Pho to by Jerry Bauer

Meet a sampling of the novelists who bring
their work to this year's Book Fair.

Lily Brett's novel is
a kind of love story
and a commentary
on memory and the
entwining of past
and present.

Too Many Men'

L

ily Brett's novel Too Many Men (Morrow;
$26) is peopled by one of the most mem-
orable duos in recent literary history, a
successful 43-year-old woman and her 81-
year-old father.
Ruth Rothwax adores her father Edek, and his
love for his only child is boundless. At Ruth's insti-
gation, they travel together to Poland, where Edek
and his late wife Rooshka grew up, were married,
imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto and later sent to
Auschwitz.
Although Brett has also written 11 other works of
fiction, poetry and essays, including several award-
winning titles that have been published in Europe
and Australia, where she grew up, this is the first of
her books to be published here.
The 54-year-old author, who was born in
Germany in a displaced persons camp and moved to
Australia in 1948, has been to Poland many times;
it's a country with a magnetic hold on her.
"I never knew why I was going back. I think
many writers do things without knowing why. Now
I understand that I was searching and searching for
something so completely absent, a world that I feel
immensely connected with."
Like many children of survivors, Brett learned the
language fastest and became her parents' interpreter,
and she became conscious of having her own voice
and of its potential power. She always knew that she
wanted to write, and to move people.
Early in her career, she was a rock journalist, and
even then she asked her subjects the kinds of serious
questions no one else was asking.
It was her husband David Rankin who encour-
aged her to write poetry and to draw upon her own
experience. The result was The Auschwitz Poems,

published in 1986. The poems, she states, "just
came pouring out of me, and became a marker for
what I'd do for the next 20 years."
Brett explains that although her husband isn't
Jewish, he embraces all things Jewish. He's the more
knowledgeable partner, and she often turns to him
for information about Judaism while writing.
About comparisons between herself and Ruth,
Brett notes, 'All writers write out part of themselves.
You simply have to."
Ruth runs a company that writes letters, whether
business, personal or romantic, for those challenged
by the task. Ever opinionated and outspoken, she's
never restrained in identifying anti-Semitism when
she sees it in Poland.
When they return to the house where Edek's fami-
ly lived, they find the kind of concrete objects that
Ruth has longed to have. Edek also unveils a bit of
family history that until then he was unable to speak
about.
Brett is a wonderful storyteller, skillfully mixing
humor and seriousness over the more than 500
pages of Too Many Men.
— Sandee Brawarsky

Lily Brett speaks 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, at the
Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield.

`Bedside Manners'

D

r. Alan Maisel says he couldn't figure out
whether he wanted to be a writer or a
physician, because both "writing and med-
icine are in my blood." Now, he's both.
The 49-year-old San Diego cardiologist is a for-
mer Farmington Hills resident, who, as a youngster,
wrote skits, poems and stories just for fun.
Bedside Manners (IstBooks Library & LeJacq
Communications; $15.95), a medical thriller he
spent five years writing, is about a medical intern
named Danny Raskin. The fact that he has the same
name as the longtime Jewish News columnist is
"purely coincidental," says Dr. Maisel, who has lived
in San Diego since 1982.
In the novel, Raskin criticizes the medical-school
dean's racist admission policies, then is flung into
the middle of a plot by a self-proclaimed "master
race" to erase one of the ugliest chapters of the 20-
century.
Some of Raskin's patients die mysteriously while
he interns at a Chicago hospital, and he is accused
of negligence. Eccentric characters, such as an ex-
dean who is found dead, an ardent Zionist and a
drug dealer, bring intrigue and danger to the story.
Also, he discovers information that makes him
believe the first Jewish vice president of the United

States will be the next victim.
The plot is based on things Dr. Maisel knows best
— physicians and health care professionals, and the
fact that "many in this world still want to get rid of
all Jewish people," he pointed out in an interview.
"I examine the ways that terrorists can kill Jews. I
just let my imagination go. The plot is fiction, but,
in some ways, it really isn't fiction. And it's appropri-
ate of today's events in the world."
Dr. Maisel was trained in cardiology at the
University of California-San Diego, where he is now
professor of medicine and director of the Coronary
Care Unit at a VA Hospital. Besides patient care, he
heads a 14-person research program and has pub-
lished nearly 100 scientific articles.
A graduate of North Farmington High School and
Michigan State University, Dr. Maisel wrote on an
amateur basis, but put writing aside to attend med-
ical school at the University of Michigan. He
returned to writing by taking courses and attending
workshops and seminars.
"I get up at 5:30 a.m. each day to write, and I use
my laptop computer on the many flights I take to
give cardiology lectures around the country," he
said. "I'm working on a second novel."
Dr. Maisel met his wife, Marcy, a dentist, when
both were interning in Chicago. Their five children,
ranging in age from 3 to16, attend the Orthodox
Hebrew Day School in San Diego. Dr. Maisel's late
father, Manny, was a builder, and his mother, Cis
Maisel Kellman, lives in Birmingham.
— Bill Carroll

Dr. Alan Maisel speaks 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, at the
Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield.

The fact that "Bedside
Manners" has a
protagonist named
"Danny Raskin"
is "pure coincidence,"
says author Dr. Alan
Maisel.

JEN

11/2
2001

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