Dick Carmel

Though We Have No Merits Dick Carmel

The main character in Carmel's high-spirited tale, Zolly Berns, is the middle-aged owner of Zolly's Place, a bar on Chicago's Rush Street that has become something of a safe haven for a group of gangsters . . . . Soon, Zolly finds himself incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lexington, Kentucky . . . . an inviting sprawl studded with park-like spaces and open doors.




Carmel very cannily manipulates the standard world-in-miniature expectations attached to the prison novel, teasing readers about whether and to what extent Zolly will encounter a personal transformation . . . . And through it all, the author maintains very effectively the tension that animates all prison literature: How will Zolly's time inside alter his life outside?




Carmel writes this comparatively simple narrative with an appealing wit and directness . . .. At the center of it all is Zolly, a wonderfully realized fictional creation whose multifaceted portrayal grounds the entire book.