The BiG Story

The Apple
Of Her Eye

I Love Gootie: My Grand-
mother's Story, by Max
Apple (Published by Warner
Books
Max Apple will speak at the
Book Fair at 1 p.m. Wednesday
Nov. 1 1

When Max Apple became his
grandmother's translator, he had
responsibilities that extended far
beyond finding the perfect word o
phrase that turned English into Yid-
dish.

10/30
1998

His job was, instead, "to explain
America," he says. His grandmoth-
er, Cootie, in turn, "told me about
Serei," the Lithuanian town where
she was born and raised before
she came to Michigan. "It was a
fair trade," the author says.
It also left Mr. Apple with clear,
clean details of his grandmother's
words. And so when he sat down
to write I Love Gootie, he found
the memories came easy. •
"I remember the tone of all the
conversations," he says. "Though
when you think
about how much
I remember, all
of it from anoth-
er language, it
is pretty
astounding.
"My grand-
mother didn't
speak English
[only Yiddish].
So every rec-
ollection I
had was in
Yiddish ... I
would have
to think in
Yiddish,
then trans-
late it, then
write it in
English."
This is
Mr.
Apple's
second
book
about a
grandpar-
ent; his
first was

same," he says. "But of course in
Roommates, a portrait of his
my childhood it seemed like such
grandfather, which also was a
a huge place." He remembers
film.
Gootie's "yard with all her flowers
(Mr. Apple points out that he
— though her green hedge is
actually wrote the screenplay for
gone — that had seemed
the movie first, and the
like Central Park to me."
book followed). Writing
He has good memo-
about real people, he
ries of Detroit, too. "We
says, can be a chal-
would
come to Seven
lenge, "You're fighting
Mile Road and fill up the
sentimentality all the
car with Pesach goods —
time."
there was a kosher store,
In fact, Mr. Apple had
but I don't remember the
no ntention of writing"
"no
name. Every summer my
his grandmother's story.
Dad
took
me to a Tigers' game;
But after Roommates he was asked
that was my summer vacation, and
so many questions about her. "I
those are my memories of Detroit:
didn't know how much there was,
Tigers and Pesach food."
but I just started to write and then I
Today, Mr. Apple resides in San
couldn't stop."
Francisco with his children and
He says he writes "when I can. I
wife,
Talya Fishman. He continues
handwrite everything, I don't type,
to keep kosher, "and so do my
and my handwriting is so bad I
children."
can't even read it.
Though his grandparents have
"[The process of writing] is hard
long
since died, Mr. Apple still has
work, but I love it. When it's going
his mother. She lives with the fami-
well I can sit for five or six hours
ly, and has a close relationship
and just write, and it feels like five
with her granddaughter, much in
or six minutes. When it's
the way the young Max was with
not going well, I'll just walk
his Gootie, though it's different,
away."
too.
In addition to his books, Mr.
"My mother has Alzheimer's,"
Apple has written numerous articles
Mr.
Apple explains. "She's 87.
for the New York Times, Esquire
Gootie was close to 90 when she
and Atlantic, and often his tender
died.
stories focus on growing up in
"In a way, my 7-year-old daugh-
Grand Rapids.
ter
takes care of my mother ... and
He still comes back to Grand
I you could say she kind of has the
Rapids to visit, from time to time.
same relationship I had with my
He'll go to the cemetery, where
grandmother, but it's not reciprocal.
tombstones, like heavy blocks of
(Because of my mother's illness,)
memory, carry so many familiar
my daughter can't get back from
names. He'll also stop at the house
her grandmother what I got from
where his grandmother once lived.
mine."
"It's still there, it still looks the