4 .

`In The Image'

S

erious readers everywhere should be thankful
Dara Horn, the young author of In the Image
(W.W. Norton and Co.; $24.95), does not
like beer.
At age 22, she was on a fellowship at Cambridge
University in England pursuing a graduate degree in
Modern Hebrew. While all her peers were frequent-
ing the pubs, Horn wrote her debut novel.
"I had all this free time," she says with a laugh. "I
had published magazine articles before — per-
sonal and travel essays — but had never even
been interested in writing fiction until then.
"I began reading through my notebooks,
where I had jotted down all these ideas for arti-
cles, and I began to piece those ideas together."
Contrary to popular wisdom, Horn found that
fiction does not have to be based on what you
know; rather, you can write about what other people
know.
In the Image travels back and forth through time
and space, offer snapshots of the intertwining lives
of Vienna native William Landsmann and his late
granddaughter's best friend, Leora. Capturing life in
early 20th-century Europe and contemporary New
York, it is a novel about people seeking love, corn-
mitment and fulfillment, as the author examines the
religious and secular choices of each character.
"I love to listen to other people's stories and con-
nect them together," explains Horn. "Parts of the
book that seem like I made them up — like the
tefillin that were thrown overboard as immigrants
arrived in New York harbor or the factory bosses set-
ting the clocks back an hour — were true.
"The tossing overboard of tefdlin was described in
a Yiddish poem, and a set of tefillin recovered from
the Atlantic Ocean is displayed in an museum in
eastern Canada. Letters from repentant factory own-
ers describing how they defrauded their workers were
pdblished in the Yiddish newspaper The Forward.
'And parts of the book that may seem autobiograph-
ical, like the character of Leora, I made up. Although
on the surface I am similar to Leora — we are both
young Jewish women from New Jersey who were then
involved in the magazine world — the formative parts
of her life were very different from mine."
In-writing her first novel, Horn had a purpose
other than connecting stories. She set out to weave
sacred text seamlessly into a secular novel.
Since the age of 12, when she became the weekly
Torah reader at her family's Conservative synagogue,
Horn has been fascinated with Hebrew; later, in col-
lege, she studied Modern Hebrew literature, and, in
her senior year, began to learn Yiddish.
She is now a doctoral candidate in comparative
literature at Harvard University, focusing on
Hebrew and Yiddish literature.
Horn explains: "The early Modern Hebrew writ-
ers interweave references to Jewish texts throughout
their works. When they were writing about secular
topics or even against religion, they would incorpo-
rate those references.
"It's easy to do this in Hebrew because there are
biblical echoes tied to so many words. Yiddish writ-
ers do this also.

"I wanted to see if it was possible to pull it off in
English."
Horn has already begun working on her second
novel, but she hopes to remain in academia after she
obtains her doctoral degree.
"I have a tremendous love of Hebrew and Yiddish
literature," she says. "More importantly, however, I
feel a sense of obligation to keep Yiddish alive. There
are so few people my age who can even read it."
Even though In the Image is Jewish to the
core, Horn is confident it will appeal to non-
Jews as well.
In fact, it was a non-Jewish editor at her
publishing house who made the offer to buy
the novel, offering Horn a two-book contract
as well.
"The book raises spiritual questions that everyone
can relate to," says Horn. "How big a claim do you
want religion to have on your life, and what is the
role of chance?
"Also, anyone familiar with the Bible should have
no problem understanding the book.
"Really, the true route to the universal is to be
particular."

— Gail Naron Chalew
The Jewish News (New Orleans)

Dara Horn (with novelist Nicole Krauss) speaks 7:30
p.m. Monday, Nov. 11, at the Jewish Community
Center in Oak Park and 10 a.m. Tuesday, Nov.. 12, at
the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield.

Illuminated
Soul'

A chat with former Windsorite
Aryeh Lev Stollman.

DEBRA B. DARVICK

Special to the Jewish News

A

ryeh Lev Stollman's The Illuminated
Soul is an entrancing story of an
exquisite refugee from Prague — the
elegant and mysterious Eva
Laquedem Higashi — who, along with a mag-
nificent five-centuries-old Hebrew manuscript,
forever transforms the lives of a widow, Adele
Ivri, and her two young sons.
In reviewing Stollman's novel for the Jewish
News last spring, Sandee Brawarsky wrote that
the author, who is also a neuroradiologist, "pro-
vides the reader with much to reflect upon
about exile and wandering, the brain and the
soul, memory and beauty and the aftereffects of
the Holocaust."
Reached in his apartment of Manhattan's
Upper West Side, Aryeh Lev Stollman looks
back on the origins of his latest book.

JN: In The Illuminated Soul a visa snafu
strands Eva Laquedem Higashi in Windsor,
Ontario. Unable to return to Detroit, she takes
up lodging with a widow and her two young
sons. What is the significance of Eva's predica-
ment?
.
ALS: At the outset, I had the notion of a char-

acter who. was a stranger in town. When I start-
ed. writing I didn't know she would be a refugee,
but that's how it evolved. When I was growing
up in Windsor, there were many refugees both
in Windsor where I lived and across the river in.
Detroit.
I have strong feelings about the story of the
Wandering Jew. It is specifically a Christian
story as it recounts the time when Jesus is going
to the cross and stops. in various places to try to
rest. According to the story, the Jew at whose
home he stops says, "Go on your way and get
what you deserve." Jesus is said to have replied,
"I will go and you will tarry till I return."
Because the Wandering Jew has lived so long,
he has all the knowledge of the world — sci-
ence, history, language. I wanted to take that
Wandering Jew back to its roots. Back to the
wandering of Abraham who left his home for
Canaan and beyond. Back to the wandering of
the Jews in the desert, which is not necessarily a
punishment but is the growth of a people from

,

.

A doctoral student in
Hebrew and Yiddish
literature at Harvard,
Dara Horn set out to
weave sacred text into
a secular Jewish novel

`ILLUMINATED SOUL' on page 91

II /1
2002

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