arts & entertainment Exquisite Catering Impeccable Service MILI1 CORPORATE EVENTS EPIC BAR & BAT MITZVAHS CEREMONIES & RECEPTIONS TRAY CATERING/SHIVA TRAYS SHOWERS & REHEARSAL DINNERS KOSIlEfi CATEFilfig ON-SITE & OFF-PREMISE CATERING Phone Fax Email CHOLOV YISROEL KOSHER Jewish Community Center (248) 432-5654 (248) 785-0123 A DIVISION OF MILK & HONEY milkhoney@theepicureangroup.com www.theepicureangroup.com/kosher GLATT KOSHER Adat Shalom Synagogue Turn your next dinner party into an extraordinary culinary event! A chef with over 15 years of experience, Chef Dave will work with you to create the perfect menu. He will do the shopping and then prepare in the comfort of your home. When your guests arrive, he will perform demonstrations, reveal culinary secrets, and serve a meal of memorable proportion. Wonderful references. Also available for catered events. 248-229-9318 / appareilcatering@gmail.com 1822240 ttInict Sushi Japanese Restaurant r DAILY SPECIALS a EVERY DAY SPECIAL $7.99 Bento Box & Sushi lunch Open 7 Days a week Mon-Sat open at 11 Sunday open at 4 20% OFF Your total food bill Not good with any other offer or coupon & daily' specials Expires 5/15/13 THURSDAYS All-You-Can-Eat Lunch $9.99 33214 W.14 Mile at Farmington Road West Bloomfield MI 48322 Delivery and online ordering wwwwbninja.com 248-737-4188 826,00 If you are not wearing it... sell it!... or BORROW on it! —e, You can't enjoy jewelry if it's sitting in your safe deposit box. Sell or borrow on it for immediate cash. We deal in jewelry, watches, diamonds and coins. A Service to Private Owner Banks & Esta I ' eaptd &pewee>, Contact Larry an 33700 Woodward Ave. • Between 14 Mile I n 248-644-856 44 April 4 • 2013 Telling Their Stories In her latest novel, Jodi Picoult tackles the Holocaust. Sandee Brawarsky Special to the Jewish News E arly on in Jodi Picoult's new novel, The Storyteller (Atria), Josef Weber comments that Sage Singer doesn't say much in their grief support group, but when she does speak up, she's a poet. She answers firmly that she's no poet, but a baker. His response, "Can a person not be two things at once?" foreshadows the story. The Storyteller, which reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list just weeks after it was published, is Picoult's first novel to touch upon the Holocaust. She's the author of 21 novels, many of them bestsellers, including Lone Wolf House Rules and Change of Heart. "I write what I feel is the right story to tell;' she says, in an inter- view in New York City at the begin- ning of her book tour last month. "This was important to me: It had its roots in big questions about good and evil. "Could you do something really bad, and wipe away that stain? And, and on the flip side, if you consider yourself a good person, what could tip you over to do something really bad?" Picoult went back and reread Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower — when he writes of being in a concentration camp and brought to the death bed of an SS officer, who sought forgiveness from a Jew — and thought to update that. She'd tell a very different story, featuring not a concentration camp survivor but the descendent of a survivor of the Holocaust. "Genocides are happening every day. Evil is happening every day:' she says. "With so many survivors dying, it's important that this story not get lost:' Her story, set in a small New Hampshire town, is actually several intertwined stories, with several sto- rytellers. Sage, the young baker, is the granddaughter of Minka Singer, a concentration camp survivor. The reader hears both of their stories (and Minka is telling Sage of her nightmarish experience for the first time), as well as that of Josef, who has buried his own secret past, and #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JODI PICOULT THE STORYTELLER "My goal is not to tell you what to think but to tell you to think about social issues," says author Jodi Picoult. Leo Stein, who works for the FBI searching for Nazis. Josef turns to Sage, a Jew who doesn't particularly embrace that identity, to confess his past and ask a favor, presenting her with a moral quandary. Baking and mourning run through all of the stories: Sage is a baker who works through the night, in the shadows of her mother's death, and she's able to open up and speak most honestly when her hands are busy kneading dough or shaping rolls. Minka's father was the town baker before his murder, and in her 90s, she still bakes several loaves of bread every Friday in order to give it away. Every day, Josef comes to the bakery where Sage works and shares his roll with his dog. Picoult's writing, unveiling and connecting these strands of stories, is energetically paced. The Holocaust is new ground for the author, who grew up on Long Island and lives with her husband and children in New Hampshire. There are no sur-