayals ruin a book for me. I'll give Rosen credit here for keeping the basketball portions very realistic and well written.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-11-01 00:00:00 Tom Pat Check out the Reporter Group site for my review at