On The Bookshelf
The Southern Experience
In his new novel, "Chicken Dreaming Corn," Roy Hoffman tears down stereotypes with a
homegrown brand of Southern Jewish lit.
BRADFORD R. PILCHER
Special to the Jewish News
T
: /
12/31
2004
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Wiesel told him "that a good writer can sit and
watch the people on a street corner and find, in
humanity passing by, stories to tell."
It was in that humanity, passing by, that
Hoffman found his voice. As a journalist and essay-
ist, he's excelled at finding the ordinary yet fasci-
nating stories that surround us.
Back Home, his collection of nonfiction essays
reality television, he showed no sign of lamenting a
death for his art. "What surprises me," he says
without hesitation, "is there are so many people
with a depth of passion who want to write short
stories.
"Maybe it's changing as there are fewer young
people who say they want to be literary artists, but
the level of satisfaction of putting words onto a
page persists."
here's a man in Fairhope, Ala. He's a writer
and a Jew, and he's got a new book out
called Chicken Dreaming Corn (University
of Georgia Press; $24.95). He's won the Lillian
Smith Award for fiction (for a previous novel,
Almost Family), and his nonfiction collection,
Back Home: Journeys Through Mobile, received
critical praise. His name is Roy Hoffman.
A Family Story
But Hoffman is much more interesting
than his resume, which has him working for
Hoffman's father is still alive, the oldest prac-
two decades as a journalist, speechwriter, edi-
ticing attorney in Alabama at the age of 95.
tor and teacher in New York City before
He grew up with a father named Morris over
returning to Alabama. What makes Hoffman,
a shop on Dauphin Street, the setting of
and his writing, so appealing is his endless
Chicken Dreaming Corn, so I asked Hoffman
attempt to tell the fading truth of people's
what his father thought of the book.
lives.
"I think he's happy to know that I could
Chicken Dreaming Corn — the title comes
find something in his life to explore in this
:.1,.
from a Romanian expression, with an
Roy Hoffman: "The level
way," says Hoffman with a slight smile. He
Alabama twist, symbolic of the strivings of
of satisfaction ofputting
quickly shifts over to the central character of
ordinary folks for sustenance and the realiza-
words onto a page persists."
the book, a man modeled on his grandfather.
tion of their hopes and dreams — is a piece
"I only have two vivid recollections of my
of fiction; but it is rooted in the true story of
grandfather," he says. "One long, long
and interviews,
the author's grandfather, Morris Hoffman.
Orthodox seder at his house and one where
told predictable
The story changes more than does the name, but
he's lying on his back and I'm climbing on
stories — an
Hoffman's grandfather was a Romanian Jewish
his belly."
interview with
shopkeeper in Alabama, just like Morris Kleinman,
Nevertheless, Hoffman says his grandfather
the longtime
the lead character in the novel.
is incredibly vivid to him. The author's 20
mayor of Mobile,
The book paints a portrait of an Alabama street
years in New York gave him enough urban
a reflection on
filled with Cubans, Poles, Lebanese and Greeks, to
experience to "appreciate the immigrant nar-
baseball with
say nothing of Kleinman's boisterous Romanian
rative."
In "Chicken Dreaming Corn," a memo-
Hank Aaron's dad rable character gives us just a little bit of a
Jewish family.
"The newcomer in the South would be
— but there were time lost to us in history.
Put mildly, it isn't the Deep South we usually
more likely to be viewed as the other," says
think of; and it certainly isn't the image a Jew from also the out-of-
Hoffman in response to a question on the
Jersey or the Bronx would likely conjure. Yet it is as the-ordinary sto-
differences between New York Jewish culture
ries, the ones you wouldn't expect.
much a part of the Southern heritage as honey-
and Southern Jewish culture. "By the same token,
During our conversation, he remembered one
suckle on summer days and belles at the ball.
assimilation is much quicker in the South — the
interview in particular he did with Alma Fisher.
Adds Hoffman, "it's also part of the Jewish her-
blending of the immigrant culture and the larger
She was a Holocaust survivor, but she was also a
itage."
culture."
childhood friend of Eva Braun.
All of which is a roundabout way to say that the
Though Hoffman met with her many times,
immigrant experience of his grandfather was a
Street Stories
including the times where she lay ill in the hospi-
major draw for Hoffman. He explored it in nonfic-
tal, he first discovered Fisher's story in more hum-
"Does the Jewish writer have a certain burden?"
tion form when he published Back Home, and he
ble ways.
Hoffman asks himself as we sit in a bookstore cafe.
wanted very much to explore it in fictional terms.
"This epic tale unfolded for me as she told it on
"Yes. Why? It's because, especially [for] Southern
"It was an artistic choice I made, and we live and
a street corner of Mobile, Ala.," remembers
Jewish writers, if we don't tell our stories, I'm not
die by the artistic choices we make," he begins. "By
Hoffman. "It was a place no one would ever
sure who will."
writing fiction, it enabled me to create characters I
believe you could find a story of such conse-
It's a sentiment that Hoffman takes seriously.
could put the reader on intimate terms with. This
Over and over again, he stresses writing as a way of quence.
enabled me to walk in his shoes in a way."
A firm believer that "you have someone down
seeing the world and preserving it.
the street with a story," Hoffman uses his experi-
The viewpoint stems, perhaps, from an
Southern Jewish
ence to counsel aspiring writers to look for those
encounter with Elie Wiesel that Hoffman had
stories down the block. "You have to begin by
some years ago. The notable Holocaust survivor
This book, both homage to his grandfather and his
being observant of the people around you," he
and prolific author visited Mobile, the small
own family's roots in the Southern immigrant
begins.
Alabama town of Hoffman's birth. Hoffman told
experience and a fictional world of people divorced
When I asked him about the seeming decline in
Wiesel he had nothing to write about, having lived
from any real events, is also a divergent narrative in
fiction writing in favor of nonfiction exposes and
another way.
through neither a Holocaust nor a war.