You might
not know it from
the movies, but
Kramer, God,
and a host of
novelist
Avery Corman's
characters are
Jews.

DAVID HOLZEL

Special to The Jewish News

A

very Corman took the
long road to becoming
a novelist. In the
1950s, the man who would
write Oh, God! and Kramer
vs. Kramer was trying to
break into the advertising
field. Because he was Jew-
ish, the doors were closed to
him. Today, he views the
discrimination as fortuitous.
"The world lost a
copywriter and gained a
novelist because of anti-
Semitism."
The 56-year-old author is
promoting the paperback
edition of Prized Possessions,
his novel about a college
student who is the victim of
date rape. Another novel,
The Big Hype, is due out in
hardcover in July.
Dressed in a blue blazer
and gray trousers, his salt-
and-pepper beard trimmed
short, Mr. Corman has the
air of a college professor. As
the traffic rolls by his hotel,
he discusses the business of
being an author. How, for ex-
ample, many of his charac-
ters' traits — such as their
Jewishness — are altered for
the movie screen.
"My characters have been

Jewish in an identifiable
sense for me, although
they're not like in Chaim
Potok," he says, referring to
the novelist who often writes
about the Orthodox world
and its confrontation with
American life. "My Jew-
ishness peeks out of my
works."
The movie Oh, God!
flattened out any ethnicity.
In the novel, the character
(called Jerry in the film and
played by John Denver) is
Jewish. There's a line he
says (to God), 'You sound a
lot like my Uncle Simon.' "
Oh, God! was the New
York native's first novel. He
based it on a magazine piece
he had written, "An Ex-
clusive Interview With
God."
"I thought there was more
I could do with it. I was in
bed with my wife one night
and I told her, 'I have the
title — Oh, Godr — and I fell
out of bed laughing."
That was in 1970. Some 20
years earlier, Mr. Corman
"set out to write the great
American ad." Finding
advertising closed to him, he
ended up in magazine pro-
motion, which the novelist
describes as "essentially a
Jewish ghetto" at the time.
He wrote songs on the side.

There was an unproduced
musical and "I began to
have ideas of being a
playwright."
That was in the late '50s.
While he pursued
playwriting, he supported
himself by writing educa-
tional films and magazine
articles. Then came Oh, God!
As a novelist, Mr. Corman's
career only got tougher.
"Now that I considered
myself a novelist, I wasn't

"I wasn't going
back to writing
educational films.
But 'Oh, God!' didn't
pay the rent."

Avery Corman

going to go back to writing
educational films. But Oh,
God/ didn't pay the rent."
It would be six years before
the film version was made.
By then, Kramer vs. Kramer
— about a father's battle for
custody of his son — was on
the stands and Mr. Corman's
career as a novelist was
secure.
"At that point I turned the
corner," he says.
Three novels followed: The
Old Neighborhood, 50 and
Prized Possessions.

After touching serious
topics such as date rape and
parental custody, Mr. Cor-
man returns to the humor of
Oh, God! in his new book,
The Big Hype. "It's like a
knuckle ball that I can
always throw," he says of
comedy. "I'm glad to come
back to it."
The Big Hype is about
celebrity in America, "how
we worship and package it.
It's about an everyman
who's made into a celebri-
ty."
Because Oh, God! and
Kramer vs. Kramer were so
successful as films, Mr.
Corman says he is often
pegged as a writer who
works with one eye on the
screen, "which of course
isn't true."
Film adaptations, he says,
expand the novelist's oppor-
tunity to write and to be
read.
"You gain money, an
expanded market for your
books, and your name as an
author is enhanced."
While he is pleased that
the film versions were well-
made, "I'd like to think that
I wouldn't stand around
complaining if a bad movie
were made," he says wryly.
"Especially after I banked
the check." ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 67

ARTS F,- ENTFRTAI NM ENT

Prized
Possessions

Novelist Avery Corman's
next novel, "The Big Hype,"
is about how Americans worship
and package celebrity.