Jewish Book
Fair Offers
Enrichment
And
Entertainment
For Young
Adults
T
kink book fairs are for
school marms, retirees
and book-worms with
nothing better to do?
Think again.
This year's Jewish Book Fair at
the Jewish Community Center's
West Bloomfield and Oak Park
sites will 'host some of the hottest
young authors in the country.
From Rolling Stone Magazine
contributing editor Rich Cohen to
the cutting-edge, contemporary
author of The Same Embrace,
Michael Lowenthal, to Pulitzer-
prize winner Wendy Wasserstein,
these young voices promise to
entertain and inspire creative read-
ing among
the twenty-
and thir-
tysome-
thing set.
Amy
Brode, the
book fair
director, said
the schedule
should
accommodate
the needs of
young profes-
sionals, with
speakers at
6:30 and 8
p.m. every
evening, rang-
ing from block-
busters like Dr.
Ruth to
Congressman
John Lewis.
The accom-
panying articles
provide a closer
look at three
young writers
with special tales.
10/30
1998
82 Detroit Jewish News
Michael Lowenthal combines
homosexuality and Jewish observance
in a timely and moving work.
LYNNE MEREDITH COHN
Scene Editor
M
ichael Lowenthal didn't
intend to become a
spokesperson for gay
Jewry. But in a way, the
29 year old author has taken that role,
especially at Jewish book fairs, thanks to
the provocative and searing story line in
his first novel, The Same Embrace
(Dutton, $23.95), about identical twin
brothers, one of whom is gay, the other
a fast-lane-frum bakl teshuvah.
A graduate of Dartmouth College
who now lives in Boston, Lowenthal
said in a recent telephone interview,
"I'm in this for the writing and the liter-
ature, not necessarily a get-on-your-
high-horse political activist. But there
clearly is an aspect when you write
about subjects
like this, an
aspect of being
the cultural
ambassador, I
guess."
Having
been "right
out front
about most
everything
in my life,"
Lowenthal
doesn't
mind the
role. "I'm
perfectly
happy,
and actu-
ally excit-
ed and
eager to
go stand
in front
of
groups
and say,
`Listen,
maybe
you don't
talk about these issues much, maybe
the word gay doesn't pass your lips
much, but I'm here, I hope I'm non-
-
-
threatening, and you can ask me any-
Lowenthal recalls. "They were on the
thing.'"
conservative end of Conservative."
Born in Washington, D.C.,
But after his parents' divorce (when
Lowenthal was raised in a
Lowenthal was 11), it was his father
Conservative Jewish home. He dou-
who kept the observance, while
ble-majored in creative writing and
Lowenthal lived with his secular moth-
comparative religion at Dartmouth
er.
and graduated in 1990 as class valedic-
Writing the book was, in a way, a
torian. After six months of washing
trip down memory lane for him, but
dishes and tending bar, he
also a journey into an
began working for
appreciation for Judaism.
University Press of New
"I definitely have a much
England and later founded
deeper understanding," says
the Hardscrabble Books
Lowenthal. "The kinds of
imprint, publishing note- -°, 2
things you just do when
worthy writers such as
you're a kid because they're
Chris Bohjalian, W.D.
what you do and they're
Wetherell and Ernest
what your family tells you
Hebert.
to do, you follow along
He says he's always want-
pretty unreflectively. Now, I
ed to write. "In second
know what goes on behind
Michael Lowenthal, some of the rituals. I can't
grade, we made hand-made
author of
books as a Mother's Day gift,
say it's made me personally
The Same Embrace. more active in a conven-
sewed them together, made
covers, filled them with 'my
tional sense; I don't do
favorite food is...', 'my family consists
much in the way of ritual or going to
of...', and 'when I grow up I want to
services, but it was fun to get immersed
be...'. I wanted to play left field for the
back in it all."
Boston Red Sox for six months of the
Lowenthal received a 1995-96 New
year and the other six months be a
Hampshire State Council on the Arts
writer."
Fellowship for fiction writing, based on
Although he hasn't quite given up his the first chapter of The Same Embrace.
dream of playing for the Red Sox,
He has also edited several tomes,
Lowenthal says he "feel[s] good that I'm including Gay Men at the Millennium
at least working on the writer part."
and Flesh and the Word 4. His stories
But it's nothing new He has always
and essays have appeared in the Kenyon
"dabbled," with pen and paper, first as
Review, the New York Times Magazine,
editor of his high school newspaper,
Other Voices and such anthologies as
then trying his hand at fiction in col-
Best American Gay Fiction and Wrestling
lege.
With the Angel. ri"
Lowenthal says his book "partly
came from experience and partly from
Michael Lowenthal will speak at
research." From his own Jewish back-
the
Jewish Book Fair at 3 p.m.
ground, "I at least knew enough to
Sunday,
Nov. 15, at the Kahn
know where I had to look for more."
Jewish
Community
Center in
His mother's family immigrated to
West
Bloomfield.
His
talk is
the States in the late 1800s and was
sponsored
by
Michigan
Jewish
assimilated and'secular, while his father's
AIDS
Coalition
and
Simcha.
parents fled Germany in 1939. His
For a review of The Same
father's father was a rabbi, practicing
Embrace,
see The Storytellers in
Orthodox in Europe and Conservative
this
week's
Entertainment sec-
when he came here.
tion
on
page
94.
"I grew up visiting them and defi-
nitely partaking of that observance,"