A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park by Henry Roth

Discussion questions

  1. The title Mercy of a Rude Steam is taken from Cardinal Woolsy’s speech in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (which serves as the epigraph for A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park). It has been observed that Henry Roth viewed mankind, and particularly himself, as a “rude stream,” a metaphor for the flaws and frailties of our mortal lives. Does the elderly Ira Stigman believe or not believe in the possibility of mercy for himself, mankind and the modern Jew?
  2. Ira laments his upheaval from the all-Jewish neighborhood of his boyhood to non-Jewish Harlem. “If it had only happened a few years later. Everything else could be the same, the war, the new relatives; if only he could have had, could have lived a few more years on the Lower East Side, say until his Bar Mitzvah.” What are the effects of dislocation and isolation on Ira’s emotional and sexual development and his identity as a Jew? How might his life had been different had he lived longer on the Lower East Side?
  3. The novel is narrated by two different and distinct voices; that of the young Ira who is immersed in the events of his life, and that of the elderly writer reflecting on the life he has led. What purpose does this literary device serve for the reader? The author?
  4. Who is Ecclesias? Is he simply another part of the adult Ira’s personality? Who or what does he represent?
  5. The young Ira is targeted sexually by the man he meets in Mt. Morris Park (Mr. Joe) and his teacher Mr. Lennard. He is uncomfortable when other boys try to get him to “pull off” or ejaculate. Why was he targeted by the two men? Does his reluctance to explore his sexuality as the other boys do result from these experiences?
  6. Ira is enamored of the public library and of books, particularly adventure books. What does he find so appealing about books in general and that genre specifically? How does the short piece “Somebody Always Grabs the Purple,” which he published in the New Yorker as a young man, tie into the importance of books in his childhood?
  7. How is class struggle depicted in the book? Why does Uncle Louis support Eugene Debs, socialists, and the Bolsheviks? Where do the other characters fall on the political spectrum? How does Ira reconcile what he learns about socialists and Bolsheviks at school with what he learns from his family?
  8. Describe the relationship between Ira’s parents. Why doesn’t Leah act on her feelings for Louis?
  9. Critics have often said that Roth relied on strong women in his novels. How does this observation apply to Ira’s mother, Leah, and the other women in his extended family? To Ira’s wife, M.?
  10. Ira’s grandfather, Zaida, represents traditional Jewish religious practices. What is Ira’s relationship with him growing up? What role does Judaism play in the lives of his other family members? Why does Ira, who was a star student in Hebrew at his cheder on the Lower East Side, struggle with his studies of the language and holy texts after the family moves to Harlem?
  11. Living among Irish and Italians on 119th Street, Ira often wishes that he were not Jewish and wants to completely assimilate with his neighbors. Why does he feel this way? Does he retain any strong religious and/or spiritual beliefs as a child? As an adult?
  12. How do Ira’s parents and the members of his extended family view the Gentile world? What do they think of World War I, the Russian revolution, and other world events?
  13. Ira mentions James Joyce several times, and comments that Joyce left Ireland but only wrote about his “confined, parochial” homeland and “couldn’t assimilate the great cosmopolitan ‘universal’ Western culture that surrounded him” in Europe. What similarities does Ira see between himself and Joyce? Do you think the two have similar experiences and world views?
  14. Describe the Stigman family’s economic circumstances. Why does his father have trouble keeping a job? Why are his entrepreneurial ventures failures? How do their circumstances differ from the rest of their extended Jewish immigrant family?
  15. Why do Farley and Ira become fast friends? What was their shared sensibility and what do we learn about Farley’s departure from the Catholic school St. Thomas to attend the local public school? What fascinates Ira about Farley’s family?
  16. While Ira is not very successful at most of his part-time jobs, Ira enjoys working at Park and Tilford and is esteemed not only by Mr. Klein but also the delivery crew. Why is he at ease with them? What elements of that environment does he enjoy?
  17. In many instances there are elliptical references in the dialogues between the adult Ira and Ecclesias. For example, we realize that he is estranged from his adult son Jess, but do not know why. Did you find the omissions in the text distracting or intriguing?
  18. At the very end of Part 1, Ira walks by Mt. Morris Park and sees a star shining overhead, and is struck by his own poetic description of it. Is this the beginning of his desire to be a writer? What does the process of writing his life story mean to the elderly Ira? Why does he do it?

About the author

Henry Roth was born in Tysmenitz, in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galitzia, in 1906, it is most likely that he landed at Ellis lsland and began his life in New York in 1909. In 1914, the year in which Mercy of a Rude Stream opens, the family moved from the Lower East side to Harlem, briefly to the Jewish section on 114th Street and then to non-Jewish 119th Street.

Roth met Eda Lou Walton, a prominent critic, poet and New York University instructor, while a student at City College of New York and moved in with her in 1927. His novel Call It Sleep was published in 1934 to mixed reviews and did not become critically acclaimed until its paperback printing in 1964. Roth’s growing ideological frustration and personal confusion created a profound writer’s block, which lasted until 1979, when he began the first drafts of Mercy of a Rude Stream, which consists of four volumes: A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park (1994); A Diving Rock on the Hudson (1995); From Bondage (1996), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Requiem for Harlem (1998). An American Type, another novel with protagonist Ira Stigman, was published in 2010.

In 1938 Roth met pianist and composer Muriel Parker; he ended his relationship with Walton and married Parker in 1939. The couple had two sons and lived in Boston before relocating in 1946 to Maine, where Roth worked as a woodsman, teacher, psychiatric attendant, waterfowl farmer, and Latin and math tutor. In 1968 the couple moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after a short stay at the D.H. Lawrence ranch, where Roth was writer-in-residence. Parker died in 1990 from congestive heart failure; Roth died on October 13, 1995, in Albuquerque. He was posthumously honored with the Hadassah Harold Ribalow Lifetime Achievement Award in November 1995 and by the Museum of the City of New York in 1996.