Introducing ••• Charlotte Mendelson

C

harlotte Mendelson was born
in 1972 in west London, then
moved with her family to
a charming house beside St. John's
College, Oxford, where her father
taught public international law. Her
first love was the French horn, which
she opted to play because, she said,
it was said to be painfully difficult to
learn.
Mendelson, who studied ancient and
modern history at Oxford, already has
established a following in England,
where she lives with her partner,
author Joanna Briscow. Her new novel,
When We Were Bad (Houghton Mifflin;
$24), begins when the son of one of
London's leading rabbis opts out of his
own wedding.

0: "England is the least
Jewish country in the world,"
you said in an interview. Yet
your book, which is distinctly
Jewish, received exceptional
reviews and was very popular.
Can you explain your quote?
A: Life for British Jews is very differ-

Introducing

P

hilip Lerman was past his 20s,
past his 30s, into his 40s, and
he really wanted a child. His
wife did, too. So they had a son, Max.
Raising a young child when you're
middle-aged can be difficult. But
mostly it's a joy, as Lerman details in
Dadditude: How A Real Man Became a
Real Dad (Da Capo Press; $19.95).
Lerman is the former national edi-
tor of USA Today, former co-executive
producer of America's Most Wanted and
co-author, with John Walsh, of the best-
selling book No Mercy.

Q: It's quite a leap from

America's Most Wanted to

writing about your son's pas-
sion for Jennifer Lopez info-
mercials. Did you always have
a good sense of humor, or did
that develop with parenting?
A: I think that parenting takes a particu-

larly acute sense of humor. Like when
you're changing your little boy's diaper,
and he looks up at you — pure trust,
pure love, and you are both enthralled

When
• We Were Bad

"

ent to that of their American cousins.
The U.S. has a tradition of immigra-
tion, after all; Britain's idea of tradi-
tion means tweed and fox hunting
and small villages, which have been
foreigner-free for a thousand years.
And the British are in some ways the
least Jewish people on Earth: no hand
gestures, indifference to food, "clever"
used as a dirty word — so, although
yes, it's relatively safe, and there are
many prominent British Jews, I sus-
pect most of us self-edit and feel vul-
nerable to an extent that would amaze
you.
That's why I was very nervous of the
reaction from the British press and
readers — which turned out to be com-
pletely wrong. The reviews were amaz-
ing, with one exception: the Jewish
Chronicle.

Q: Is having a partner (author
Joanna Briscoe) who also is a
writer a benefit?
A: We do edit each other's work; she's

brilliant at novel-doctor as well as

•• •

writing, and I'm a book editor anyway.
We're frequently going for walks on
Hampstead Heath, a huge, wild public
park around which When We Were Bad
is set, and saying, "But how can I make
them get from A to B?" But, once the
books are published, we do keep our
writing lives as separate as possible;
we're not a double act.

Q: What makes you say,
"Wow, that was a great
book!" when you're done
reading?
A: Personally, long descriptions of dust

swirling in beams of light don't interest
me. It's easy to be snobby about plot;
but Dickens wrote in installments, just
like a soap opera, so he had to create
stories and characters that kept his
readers hungry for more, and that's
good enough for me. There's nothing
like caring so much about what will
happen to the characters that you'll
miss your stop on the train just to
finish the chapter. The last book that
made me feel that was Bleak House
(by Dickens).

-.1,1 0
CHARLOTTE ?,1E-

ELS

Or:

Q: Who is your favorite char-
acter in When We Were Bad,
and why?
A: They all do contain a piece of me,

I confess. Norman, the father, is my
inner grumpy old man; but I feel for
Frances, the good daughter who can't
stay good forever, and Leo, the dutiful
but lustful son — all their dilemmas feel
possible, I'm ashamed to say. After all,
what I really wanted to call the novel
was Fifty Ways to Leave Your Mother,
and that's something with which we
can all identify.

- Elizabeth Applebaum

Philip Lerman

with this wonderful, connected moment
and cooing, gently and quietly — and
he pees directly in your eye. If you
can't learn to laugh at yourself in that
moment, you probably never will.

Q: What is the best skill a man
of any age can bring to parent-
ing?
A: Goofiness, I think, is our best thing.

The problem is, dads can tend to be
very goal-oriented: I will teach my
child to catch, to throw, to burp on
command. I will take him places. I
will show him things. Because that is
"what dads do."
But the best thing a dad can do is to
sit your goofy self down, and just "be
there." Don't take the kid anywhere,
don't accomplish anything — just get
down on the floor, pick up a Lego per-
son and announce, "I am Robota from
the planet Shmata. Who dares to play
with me?" — and let your kid take it
from there. Kids live in a rich and won-
derful fantasy world; dads are great at
visiting that world. They should stop by

Now that Max is 5,
our lives are exploding
with things we both like
Q: You write very
to
do together: riding
tenderly about an
READ 44
HOW A AR EAL DA °
bikes (he's on a two-
incident when your
HE CAME
Phil
wheeler now), download-
wife left town, and
ing songs from iTunes
it was you and
(he favors rap; I like rock;
your son Max, then
we compromise on the
2, alone together.
Ramones), dropping a
Max woke up in the
bunch of Mentos into a
middle of the night
bottle of Diet Coke and mak-
and cried for a long
ing a volcano (dads, you gotta try that
time. But you com-
one). And sometimes, I get a big wide-
forted him, and he fell asleep
mouthed smile and a big hug and a loud
in your arms. As Max gets
"Thanks, Da-da!" That's pretty close.
older, what replaces that kind

more often.

11111

of moment?
A: Nothing. There is nothing as sweet

as that moment when your child, who
has not yet learned to speak, manages
to tell you of his fears, and then sur-
renders them to you, and lets you kiss
and cuddle them away; and you linger
a moment, listening to that tiny snore
in the dark and know that, at least for
this one moment, all is right with the
world.

Q: When Max is an adult, what
do you hope he will say about his
childhood time with you?
A: Max is a very funny guy and a very

sweet guy. I hope he finds a way to
retain some of that. And if he does,
and people ask him, "Was your dad like
that, too?" and he says, "Yeah, kinda"
— that would be very, very nice.

- Elizabeth Applebaum

October 25 • 2007

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