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Giving the spirits of the Holocaust the run
of Gotham, author Thane Rosenbaum
updates the golem legend.
John Tanasychuk, Detroit Free Press, January 8th, 1999
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T
DIANE COLE
Special to the Jewish News
bane Rosenbaum's
iconoclastic new
novel, The Golems o f
Gotham (Harper
Collins; $25.95), starts with a
bang —literally. On an other-
wise ordinary Shabbat in Miami
Beach, Holocaust survivor
Lothar Levin is called to the
Torah and, in full view of the
congregation, blows out his
brains.
"A Jewish brain shot out from
his head and splaetered all over
the unscrolled sheepskin as
though the synagogue had just
hosted its first animal sacrifice,"
reads the opening paragraph.
If you find that too outrageous
Thane Rosenbaum: "Once you invoke the
to digest, go no further. This is
just a taste of the Gothic horrors numbered arms of survivors, you're going to
wind up with a very different recipe."
and kabbalistic wonders that are
to come. Rosenbaum, the author
of two previous works of fiction
and the literary editor of Tikkun
tagonist of Rosenbaum's latest work
magazine, aims to shock us, at the
of fiction. Similar characters are at
outset, from the complacency of the
the center of his short story collec-
conventional. This deliberate
tion Elijah Invisible, which won
testing of the boundaries
the Wallant Prize for Jewish-
of taste from the very get-
American
fiction, and of his
go seems designed to warn
first
novel,
Second
Hand Smoke.
the weak-stomached away.
What's
different
about
Those who remain unfazed and
Rosenbaum's latest foray is that the
continue through to the end, howev-
ghosts who spook the hero this time
er, will be rewarded by a provocative
around aren't just a metaphor. Their
exploration of Jewish myth and his-
ethereal spirits have moved into his
tory as seen through a post-
house, possessed his daughter, and
Holocaust perspective.
might just take over the whole isle
In particular, it is the perspective
of
Manhattan.
of the children — and grandchildren
Rosenbaum's
idea is ingenious — a
— of Holocaust survivors that
hip,
contemporary
updating of the
obsesses Rosenbaum, himself the
legend
of
the
golem.
In traditional
child of Holocaust survivors. Indeed,
folklore, the golem (Hebrew for
a history-haunted son of Holocaust
"shapeless mass") is an automaton
survivors is not only the main pro-
composed of clay and brought to life
Diane Cole is the author of 'After
by mystical means. Through the cen-
Great Pain: A New Life Emerges,"
now available in paperback from
Winedale Publishing.
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