Hobbadehoy Rising
By Max Willi Fischer
Publication Date: 25th September 2023
Publisher: Historium Press
Page Length: 262 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
An orphaned teen in the notorious Five Points district of lower Manhattan in 1854, Pencil’s cursed to scavenge the unforgiving streets where trust is a stranger. Even as slavery has divided the nation, the good Pencil comes across is as rare as a precious gem buried in the manure-strewn streets of Gotham. The shady adults who surround him believe he’s a “hobbhadehoy,” a youth who hasn’t quite reached manhood. Despite years of neglect, he hasn’t lost his empathy for others and a fledgling sense of justice. As the lieutenant of a pack of street rats, he craves greater control of his life. His luck finally runs out when through someone’s treachery, he faces significant prison time.
Pencil’s grasps another opportunity when he’s shipped off to Ohio on one of the first “orphan trains.” Life on the farm proves to be a different challenge under the demanding, and occasionally drunken, thumb of his new guardian. Ultimately, he’s forced to flee, a much stronger physical specimen than when he arrived.
Pencil ends up in Cleveland, where a daguerreotypist takes him under her wing. She teaches him about capturing images on glass and copper while trying to impress upon him the importance of trust. Encounters with corpses, kidnappers, and grave robbers test his acceptance of the idea … and justice.
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Hobbadehoy Rising
Max Willi Fischer
I sometimes wonder if my family's background had some unknown impact on my interest in history. I grew up in a bilingual household with German immigrant parents. My father followed his aunt and uncle to America to find work. Family get-togethers were small because the rest of our family remained in Germany. My father worked two jobs to improve our lives and put my brother and me through school. He will always be the most respected man I have known and the ultimate role model.
For nearly forty years, I was a classroom teacher at the elementary and middle school level. I taught most subjects in fifth and sixth grades as well as world history and American history at grades seven and eight.
When I retired, I believed I could engage young adults in the rich history of our land. My first book of historical fiction, "The Corkscrew App" was published in 2016. In 2020, "American Brush-Off" debuted on Amazon and Kindle Select.
Now, with both of our daughters out on their own, my wife and I enjoy home projects, travel and good movies.
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Another book to add to my to-read list. Is your book based on a true story?
ReplyDeleteYour book sounds like a really fascinating read. I shall look forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteThe characters of my novel are fictitious, but the setting of its various subplots--life in antebellum Manhattan, the orphan trains, the socio-political divide on abolitionism, the Underground Railroad, grave robbing--is based upon my research of non-fiction books and newspaper accounts of the time.
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