Arts & Entertainment

The Unmerry Widow

Anne Roiphe describes her life after the death of her husband.

Sandee Brawarsky
Special to the Jewish News

A

nne Roiphe has written with
great candor about her Park
Avenue childhood, about moth-
erhood and about marriage; so it was
natural that after her husband of almost
40 years died she would write about being
a widow.
Her newest memoir, Epilogue (Harper;
$24.95), is a beautifully written work; it's
a journey to a land many will travel to,
reluctantly. Her honesty, intensity, love and
glimpses of hope make this a life-affirm-
ing book.
Her husband, psychoanalyst Herman
Roiphe, referred to here as H., died sud-
denly in December 2005 at the age of 82;
the author was just short of 70. She started
to think about writing a book several
months later but didn't begin for another
few months.
"I started to come back to myself, and

writing is part of myself' she says in an

interview.
Now the odd person in the coupled
world in which she lived, she writes about
loneliness and near-despair, about memo-
ries of her marriage, sharing her longings
for intimacy again without certainty that
she'll experience it. She tells of facing the
mundane tasks that had fallen on his side
of their partnership, about financial chal-
lenges and a lawsuit related to his estate.
And she writes about her forays into dat-
ing.
Her daughters placed an ad in the per-
sonals section of the New York Review of
Books, which yielded many responses, and
later she met men through a dating Web
site. Dating in her 70s was very different
from the last time she had dated after her
divorce from her first husband in her late
20s.
Others have written hilarious tales of
dating as a parent and grandparent; her
stories are more brave than funny. She

meets odd men and
some who behave
like teenagers on first
dates, all with many
chapters behind
them. To her credit,
she has the spirit of
a journalist as she
meets men, ever curi-
ous about their life
and stories, even as
she knows a relation-
ship with them may
be unlikely.
Throughout her
Anne Roiphe
four decades of writ-
ing and 15 books,
including the novels Up the Sandbox and
Lovingkindness and nonfiction works 1185
Park Avenue and Fruitful: A Real Mother
in the Modern World, Roiphe hasn't been
concerned with privacy.
"I. believe and have always believed that
whatever is in my mind is in someone

EPIL GUE

ANNE ROIPHE

else's mind. I'm only human. The secrets
we keep from each other, the walls we put
up so that no one sees what you think may
be awful, all isolate us, keep us from shar-
ing important moments:' she says.
In the earliest stages of grief, the author
did not turn to books. Not reading was

Maggie's Back in Town

Margaret Garner has another date with Detroit.

Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News

M

argaret Garner, Jewish com-
poser Richard Danielpour's
groundbreaking opera that had
its world premiere at the Detroit Opera
House in 2005, will return there beginning
Saturday, Oct. 18, for five performances.
Garner launches Michigan Opera Theatre's
37th year.
"It's an exact reprise of the '05 ver-
sion," said Danielpour from his New
York home. "I'm grateful for the wide
acclaim and attention it received then,
so I didn't want to change anything.
After the premiere, the opera played in
New York, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and
Charlotte, N.C."
For his first opera, Danielpour spent
five years thinking about the subject
of slavery, then two years planning the
work and three years writing it. Nobel

C12

October 16 2008

Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison is
the librettist.
The pre-Civil War story is based on the
life of Margaret Garner, a runaway slave
who, facing recapture, drowns her chil-
dren and attempts suicide. Her trial later
became the subject of an intense national
debate. The production includes a slave
auction, a lynching and other typically
operatic tragic scenes.
Internationally renowned mezzo-
soprano Denyce Graves returns (Oct. 18,
22, 25) to alternate in the tile role with •
Tracie Luck (Oct. 19, 24), who sang the
role in New York. Baritone Gregg Baker
also returns to reprise the role of Robert
Garner, alternating with Robert Blackwell.
Baritone James Westman alternates the
role of Edward Gaines with Timothy Mix,
and soprano Angela Simpson reprises the
role of Cilia with soprano Mary Elizabeth
Williams.
Since the Garner premiere, Danielpour,

52, has composed 17
orchestral works, cham-
ber music and a solo
piano piece. "I'm like a
shark:' he quipped. "I
have to keep moving or
I die:'
His parents came
to America from Iran,
fleeing the Nazis dur-
ing World War II and
settling in New York,
where Danielpour (which
means son of Daniel)
still teaches. He studied
at the New England
Conservatory of Music in
Boston and at Juilliard in
New York City.
"I have a strong Jewish
heritage ... but my fam-
ily really wasn't very
religious:' he explains.

Gregg Baker and Denyce Graves in Margaret Garner