By Paul M. Levitt, professor of English
University of New Mexico Press
Come with Me to Babylon treats the Cohen family's dangerous journey in 1910-11 from Russia to America. The story exposes family secrets, cultural conflicts, the corruption of the American dream, and love's divides.
As the Cohens wait in New York City for a plot of land to farm in Carmel, N.J., the dirt and poverty of the city overwhelm the father, Meyer, and the tenement houses seem like cages. But the event that kills his soul is the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which his daughter, Fanny, barely survives.
In Carmel, religious narrowness and cultural poverty drive the family apart. Fanny lives in muted hope for better days, and Ben Cohen, the son, courts a wealthy Jewish young woman, and loves another, a Polish Catholic.
The novel ends in a conflagration of disillusion, betrayal, and murder, as Ben finds success in the American way.