A Romantic
Comedy/Mystery

Some characters may or may not
be Jewish, but that's not what
will be at the heart of the novel.

Q: How would you feel about
being categorized as a Jew-
ish writer?

A: This book has Jewish sub-
ject matter, but that's only part
of what it's about. I think that one
of the problems that face Jewish-
American fiction is that it's
caught in an uncomfortable in-
between. It's perceived as not as
sexy as certain kinds of ethnic fic-
tion like African-American fiction
or Asian-American fiction. Nor is
it as mainstream as John Up-
dike. I don't want to be known as
someone who writes Jewish-
American fiction in the sense that
I don't think Amy Tan wants to

be known as someone who writes
Asian-American fiction. We want
to be known as people who write
fiction. That is not to say that
Amy Tan is uncomfortable about
her Asian heritage or that I'm un-
comfortable about my Jewish
heritage. I feel very strongly that
every writer has a particular lens
that he or she uses to get at the
general. And in this particular
book, Judaism is one of the par-
ticular lenses I use.

tween stories when you say,
"What am I going to write about
next?" I also think it's important
to move on, because I'd like to
look at the book as part of a big-
ger body of work. I think I want
to steel myself against disap-
pointment and bad reviews, so
that if I'm already working on an-
other novel by the time this one
comes out, if there's ever a nega-
tive reaction, I can say, "Oh that's
what I did when I was a kid." 0

Q: Where do you go from
here? Are you working on an-
other novel?

var. Joshua Henkin will be
reading from and signing
copies of Swimmirz g Across the
Hudson at the Birmingham
Borders Book Shop 7 p.m.
Thursday, April 24.

A: VVhat I want to do is write
four or five short stories and then
move on to a novel. There's some-
thing nice about writing a novel.
You don't have those gaps be-

by Tom
Stoppard

March 19-
April 13

For tickets call
Meadow Brook
Box Office
(810) 377-3300

Ticketmaster
(810)645-6666

Hudson's, Harmony House
and Blockbuster Music

Treading The Waves
Of Adoption And Judaism

Supported
by the

michigan council
for arts and
cultural affairs

"Tom
Stoppard's
richest,
most
ravishing
comedy"
New York
Times

Meadow
Brook
Theatre

Oakland University's
Professional Theatre

Swimming Across the Hudson by Joshua Henkin

(G.P. Putnam Sons, $23.95; available in bookstores on April 14)

0

n the surface, local author
Joshua Henkin's first nov-
el, Swimming Across the
Hudson, sounds a lot like
last year's film Flirting With
Disaster. Adopted Jewish guy
from New York feels unable to
move ahead with his life until
he finds his non-Jewish birth
parents. But just as their titles
imply, Flirting is a fun-filled ad-
venture with little emo-

investment,
tional
whereas Swimming dives deep-
er, treading the psychological
waves which surround adoption
and Jewish identity.

Raised in a modern Orthodox
household on Manhattan's Up-
per West Side, Ben Suskind has
always known that he and his.
brother Jonathan were adopted.
The two brothers — only months
apart — have been close to each
other throughout childhood, but
they begin to drift apart when
Jonathan announces that he is
gay. Widening the rift is the fact
that Jonathan does not
share Ben's interest in find-
ing his birth parents and
can't understand why Ben
is so fixated on the past.
When Ben's birth moth-
er, Susan, phones her now
31-year-old son and asks
to meet him, Ben — who
has rejected his religious
upbringing — is forced to
re-examine his relation-
ship to his adoptive par-
ents, his birth parents
and to Judaism. The
novel raises questions
about what it means to
be a Jew, what it means
to be a son, and the
seemingly universal
need to know where
we come from. In some
ways, Ben's experi-
ence serves as an ex-
tended metaphor for
the experience of all
young Jews in America. If all
American Jews are free to as-
similate, then all of us literally
have the choice between our
birth parents (Judaism) and our
adopted parents (secular cul-

ture): In this context of choice,
how do we define ourselves?
Although it raises philosoph-
ical , issues, Swimming stays
afloat because ultimately, it is a
compellingly told story with
strong characters, rapid pacing
and painfully real scenes.
Joshua Henkin skillfully chron-
icles the awkwardness of Ben's
reunion with his birth mother
and the uncomfortable mutual
realization that the two have lit-
tle in common. With the excep-
tion of a somewhat flat Jonathan
and some heavy-handed biblical
allusions (references to the bind-
ing of Isaac and Esau stealing
Jacob's birthright feel forced and
too obviously symbolic in this
context), the characters feel very
real, and Ben's recollections of
his childhood are peppered with
wonderfully astute descriptions
and quirky details. In one of my
favorite descriptions, Ben recalls
staring out the window of his
childhood apartment: "We
pressed our noses against the
window. Our breath came back
to us, frosty against the glass, in
the puckered-up shape of our
mouths." I also enjoyed the
quirkiness of: "I liked getting the
kosher meal in its unperforated
wrapping, my name stamped on
the foil as if the food had been
mailed to me directly from God."
A compelling novel, Swim-
ming Across the Hudson marks
the debut of a promising new
writer. CI .

—Julie Wiener

"The Hebrew Alphabet" 25 x 38

E

The Semitic, or Hebrew alphabet, has under-
gone many changes in form throughtout
time. The distinctive Hebrew Script seen
today can be traced from the Third Century
B.C. The order of the Hebrew characters cor-
responds to the other alphabets in this series.

29203 Northwestern Hwy. • Southfield

(810) 356-5454