The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit Institute for Retired Professionals presents On The Bookshelf Western Jazz Quartet `Be My Knife' a resident faculty ensemble in the School of Music, Western University Trent Kynaston, saxophone • Thomas Knific, bass Stephen Zegree, piano • Tim Froncek, druMs with Sunny Wilkinson, vocalist Israeli author David Grossman writes an intimate novel about two married, middle-aged adults who reawaken to feelings they thought had passed them by. SANDEE BRAWARS KY Special to the Jewish News y Wednesday, April 24, 2002 • 1:30 p.m. Jewish Community Center of Metropoliotan Detroit Eugene and Marcia Applebaum Jewish Community Campus Marion and David Handleman Hall and Auditorium 6600 West Maple Road • West Bloomfield CC 114 For more information, call the IRP office at (248) 967-4030. Featuring Black Angus Beef, Rack of Lamb, King Crab Legs, and Pastas... all in a comfortable atmosphere. ALL DINNERS ARE 5-COURSE AND THEY INCLUDE: Soup, Salad, Sorbet, Entree, Choice of Starch & Desserts! DINNER AS LOW AS $ 9.95 Mention this ad & receive Lunch: 5 OFF Monday - Friday • 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. your total food bill Jiff 4/19 2002 82 (must have 2 or more in you party) Reservations Encouraged Dinner: Tuesday - Thursday • 5 p.m. - 9 p.m. Friday - Saturday • 5pm - 1 Opm (248) 70603430 1302 W. Huron Rd., Waterford, MI 48327 want to be able to say to myself, 'I bled truth with her.' Yes, that's what I want. Be a knife for me, and I, I swear, will be a knife for you." . The novel is told first through Yair's letters — sometimes he writes her sever- al letters a day — and then a shorter sec- tion of the book includes excerpts of Miriam's diary; the final pages are writ- ten as narration. ou have to peel back layer after layer of cataracts from the soul," Israeli novelist David Grossman says about writing. He's speaking of his own soul; in each novel he goes deep within, him- self to probe the inner lives of the char- acters he creates, exploring a landscape of love, language and memory. Widely published interna- tionally, Grossman has been "Be My Knife": compared to Kafka and Joyce. A love affair o His writing is beautifully craft- words between ed and gripping; it doesn't characters always make for easy reading, yearning for but it's more than worthwhile. the connection Recently, he was in New that has always York City as part of a lecture eluded them. tour in connection with his latest book to be published here, Be My Knife (Farrar Straus & Giroux; $25), trans- lated- by Vera Almog and Maya Gurantz. Grossman is the youngest Yair says they have of Israel's leading novelists, "a likeness like the and, at 48, he looks much one that exists, say, younger. His spoken lan- guage has the intensity and between two cups broken in exactly the energy that's evident in his same place." Both are prose. married, and reveal In an interview, he's articu- David Grossman: "I secrets of their late and speaks slowly, pausing have a clear idea of what desires and disap- to find the right word, some- I want Israel to be." pointments and times apologizing for his reflect on the silences English although he speaks between their letters. fluently and poetically. He doesn't want to have a usual love affair with Miriam as he realizes it would Telling The Truth fall into the cliche of adultery. Instead, Grossman's earlier novels, including Yair, who's adept at adultery, wants to try The Zigzag Kid, delve into the emo- something he hasn't done before. tional lives of children, and in Be My Knife, he writes of an unusual love affair between adults. Yair, a dealer in rare books, is struck by. the appearance of a teacher named Miriam when he notices her at a class reunion: Contacting her by mail, he suggests an encounter in written words only: "We could be like two people who inject themselves with truth serum and at long last have to tell it, the truth. I Readers Journey Is this a love story? "Yes, it's a strange love story" Grossman replies. "I wanted to write about a different kind of love. It's a love story because it's about two total strangers who manage to create their own bubble of intimacy"— their own verbal territory Grossman finds the notion of "meet- ing a stranger's language" to be exciting.