Cold Type

Against the backdrop of a fictional newspaper strike in 1994, Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter Araton's (Driving Mr. Yogi) novel explores the decline of unions as the the business of news changed, and even the relationships between fathers and sons separated generationally and by class. When New York City's blue collar paper, the Tribune, is bought by a conservative Englishman, he institutes policies designed to force a drivers' strike, which in turn leads to strikes among other unionized workers at the paper. Jamie Kramer comes from a pro-union family and his father, Morris, shop steward for the paper's printers, expects that Jamie will not cross the picket line. But the decision for the journeyman reporter supporting an ex-wife and toddler isn't so easy, particularly when his former wife may move to Seattle with their son to help start an online bookstore. The author uses Jamie's and his father's estrangement to explore scarred family dynamics and the historically ugly blue collar and union mentality on race. Jamie and his little boy, on the other hand, are pure love; the toddler's baby-talk is sweet rather than cloying. The narrative itself is less interesting than its parts, though the denouemont is clever and hopeful. (July)