Syag,
I’ve skinned some, I’ve schmoozed with boys who were reading them asking what the books are about.
There are books where the ”hero ”is constantly killing and maiming.
There are characters who are conniving crooks.
Husbands who are jerks
Wives who are mean
Children who ”had enough ”and throw it all away.
While officially the undercurrent of the book is supposed to be that the evil ones life is empty,
Ultimately the overt information has the evil one being successful for most of the book quite often.
That’s just the way a novel of intrigue is going to be built.
The hero is always on the defensive for most of the book.
That’s how you build suspense.
You create a hero you put him in trouble /danger /difficult situation/position and you work him out of it.
That means that for most of the book your reader is reading about a non role model being successful.
That subliminal message seeps in. ESPECIALLY SO being as the child is under the impression that this is a Jewish book written by someone like him. The fact that at the end it all falls apart doesn’t counteract the hundreds of pages where it was going well for the bad guy.
Of course I’m not saying the kid puts down the book and goes to rob a bank.
But neither does he put down the worst of non Jewish literature and go to ”Manhattan”
It’s a question of putting wrong ideals into his head.
I think many of the so called Jewish novels are awful. While there are plenty of kosher non Jewish ones.
Ultimately it should be the content that is the factor in the decision. Not the author.
This is similar to the ”Jewish music ” conversation.
For they are both really the same