Living Well
Homegrown Talent
The Hero ithin I
Local authors offer a wide range of books
for a broad audience.
SHARON LUCKERMAN
StaffWriter
T
hael Adler, The Magical
?f Pee Wee Mulligan
Apel, Memory Effects: The
twat and the Art of Secondary
Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, Searching
in. the Holocaust
ene Brooks, Journey Into
anxiousness
hen, Jewish Detroit
ovensky, Zohar
Fox and Kate K. Smith,
Journey
ns, The Handy Answer
(And Parents)
an, I Remember
om Kalib, The
n o fthe Eastern
°Pie
Levin, The Glass Heart
rh McClellen, The Hero
History of Track 6- Field in
Century
I Panush, The Splice of
ts and Israel-David
ng/Berenice Last Queen
. Bob Schwartz, I Run, Therefore
Nuts!
. Magda Selineci, There and
ere and Now
laine Serling (musical CD),
in the Circle
17. Jill Sklar, The First Year: Crohns
isease
18. Karen Tintori, Trapped: The
909 Cherry Mine Disaster
19. Ethel Wasser, The Baboon Man
ats a Mother To Do?)
0. Joyce Weiss, Take the Ride of
our Life
2002
114
.
he seventh annual Local Author Fair at the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit is big-
ger than ever, with several authors who are making
their mark not only in Detroit but around the coun-
try. Twenty local authors will meet the public and be available
to discuss their books from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 10, in
the Janice Charach Epstein Gallery at the JCC in West
Bloomfield.
For the first time, the fair will feature a songwriter. Elaine
Serling of Birmingham was "inspired by Jewish traditions and
values" to create her CD Join the Circle (Danza Publications;
$18), featuring original music for young people.
Also, two of the local authors, Karen Tintori of West
Bloomfield and Dr. Sidney Bolkosky of Oak Park, will speak at
the 51st Annual Book Fair, which opens Wednesday, Nov. 6,
and runs through Sunday, Nov. 17. He speaks 11 a.m. Nov. 6;
she speaks 10 a.m. Nov. 11.
This year's works by locally based writers range from a magi-
cal children's story and a cookbook for people in recovery, to
humorous sports essays and new ways of looking at the
Holocaust. Following is a roundup of some of the authors and
their varied works at the Local Author Fair.
• What happens when a six-inch character gets into a magical
book of maps? He gets to go wherever he lands! So begins West
Bloomfield's Dr. Raphael Adler's book The Magical Adventures
of Pee Wee Mulligan (1stBooks Library; $14.90). Dr. Adler says
he wrote this story many years ago when he worked in New
York state's Catskill Mountains. He invented Pee Wee's
adventures to keep kids busy so their parents could have
fun at the resort. But soon the parents came along with
their children to hear his stories of the little hero.
• In Memory Effects: The Holocaust and the Art of
Secondary Witnessing (Rutgers University Press; $28), Dora
Apel of Pleasant Ridge analyzes the ways artists born after the
Holocaust have come to terms with that experience — especial-
ly their sense of Jewish ethnic identity.
"Meaning is not fixed; it's mutable," says Apel, the W
Hawkins Ferry Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art
History at Wayne State University
"The stories my mother [a Holocaust survivor] told me about
her experience were haunting, painful," Apel says. Part of the
pain is the way memory changes. You never quite know what's
true and what isn't. In her book, Apel analyzes the ways in
which artists born after the Holocaust represent a history they
did not experience firsthand.
• Jenny Fox of Orchard Lake, a dietician, and Kate K. Smith,
a chef in Birmingham, developed original recipes designed to
stabilize blood sugar levels, which is especially important for
people who are recovering from food or alcohol addiction.
Their collection of recipes became Recipes for the Journey: A
Cookbook and Guide to Good Health in Recovery (Morris Press;
$19.99).
• When psychoanalyst John Hartman of Ann Arbor made a
trip to Przemysl, Poland, to explore his grandparents' roots, he
TRAPPED
THE 1909
CHERRY MINE DISASTER
never guessed he'd write a book with
Clockwise:
the young Polish archivist he met in the
"The Hero Within
town. Though Hartman does not speak
Us: A History of
Polish and Jacek Krochmal doesn't
Track & Field in the
speak English, the two spent three years
20th Century"
interviewing and writing about the
by Keith McClellen
Holocaust from both a Jewish and non-
Jewish perspective. The result is I
I Run, Therefore I
Remember Every Day (TPN; $30).
Am Nuts!
Hartman says that proceeds from the
by Bob Schwartz
book are going toward restora-
tion of the Jewish cemetery in
Memory Effects: The
Przemysl.
Holocaust & the An
Krochmal was interested in
of Secondary
writing this book, Hartman
Witnessing
says, because Jews were not
by Dora Apel
included in the history of the town
since 1939 — a majof omission.
Trapped: The 1909
"The townspeople's positive and neg-
Cherry Mine Disaster
ative views of Jews [today] ," he adds,
by Karen Tintori
"shows the variety and complexity of
the Polish Jewish connection."
Hartman says the biggest surprise in
writing this book was learning the extent t o which some Poles
went to rescue Jews.
• The only short-story writer in the group, attorney Robert
Edward Levin of West Bloomfield, says his stories reflect the
place where the heartfelt and the heartless meet. The Glass Heart
(lstBooks Library; $14.50), his second book, is about people
trying to escape a haunting past or looking for reason in the
face of madness."
• In The Hero Within Us: A History of Track & Field in the
20th Century (Eastern Michigan Press; $24), Keith IV1cClellen
of Oak Park focuses on Michigan athletes, many of them
Jewish, in the history of track and field this century. He says
that Jews were attracted to these sports because in the 1930 and
1940s, track and field was the first sport in the United States
that was opened to all.
"