Arts & Entertainment
ON THE COVER
Fantastic Fiction
... for when you're looking to jump into an amazing world
of political adventure, lost love and mysterious poets.
Elizabeth Applebaum
Special to the Jewish News
S
ongs for the Butcher's Daughter
by Peter Manseau is narrated by
a young man who finds memoirs
written by a Yiddish poet — memoirs
that, in ways unimaginable, coincide with
the narrator's own life. Here, a few ques-
tions for Peter Manseau:
Q: Why a book about a Yiddish poet?
A: For three years after college I worked
for an organization that collects old Yiddish
books. It's called the National Yiddish Book
Center and I ended up work-
ing there mainly because
it was right down the road
from my university. I had
previously no cultural con-
nection to Yiddish — my
family is Irish Catholic/
French Canadian — but as
soon as I started working
with the books, which in the
beginning I could not read
at all, I became intrigued by
what they contained.
As I learned enough of the language to
labor my way through the books, I found
that some of them were written by writers
with whom I felt an immediate connec-
tion. Many of the makers of Yiddish litera-
ture, the poets especially, had like me been
given a rigorous religious education but
More Fiction
Thursday, Nov:,
10:30 a.m. (WB): Tatiana De Rosnay,
Sarah's Key
A journalist is drawn to the story of
10-year-old Sarah, who was taken in the
roundup of French Jews, and finds her
own life forever linked to Sarah's.
7:15 p.m. (WB): Evan Fallenberg, Light Fell
Twenty years after Joseph is drawn into
a close emotional and physical relation-
ship with a man – a highly regarded reli-
gious scholar – he tries to reconnect with
the family he left. (See more event infor-
mation in "Special Events" on page B14.)
B16
October 30 • 2008
then tried to push away from it, without
much success.
Yiddish literature is born of this tension,
and so is Songs for the Butcher's Daughter.
I wanted to write a book that both told
the story of those who made Yiddish lit-
erature and conveyed my experience as an
outsider to this culture getting to know it
from the inside.
Q: Your books have to do with religion.
What role does faith have in your own life?
A: I'm not a religious believer, but there's
no question faith has built itself into the
architecture of my mind. Probably because
I had such a pervasively reli-
gious upbringing, I have always
been fascinated by stories of
belief and more importantly
stories of the changing of beliefs.
Q: Did you have to do a great
deal of research for your book?
A: I went back and reread
much of the Yiddish literature
I had first encountered a few
years ago — short-story writ-
ers Lamed Shapiro, I.L. Peretz;
poets Moshe Leib Halpern, Celia Dropkin,
Jacob Glatsheyn and Abraham Sutzkever;
and novelists Chaim Grade and Isaac
Bashevis Singer.
Along with this I did research ranging
from the history of the Kishinev pogrom
to the rise and fall of the New York Yiddish
Monday, Nov. 10
10:30 a.m. (WB) and 1 p.m. (OP): Ellen
Feldman, Scottsboro: A Novel
The author of The Boy Who Loved
Anne Frank sets her new novel against
the true story of the Scottsboro Boys,
nine young African-American men arrest-
ed for the alleged rapes of two white
prostitutes in the 1930s Jim Crow South.
Tuesday, Nov. 11
1 p.m. (WB): Chris Bohjalian, Skeletons at
the Feast
The author paints a breathtaking
picture of German refugees who flee
west from the Russians during World
War II, while in a parallel story Jewish
prisoners are forced westward in a death
march from a Nazi concentration camp.
newspaper industry to Israel
during the second intifada.
The book tells the story of a
long life, and so it necessar-
ily covers a lot of ground.
FL
(11;
Q: You starred in your high
school musical; you play the
guitar; you like rock music. Is
writing like music?
A: I can't claim any real
talent as a musician; but I
do love music, and it cer-
tainly plays a role in how I write. In fact
a crucial part of my writing process is
recording myself reading drafts of chap-
ters aloud and then listening to them until
every line sounds just right.
I teach writing at Georgetown
University these days, and one of the ways
I tell my students to think about struc-
turing their stories is in terms of chord
progression.
Eleanor vs. Ike
This novel by Robin Gerber is the story of
a what-if bid for the presidency between
former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and
Gen. Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower. Here, a few
questions for Robin Gerber:
Q: Ifpresident, what kind of leader would
Eleanor Roosevelt have been?
A: Eleanor would have been an inclusive
and decisive leader. She believed in involv-
(See more event information in "Special
Events" on page B14.)
Wednesday, Nov. 1
1 p.m. (WB): Irina Reyn, What Happened
to Anna K: A Novel
This contemporary twist on the classic
Anna Karenina moves Anna's story out
of Russia and into modern-day New York.
1 p.m. (OP): Eileen Pollack, In the Mouth:
Stories and Novellas
Secrets, dreams, tragedy, conflicts and
complexities of family relationships create
an unforgettable tapestry in this latest
collection from Ann Arbor's Eileen Pollack.
Thursday, Nov. 13
Noon (WB): Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric
f•
k
ing others in decision-making
and she believed in taking
action. In the 1950s, even as
president, she would have faced
doubt about her leadership
ability from men and some
women as well, but she had
learned to ignore criticism that
stood in the way of achieving
her goals.
Q: How do you make deci-
sions for characters, placed in a
fictional setting, who also were real people?
Do you research how they reacted in similar
situations, or did you study Eisenhower
and Roosevelt to such an extent you could
imagine how they might have responded?
A: Both. I did a great deal of research
into the actual scenarios which occur in
the book, like Nixon's Checkers speech or
the party conventions, but I also immersed
myself in the real lives of Eleanor and Ike
so I could imagine how they might respond.
Other historians have told me that they
think I captured them very well. ❑
Peter Manseau speaks at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 12 (OP) and as part
of Lunch with the Authors at noon
Thursday, Nov. 13 (WB), with Rivka
Galchen and Anne Roiphe. $30.
Robin Gerber speaks 1 p.m.
Monday, Nov. 10 (WB).
Disturbances
In this funny and sometimes disturbing
debut novel, Rivka Galchen explores the
mystery of human relationships and the
dissolution of a seemingly all-too-intact
mind. (See more event information in
"Special Events" on page B14.)
Sunday, Nov. tc:,
4 p.m. (WB): Gail Carson Levine, Ever
Enter a stunning world of flawed gods,
unbreakable vows and ancient omens
as a girl named Kezi is confronted with
a terrible destiny (for reading level ages
9-12). After the book signing, Shalom
Street hosts a tea party and the film
Ella Enchanted, based on Levine's book.
(See more event information in "Special
Events" on page B14.)