VICTORIA DIAZ
Special to The Jewish News

West Bloomfield

attorney

Steven Weiss

hopes to join

ranks with

John Grisham

and Scott Throw

with his novel

The Farewell

Principle.

ttorney Steve Weiss of
West Bloomfield is inti-
mately involved with
Rabbi Joyce Sternberg of
Temple B'nai Israel in Oak Park and
attorney Mo Robinson, an African
American. And rightfully so. He cre-
ated these fictional characters for his
recently released novel The Farewell
Principle (Sterling House, $19.95).
The Farewell Principle is a legal
thriller about race relations and preju-
dice. From Pontiac to Sterling Heights,
from the Oakland County Courthouse
to Troy High School, Weiss mentions
local spots relevant to the plot. A piv-
otal scene centers on character Danny
Weinstein, who upon leaving the
Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield, witnesses a group of neo-
Nazis out to destroy the nearby
Holocaust Museum.
Weiss, a civil litigation attorney
with Hertz, Schram & Saretsky in
Bloomfield Hills, wrote this book
whenever he could squeeze time after
work or between activities with his
family. It.wasn't easy for the 43-vear-
old husband and father of four sons.
Although finding the time was diffi-
cult the actual writing was not, since
this is not Weiss' first novel.
"I started on the (first) novel when
I was in law school," he said recently,
taking a lunchtime break from his-
leaal duties. "I'd occasionally get to it,
knock off a couple of pages. put it
away, come back to it. But by the
time I finished, it was too long and
disjointed, so I set it aside.'
What inspired him to take another
stab at writing a novel goes back sev-
eral years to the childhood he spent
in Oak Park, Southfield, and West
Bloomfield, and an African-American
woman employed by his family.
When I was about 4 years old, we
had a woman who I hare to say
worked for us because she was really a
part of our family," he recalled. "SI-;e
and I developed a very tight relation-
ship. In every step of my life, she was
constantly teaching me. I would talk
to her and she Nvould tell me stories
with lessons in them — how I should
act, how I should be.
"This is in the mid-sixties when the

12/4

1998

Detroit Jewish News

Mt

