A

Conversation
With Alan Isle

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew
hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions? ... If you prick
us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us,
do we not laugh? If you poison us, do
we not die?

A -winner of the National
Jewish Book Award discusses
his newest work.

LYNNE KONSTANTIN STAFF WRITER

smoked salmon, the reason being that therefore, we would
never be able to go out into the Jewish community and
claim to have had ham at home — we had had smoked
salmon. I reached the United States before I knew the dif-
ference.
I still eat "smoked salmon" — I am completely a secu-
lar Jew.

Q: How did you come to leave London?

A: I came [to this country] more or less by myself when I
was 18. I had a married sister here,
and came at a time when, already 7
years after the war, life in England
had not yet improved. If anything, it
had gotten worse. It was what was
known as Austerity Britain.
It seemed utterly hopeless, every-
thing seemed gray— the bombed-out
city was gray, the people were gray,
their clothing was gray. At least it
seemed so at age 18.
And Pd have gone anywhere after-
ward; it wasn't a passion to go to the
U.S. Pm enormously grateful that this
is where it was. I immediately had a
love affair with the United States, im-
mediately felt at home.

Q: You are a late bloomer as a novelist.

A: The Prince of West End Avenue was published in 1994,

when I was 60. But that was not my fault: It was com-
plete in 1983, when I was a young fellow, comparatively.
"Late bloomer" implies that the seed had been early
planted and was only waiting for it to bloom. But in fact,
I had no thoughts of being a novelist or writer of any kind.
I was an academic. I taught Shakespeare and Milton. I
read articles that appeared in scholarly journals — that
was how I thought of myself.
It was only because I was becom-
ing somewhat disenchanted with the
academic profession, that on sabbat-
ical during 1983, I wrote that book. I
didn't know that I'd finish it neces-
sarily, it was something to do.
I didn't want to sit in libraries. My
work had become habit; it was no
longer fun teaching. Students weren't
what they once were, that sort of thing.
That's what happens to everyone
who gets old — nothing is ever as it
once was. I can remember my own
grandfather talking about the good
old days. I've spoken to my own chil-
dren about this sort of attitude. They
ask, "Well, how were things back
then?"
My back then was the time of Hitler
and Mussolini and the rest of it. What
was so great about that? Even later,
when I came to this country, it was
McCarthyism. I am aware intellectu-
ally that my feelings about the past
are suspect.

S o asks Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
Various interpretations and characteriza-
tions of this avaricious Jew have appeared in
the past 400 years. His most recent incarna-
tion is in The Bacon Fancier (Viking Penguin,
$21.95), a collection of four novellas by Alan
Isler.
In the first novella, 'The Monster," Shylock emerges as
the narrator. In telling the tale of Mostrino, Defender of
the Jews of the Venetian Ghetto, the moneylender's own
sad tale unfolds.
The often comical subjugation of literary and historical
figures is not an uncommon practice in the work of Alan
Isler, whose 1994 The Prince ofWest End Avenue was win-
ner of that year's National Jewish Book Award and also Q: Describe your work in English
was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award. literature? Where did you study?
Throughout The Bacon Fancier and his 1996 Kraven
Images are sprinkled references, allusions and outright A: I went to art school when I first
came to New York. Soon, I concluded
depictions of our celebrated predecessors.
I was not a fine artist after all, so I vol-
Not surprising — considering Isler taught English lit-
unteered for the United States Army,
erature for 25 years before publishing his first novel at the
age of 60.
and was sent to Germany for a couple
In a recent visit to the Detroit area, the award-winning of years.
Q: Was it difficult to get the novel
After I got out of the Army, I went
author took a break with The Jewish News.
published?
to college under the G.I. Bill. I did my undergraduate work
Q: What was the extent of your Jewish upbringing? at Hunter College and attended Columbia for my master's A : It was very difficult. I succeeded in finding an agent
and Ph.D.
who said this is going to be an almost impossible book
A: I was born in London, where my father was a fur and
In college, the English department embraced me: Imag- to place, but I think it's great and I'll try, and try she did.
skins merchant. My mother was a housewife.
ine a professor of English literature having a student in
But without success. I concluded: I'm not a novelist,
My parents thought of themselves as free thinkers,
class who actually had an English accent. It was a mar- I' m an academic, why should I be surprised?
which was sort of comical, because they were neither free velous thing. So they noted me and pushed me along, and
nor thinkers. However, the grandparental generation was they put me up for a graduate fellowship. I studied more at So it went in the drawer for quite a long time, a decade
Orthodox, and this produced a kind of wonderful hypocrisy English literature, onto a doctorate. You have a Ph.D in fo least. Finally, from a friend of a friend of a friend, I
and a publisher, in 1994.
in the home; that is, for the sake of the grandparents, we English literature and what do you do? So, I taught.
Every reviewer pointed to the fact that this was a 60-
behaved ourselves with [Jewish] ritual perfection. Apart
I taught English for 25 years. I started offin Canada at ye ar-old author. It seemed the most extraordinary thing
from that, though, we did as we did.
the University of Western Ontario, then went to New York th
In fact, as children we grew up thinking that ham was and Queens College in the city of New York. to at someone who's got truly one foot in the grave, ready
fall in, had actually produced a book. Even in France,

