The Paratrooper of Mechanic Avenue is the first novel by the American writer Lester Goran. It is set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and spans a time period from the Great Depression to the postwar era.
It tells the story of Ike-o Hartwell, born into the fictional Pittsburgh slum of Sobaski's Stairway, and how he learns to survive amid the neon glow of pawn shops and poolrooms on Mechanic Avenue peopled by racketeers, pimps, gangs, and ward heelers. Then the army drafts him for the Korean War. After a dishonorable discharge, he dresses as a paratrooper and expects a hero's s welcome back on Mechanic Avenue.
Famous quotes containing the words mechanic and/or avenue:
“He may have seen with his mechanic eyes
A world without a meaning, and had room,
Alone amid magnificence and doom,
To build himself an airy monument”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
“Play is a major avenue for learning to manage anxiety. It gives the child a safe space where she can experiment at will, suspending the rules and constraints of physical and social reality. In play, the child becomes master rather than subject.... Play allows the child to transcend passivity and to become the active doer of what happens around her.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)