`Leeway Cottage' by
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish. News
B
eth Gutcheon's friendship with
the daughter of the late
pianist-comedian Victor Borge
helped lead the way into Gutcheon's
latest novel, Leeway Cottage (Morrow;
$24.95).
The New York City-based author,
who met Sanna Borge during their
high school years at the exclusive Miss
Porter's School in Connecticut, became
close with the family of the Jewish
entertainer and enamored with their
native country. The book, which fol-
lows a romance involving a mixture of
religions and nations, recounts the res-
cue of Danish Jews by their country-
men during the Holocaust.
"This book was a huge research proj-
ect," says Gutcheon, 60, whose first
husband was Jewish and whose son
identifies himself as Jewish. "I had to
put myself imaginatively in another
country and another era, remembering
what people did and did not think was
morally acceptable and getting the lan-
guage right."
Gutcheon first visited Denmark very
briefly on a young people's tour and
liked it so much she accepted a summer
job as an au pair when she was 18. The
Borges prepared her for the longer stay
The Position'
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
eg Wolitzer became inter-
ested in what she terms
today's "conflicted" public
attention to sex — the growing avail-
ability of porn and accelerated efforts
to suppress that availability — so it
seemed only natural for her to adapt
that interest into a book.
The result is The Position (Scribner;
$24), Wolitzer's latest fiction project,
which chronicles the Mellow
family and their involvement
with a manual about sexual
pleasures.
Roz and Paul Mellow, wife
and husband, write their 1970s
sex manual using illustrations
of themselves and get an
international readership that
includes their four children.
Wolitzer's chapters build
describing the effects of the
notoriety as the children
become adults.
"This is the first time I
have written a big family
novel in which I go into various points
of view and storylines," explains
Wolitzer, 45. "I get to explore these
characters more deeply, both together
and apart, than I have explored charac-
ters in any other book. I like them and
felt kind of sentimental toward them
describing their views of the
Danish character.
"As the book returned me to the
subject, Sanna and her siblings ran-
sacked their libraries for out-of-print
books-and lent them to me," Gutcheon
explains. "Sanna also introduced me to
friends of her parents, and they were
extraordinarily helpful in different
ways. I couldn't have done this without
a whole lot of help from
the Danes."
The novel, which takes
its name from the profiled
family's summer home in
Maine, goes extensively
into the operations of the
Danish underground and
the horrors of the
Ravensbruck concentration
camp. It concludes with the
idea that heaven is a place to
answer life's questions.
Gutcheon, already working
on her eighth novel as a sequel to
Leeway Cottage, has applied her writing
talents outside books of fiction. She
wrote the screenplay for her second
novel, Still Missing, which was pro-
duced as Without a Trace, starring Kate
Nelligan and Judd Hirsch.
An honors graduate of Harvard,
where her major was English literature,
Gutcheon started her writing career
with two nonfiction books about
patchwork quilts. They were based on
her own artistic projects.
"What I wanted to examine with the
marriage described in Leeway Cottage is
the kind of relationship that happened
in my parents' generation," Gutcheon
explains. "I think and hope that kind of
marriage doesn't happen in the same
way anymore.
"The marriage has to do with two
people imagining that they
understand each other until
life shows them how different
they are. Although they are
stunned, the characters keep
with their era by behaving
and sticking it out."
Gutcheon describes her
style of narrative as clear,
simple and accessible even
when the story lines
become very complicated.
She thinks of herself as
falling in line with one of
her favorite writers, Willa Cather.
Gutcheon credits her Jewish parents-
in-law for involving her in the Jewish
culture.
"My parents-in-law were incredibly
important to me when I was young,"
says the author, who attended a
Protestant church as she was growing
up. "They loved me and supported me
in a way I had not found at home, and
I needed it all. That is part of my
attraction for the social beliefs that
often go with Jewish identity." ❑
when the book was completed."
Wolitzer brings in more social issues
as each of the Mellow children con-
fronts a personal concern — drug
abuse, commitment, homosexuality
and identity.
"The fiction that interests me right
now is about how we live today and
how our families live today," Wolitzer
says. "The characters, while they have
very particular stories, are really no dif-
ferent from most of us."
The Position has one Jewish character,
Jack, the extramarital interest of Roz
Mellow.
"I'm Jewish, and as I was growing
up, most of the people I knew were
Jewish, so it just
seemed right to add
that," Mellow
explains. "There is
no overt Jewishness
in the book because I
didn't want religion to
play a big role. I
" }' E
think, in a sense, sex
becomes the religion of
Roz and Paul."
Wolitzer, the daugh-
ter of novelist Hilma
Wolitzer and wife of sci-
ence writer Richard
Panek, says she knew
from the time she started reading that
she would be a writer and sold her first
book while a senior at Brown
University. She wrote six novels before
The Position and two have been adapt-
ed into films, This Is My Life with Julie
Kavner as a standup comedian and
Surrenden Dorothy with Diane Keaton
as a mother adjusting to the loss of a
daughter.
The Keaton movie will be seen on
CBS later this year.
Between and during book projects,
Wolitzer has written magazine articles
and accepted teaching projects at vari-
ous universities, including the
University of Iowa, Boston University
and Skidmore College.
"I'm a classic mother writer," says the
New York City-based author. "I write
when the kids are out of the house, and
I keep school hours. I do get cabin
fever and only work on a laptop com-
puter so that I can write in coffee
shops, gyms and all around the city. I
like getting out and being in the world.
It's stimulating."
As Wolitzer speaks to groups about
The Position, she finds that readers are
questioning the morality of the two
main characters in letting their young
children see the book at the center of
the novel's storyline. The author's two
sons — Gabriel, 14, and Charlie, 10
— have not seen The Position.
"Gabriel knows what the book is
about, and he is interested in reading
it," she says. "I said he ought to wait.
My 10-year-old knows that it's about a
family, and he knows a bit about the
rest. I don't want to make children
crave something and, therefore, turn
it into a hot-button for them."
Meg
olitzer
zdt tt eu.
the
Position
❑
Shop
Online
s
y
E
Way...
ae
The Jewish.com
Store...where the
Jewish community
shops!
We are your
exclusive source
for all Judaica.
Offering a huge
selection of gifts of
all simchas.
Religious items,
jewelry, music,
books, Shabbat
and holiday items,
kosher gift baskets
and lots more.
Browse the store
often for new
items and spe-
cials. Over 3000
products!
www.jewish.com
or
800.875.6621
ITN
5/12
2005
61