by Ken Sofronski $12.99; self-published; 146 pages
REVIEW BY SALLY PARSONS
Ken Sofronski is an actor. He recounts fascinating details about his association with Harvey Keitel and the movie Mean Streets. He also built a successful career as a court reporter, capped by his work on the Roy Cohn disbarment case. If you are a movie or U.S. history buff, this may be enough to hook you. As his title reveals, Sofronski has been around awhile, so his life story touches on the American scene from the late '30s to the present.
Reading Sofronski's self-published memoir was like nibbling a few delicious hors d'oeuvres and anticipating the main course, then forced to leave before it arrives. This thin volume left me wanting more.
Sofronski could have expanded his story. As he notes, "There is so much I could say about Mean Streets that could probably fill a book but not for the usual reasons." What does he mean? He made a decision to withhold, but surely he knows when you decide to invite the reader into your life, and they become interested, they will want more. (Key in his name on YouTube for samples of his acting.)
Sofronski is honest about himself and, in particular, the ups and downs of being old and gay. Perhaps this is why I find his memoir touching. I am of his generation and can relate. He is optimistic and keeps on truckin'. I like that. On the last page, he says, "I don't know what I am in training for, but whatever it is and whenever it comes, I will be ready for it and if I do say so myself, I look fabulous." What more can you ask for?
We follow Sofronski's spartan childhood in a small town in Pennsylvania, his early-adult years in New York City, his short sojourn in L.A., and return to the Big Apple. He touches on his oppressive childhood long enough for us to applaud his escape to New York at 18. He enrolled in court reporting school in order to have a practical skill to fall back on. He began taking acting lessons and got a few roles on stage. Sofronski even managed to combine his stenographic and acting skills by portraying court reporters on TV soap operas.
I'm left wanting. I'd like to have known more about his connection to his lesbian mom and his mostly absent dad, who owned a bunch of tenement houses. How about some more details about his life in the theater, or even on TV soaps? And, more recently, the group of gay seniors he attended. Surely, there were other interesting court reporting anecdotes Sofronski could have supplied us as well.
Threads of sadness run through Sofronski's stock-taking, as when he observes there may not be someone over the rainbow to find and love him at the age of 73, or when he notes how the young pushed the old men away in the bathhouses" … all the more cruel because you knew one day you would be one of those old men."
The book suffers from a few quirks you can forgive, perhaps, because it's self-published (misspellings, a blurb when you open the book with no indication of who wrote it, and a medallion on the cover stating the memoir is a "Pulitzer Prize Contender" ) .
Give this memoir a nod anyway. Sofronski is someone you might like to know.