A mother and son's search for home

On Helwig Street: A Memoir

**By Richard Russo**

**Chatto & Windus, €21.40**

*Reviewed by Brendan Daly*

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On Saturday afternoons in the 1950s, Jean Russo brought her young son, Richard, to Pedrick's restaurant in Gloversville, upstate New York. As the child picked out songs from a mini-jukebox, the sounds were sometimes drowned out by music from the boisterous bar next door.

The men and women, separated from Jean by only a thin wall, ...