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October 17, 1997 - Image 105

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1997-10-17

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

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ring, removed from their prose, but
his gentle cadences match his writing.
Like Isaac Bashevis Singer who lis-
tened to people who visited his
father's rabbinic court, Stollman
eavesdrOpped on the conversations
his father had with congregants who
brought their problems to his home.
The 43-year-old author says he knew
a lot of secrets he couldn't repeat, and
in the process learned discretion and
compassion.
Stollman also remembers his father
showing him, at age 8, a book of
photographs taken in concentration
camps; the images remain with him.
For months afterward, he imagined
that the window near his bed was the
entrance to a gas chamber. In this
novel, he explores how the Holocaust
reverberates from generation to gen-
eration, and its context in Jewish his-
tory.
Stollman is no longer observant
although he continues to read widely
in Jewish texts. Lately, he's particular-
ly interested in Kabbalah and is
studying the works of Moshe Idel
and Gershom Scholem.
This novel grew out of a dream in
which he envisioned the scene with
the gypsy seer. He says that gave him
the "kernel" of the book's mood and
tone — and that he was lucky he
Woke up and remembered it. His
writing begins not with a sense of the
plot, but with its mood and notion

of its characters. For
this author, writing
is a three-dimension-
al art, like sculpting
or weaving; his tools
are his words.
Stollman is-an artist
and a doctor, spe-
cializing in interven-
tional neuroradiolo-
gy. He follows in a
distinguished tradi-
tion of physicians
who write, like
Anton Chekov and
William Carlos
Williams, and a con-
temporary, Ethan
Canin. He says that
he always imagined
that he'd write fic-
tion, but never knew
how to go about it.
The first thing he
bought when he
graduated from
medical school was a
typewriter. He didn't
take formal classes
but met other writ-
ers and learned from them. "The
main thing is that one has to sit
down and write and write and write."
For Stollman, who spent a year
writing The Far Euphrates, writing
and medicine are similar in their
intensity; and both are life affirming.
He sees the final message of this
novel as redemptive and says that it's
important to him. "Books alter the
way we see the world, hopefully for
the better," he says, drawing another
comparison to his work as a physi-
cian.
Since this is a novel of the soul,
the physician and author was asked
how he defines the soul. "I don't have
the answers," he says, even with his
strong background in neurological
sciences. "I tend to think our soul
resides in the brain," he explains,
adding "that [the brain] in and of
itself is a profound miracle and mys-
tery." ❑

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