arts & entertainment

Kick Back from page 33

concentration camps of World War II, the
union movement in Chicago in the 1940s
and the legal battle for black civil rights in
the United States of the 1950s.

Comic writers Dave Barry (married to
former Detroit sportswriter Michelle
Kaufman) and Alan Zweibel (a close
friend and collaborator with the late
Detroit-born comedienne Gilda Radner)
have written Lunatics (Putnam), about
the comic misadventures of Philip
Horkman, a happy man who owns a pet
store and is a referee for kids' soccer and
the usually very sane Jeffrey Peckerman,
who is having a really bad day; a swiftly
escalating series of events sends them
running for their lives, pursued by the
police, soldiers, terrorists, subversives,
bears and a man dressed as Chuck E.
Cheese. The authors are adapting the novel
for film, with Steve Carrel set to star.

The Bookie's Son (SixOneSeven Books/
paperback) by Andrew Goldstein is the
tale of a young hustler in the Bronx, circa
1960, trying to pay back his father's debt
and save his family. When his father, who
works in the garment business and gam-
bles on the side, crosses a Jewish gangster,
he has to go into hiding, so it's up to the
young man to take over his father's bookie
business. Meanwhile, his mother tries to
raise funds, too — plotting to embezzle
money — before the gangsters carry out
their threats. The debut novel draws on
the author's own experience growing up in
the Bronx.

In Ted Heller's (son of Catch - 22 novelist
Joseph Heller) satirical novel Pocket Kings
(Algonquin/paperback), author Frank
Dixon's writing career is at a dead end so
he ventures into the world of online poker,

Kick Back on page 36

These authors perfected their writing
chops at the University of Michigan.

ative Detroiter Scott Lasser's
fourth novel, Say Nice Things
About Detroit (Norton), draws
a gritty and complex portrait of his
hometown. A love story about family,
second chances and the meaning of
home, it's also a gripping novel about
the complicated urban politics of the
21st century. Twenty-five years after
his high-school graduation, and escap-
ing from the pain of divorce and his
son's death, David Halpert returns
from Colorado to Detroit, where he
discovers his high-school sweetheart
Natalie and her half-black brother
have been killed. Beginning a journey
through Detroit's white suburbs and
black inner city, he and Natalie's sis-
ter, Carolyn, reconnect, find solace
in each other and try to make sense
of the mystery behind the murders.
Lasser, also the author of the novels
Battle Creek, All I Could Get and The
Year That Follows, earned his master
of fine arts degree from the University
of Michigan.

N

In The World Without You (Pantheon
Books), Joshua Henkin tells the story
of three generations of the Frankel
family, who travel to their Berkshires
summer home over the Fourth of July
weekend. They gather to mark the
first anniversary of the tragic death of
Leo, the youngest of four siblings and
a journalist who was killed on assign-
ment in Iraq. One sister is struggling
with infertility, another is angry and
the other is newly Orthodox and liv-
ing in Israel (and feeling out of place,
although the parents make sure to
arrange for kosher meals). Each per-
son, including Leo's wife, arrives with
heartaches, struggles, questions and
complexities that unravel over the
course of the three days. The author
of Matrimony and Swimming Across
the Hudson, Henkin directs the fiction-
writing program at Brooklyn College in
New York City. He received his M.F.A.
from the University of Michigan.

Moving back and forth in time, Peter

Orner explores themes of memory and
nostalgia, regret and rebuilding, as he
depicts the joys and struggles of four
generations of Chicago's Popper fami-
ly in Love and Shame and Love (Little,
Brown). Alexander Popper can't stop
remembering when his father threw
him into Lake Michigan at age 4; told
to sink or swim, he feels like he's still
bobbing in the frigid water. Other
members of the family also struggle to
remain afloat. Early scenes take place
in Ann Arbor, as U-M creative writing
major Alexander Popper meets his
future wife, Kat Rubin. Orner skillfully
illuminates the way that love both
makes us whole and completely unrav-
els us. The author of the novel The

Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo
and the short-story collection Esther
Stories, Orner is a graduate of the

University of Michigan.

Ann Pearlman was nominated for the
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award
for Infidelity, a work of nonfiction that
was also made into a Lifetime movie.
In her new novel, A Gift for My Sister
(Atria), she tells an American family
story about Tara and Sky, two vastly
different sisters she first introduced in
her novel The Christmas Cookie Club.
As they accept and define family to
include members of different races,
Pearlman poses the questions: Where
did I come from, how do I cope with
eccentric luck and reversals of for-
tune, and how do I find my place in the
changing world of the 21st century?
Pearlman, whose own family includes
members from many ethnic groups
– Jewish, African-American, German,
Irish and Cherokee – studied writing at
the University of Michigan.

Jews

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

On The Tube

In case you missed it,
the second season of
the lawyer show Suits
is back on the USA
Network, with the second
episode airing at 10 p.m.
Macht
Thursday, June 21. One
of the best reviewed and
most watched shows of
last summer, the series stars Gabriel
Macht, 40, in what looks to be the
breakout role for this handsome actor.
On Sunday evening, June 24,
the new HBO series The Newsroom
premieres. The show was created
by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing,

34

June 21 . 2012

The Social Network), 51. He wrote
or co-wrote all of the first season's
10 episodes. The series chronicles
the behind-the-scenes events at a
fictional cable news channel and fea-
tures an ensemble cast that includes
Michigander Jeff Daniels as the
anchor.
TV Land brings back the comedy
Retired at 35 for a second season
at 10 p.m. Tuesday, June 26. It stars
George Segal, 78, and Jessica
Walter, 71, as a retired
couple whose adult son,
David, moves into their
retirement-community
home. Tony-winning
actress Marissa Jaret

Winokur

Winokur (Hairspray),

39, has joined the cast

this season. She plays Amy, David's
sister. Amy is described as "a sharp-
tongued, quick-witted, successful
saleswoman for a pharmaceutical
company, with a bubbly personality."

Bar Mitzvah Boy

I feel like a party pooper, but I can
give only one "mazel toy" out of
a possible four to the
bar mitzvah earlier this
month of actor David
Arquette, 40.
Arquette was in Israel
to film a travel show
/4 } A when he visited the
Arquette
Western Wall and a rabbi
suggested he be bar
mitzvahed; the actor
agreed. Not more than a year ago, I

heard Arquette proclaim his personal
belief in Jesus on a talk show.
I doubt the rabbi asked Arquette
about his religious beliefs. He prob-
ably just asked Arquette if he was
Jewish, and when Arquette replied
that his late mother was Jewish – the
rabbi suggested a bar mitzvah.
I don't doubt that Arquette was
sincere in having the ceremony. But
he is by his own admission a guy who
has been troubled with emotional and
substance abuse problems. In other
words, don't rely on this bar mitzvah
as some long-lasting commitment to
mainstream Judaism. Time will tell if
it means much.

Contact Nate Bloom at

middleoftheroadl@aol.com .