Richler, Mordecai, (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz [hc, Little, Brown, 1959] 978-0771074974 [pb, Gallery Books, 1999] 978-0671028473 [See related film] [a biting satire and coming-of-age story set in the Jewish ghetto of Montreal during the 1940s. Duddy Kravitz is the direct literary descendant of the ruthless, hyper-ambitious American Jewish antiheroes in the works of Jerome Weidman, Budd Schulberg, and Albert Halper in the late 1930s and 1940s. [See the listings on these three authors in the companion bibliography on American crime fiction.]
Canada · Fiction author
Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler (1931–2001) – born and died in Montreal, Quebec, lived in London, England during 1954–1972, where he published seven of his ten novels. He was one of Canada’s most celebrated and controversial literary figures, renowned for his satirical novels and sharp cultural criticism, as well as several works of children’s literature. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household on St. Urbain Street in downtown Montreal. His grandfather was the prominent rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg. He attended Baron Byng High School and later enrolled at Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) but dropped out after one year to pursue a writing career. Achieved international fame with The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959). His later works, including St. Urbain’s Horseman (1970) and Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989), were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Known as a fierce critic of Quebec nationalism, particularly in his essay collection Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992), which sparked intense debate regarding language laws and anti-Semitism.
In his novels, the intersection of the Jewish community and crime is a central, often satirical theme used to explore ambition, survival, and the moral complexities of the “immigrant hustle”. Richler’s fiction frequently portrays Jewish characters who engage in criminal or morally ambiguous acts not out of innate malice, but as a ruthless means of escaping the “ghetto” and achieving the “American (Canadian?) Dream”.
The story follows the young, amoral Duddy Kravitz who is determined to “be somebody”. He is obsessed with a maxim from his grandfather, Simcha: ”A man without land is nobody”. Like Weidman’s Harry Bogen and Schulberg’s Sammy Glick, Duddy starts out as a working-class hustler working small-scale crimes before transitioning into ever-larger financial scams. To acquire land in the Laurentian Mountains, Duddy engages in a relentless series of schemes, including filming Bar Mitzvahs, selling liquid soap, and eventually committing forgery. While often charming and funny, Duddy is a ruthless anti-hero who exploits those closest to him.
Note that Duddy does not run fraud schemes against the Anglo-Saxon elite of Westmount (the wealthy Montreal Gentiles). Instead, like Harry Bogen in the Garment District, Duddy’s scams are entirely intra-communal and lateral. He preys on working-class Jewish taxi drivers, scrap metal dealers, and his own family, demonstrating that economic desperation overrides communal solidarity.
Though he ultimately acquires the land, his victory is hollow; his grandfather refuses the gift after learning of Duddy’s crimes, and those who loved him abandon him. Like his American predecessors, Richler earned intense criticism and hostility from the Canadian Jewish establishment for laundering dirty linen in public.
A recurring figure in Richler’s Montreal-based fiction is Jerry Dingleman, the “Boy Wonder”, a Jewish gangster and drug dealer who is paradoxically idealized by the community as a “local messiah” because of his wealth and power. [Google/AI] A movie version of the book was made in 1974 – see entry in the companion list of Movies-Films-TV Series.
Richler, Mordecai, (St. Urbain’s Horseman [hc, Alfred A. Knopf, 1971] B001CK0U3O [pb, Penguin Books, 1992] 978-0140167696 [explores themes of guilt, identity, and the legacy of the Holocaust. The narrative is primarily set in London during the late 1960s, though it frequently uses flashbacks to the protagonist’s childhood in Montreal. The protagonist, Jake) Hersh is a moderately successful Canadian film director living in London with his family. When the novel opens, he is awaiting trial for a scandalous sexual offense involving a German au pair. Paralyzed by his trial and middle-aged anxieties, Jake becomes obsessed with his long-lost cousin, Joey Hersh. In Jake’s mind, Joey is the “Horseman”—a heroic Nazi-hunter and Spanish Civil War veteran who serves as an avenging alter ego to Jake’s own “unadventurous” life. Jake’s legal troubles stem from his association with Harry Stein, a bitter, resentful accountant who represents the underprivileged and disenfranchised. Harry manipulates Jake’s guilt to entangle him in the sordid incident that leads to their arrest. At the trial, Harry is sentenced to seven years in prison, while Jake is acquitted of the major charges and given only a minor fine. Harry Stein is a “villainous and politically incorrect” character based on a real-life criminal acquaintance of Richler’s, and represents the darker, more pathetic side of the criminal impulse within the community. Jake later learns that Joey has died in a plane crash in Paraguay—a known hideout for Nazi war criminals—allowing Joey to remain a mythic, heroic figure in Jake’s memory. Duddy Kravitz of Richler’s earlier novel reappears here as a self-made millionaire who supports Jake during his disgrace. – Google/AI]
Richler, Mordecai, (Solomon Gursky Was Here) [hc, Knopf, 1989] 978-0670825264 [pb, Arrow Random House, 1991] 978-0099877301 [Loosely based on the real-life Bronfman family, the Gursky empire is built on bootlegging during Prohibition, exploring how criminal origins can evolve into dynastic respectability.]
Richler’s non-fiction and memoirs provide the factual backdrop for his fictional underworld, detailing a Montreal where the lines between the “legitimate” and “illegitimate” were often blurred. In his essays, Richler describes Saint Lawrence Boulevard as a place where one could simultaneously “talk with a miracle-working rabbi” and “bet on a horse” or “shoot a game of snooker with a stranger”. He notes that the Jewish “ghetto” was often characterized by reformers as a breeding ground for juvenile delinquency and Communism, though he counters this with nostalgic descriptions of the community’s rich cultural and religious life. While many of his stories were invented, Richler acknowledged a deep emotional identification with the “hustler” spirit of his neighborhood, where survival often required navigating the seedy underbelly of the city.
Richler is thus not a straight crime or mystery author, but his work shares the following characteristics with comic and satirical crime fiction:
- Criminals are often rogues, hustlers, smugglers, bookmakers, or con men.
- Official institutions (courts, police, media, governments) are mocked.
- Investigations frequently uncover absurdity rather than truth.
- Moral ambiguity is preferred over clear solutions.
- Humor and satire dominate over suspense. – Google/AI]
See also listing of film version of Richler’s 1997 novel, Barney’s Version (2010), in the companion Filmography.