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novel

‘Memory’ Shapes Life and History

Sandee Brawarsky September 9, 2004

Tony Eprile opens up the complex terrain of a changing South Africa in \”The Persistence of Memory.\”

This is an ambitious novel, a novel of many ideas. Eprile is a gifted storyteller who delves into the inner life and family, and also politics, social commentary and warfare. The literary thread that links these different kinds of stories — whether accounts of sensual meals, embarrassing school episodes or brutal battles — and propels the narrative is suggested by the title: the way that memory, the act of remembering, shapes life and history.

Believe It or Not

Gene Lichtenstein August 5, 2004

\”It\’s All True\” (Simon & Schuster, 2004) by David Freeman offers us a portrait of an outsized Hollywood, so unbelievable that it must be dead on. It is, more precisely, a novel, lovingly unfolded about the movie business: How it works and how its players — adults spoiled by too much money and power — act out their lives. \”Oh me-oh, my-oh,\” as Henry Wearie would say.

Wearie is the novel\’s hero. He is actually a fictitious character, a screenwriter trying to hustle a script idea into a movie deal, but in a voice that sounds eerily like that of Freeman, who himself is a screenwriter. In its way, this book serves as a more knowing successor to Freeman\’s earlier work, \”A Hollywood Education,\” published 18 years ago, after the author had moved to Los Angeles from New York.

Herzl’s Heirs

Rob Eshman July 1, 2004

Years ago I wrote a novel. I don\’t remember how many years ago, but I began it on a typewriter, so you do the math.

Psychic Channels Her Gift Into Novel

Sandee Brawarsky June 3, 2004

I don\’t know how many Jewish psychics there are in Great Neck, N.Y., but Rochelle Jewel Shapiro is easy to spot in the lunchtime crowd at Bruce\’s, a restaurant and bakery in the heart of the Long Island town.

Loud and Proud Mizrachi Voices

Sandee Brawarsky May 13, 2004

\”The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage,\” edited by Loolwa Khazzoom (Seal Press, $16.95)

On the last night before her family would flee Libya in 1967, Gina Bublil Waldman recalls that she had to choose between taking her only warm sweater or a photo album with the words \”Souvenir of Libya\” on the cover. Its hand-painted image of a peaceful seascape was in absolute contrast to the political turbulence and danger her family faced. She packed the photos, remnants of a life she wouldn\’t know again.

Her essay is included in a compelling collection, \”The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage,\” edited by Loolwa Khazzoom.

A Match Made in Ratner’s Restaurant

Naomi Pfefferman March 18, 2004

Laurie Gwen Shapiro is not, repeat not scion to a matzah fortune, like the heroine of her hyperkinetic new novel, "The Matzo Ball Heiress."

Between the Sheets

Carin Davis February 19, 2004

So what does a nice Jewish girl know about porn? Quite a bit.

Yehoshua Returns to Arab Characters

Susan Miron January 29, 2004

From the beginning of his career, Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua has examined the complex relationship between Israeli Jews and Arabs, most notably in his 1964 novella, "Facing the Forests," and his early novel, "The Lover," set in Israel after the 1973 war.

Legacy of Questions Without Answers

Michal Lemberger January 15, 2004

Lev Raphael, a child of survivors, clearly knows this well. His new novel, \”The German Money,\” tries to take on some of the questions that those who inherit the Holocaust must face. Raphael is also a mystery writer, so he is not only interested in recovering the past, but also in solving its mysteries. Because, as Faulkner implied, the past is always a mystery to us. We can never really know its truths. That\’s why it cannot die. There is too much for us to figure out.

‘Tattooed Girl’ Mines a Root of Prejudice

Howard Kaplan January 8, 2004

Neither of these characters, driving at breakneck speed toward each other, are seeing anything too clearly. So a crash is expected. But with the prolific Joyce Carol Oates\’ deft and dark hands on both wheels, the carnage is far worse than is easily imagined.

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