arts & entertainment

I--- Beef Ribs are Back

Baby Back Ribs
$18.99 per slab

Three Immigrant Tales

10% OFF TOTAL BILL

Sandee Brawarsky I Special to the Jewish News

Harvard Square by Andre Aciman

Excludes tax, tip and beverages. With this ad. Dine in or Carry out. Expires 11/15/13

I

7---/„ Brass Pointe

24234 Orchard Lake Rd., N.E. corner of 10 Mile • 476-1377

Open 7 Days a week for lunch & dinner

Dubin, formerly of D'Pauli's, is our chef i r

FAMILY DINING

Restaurant

Open daily from 8a.m -9p.m.

LUNCH
$ 1 OFF

I

(order over $10.00 or more)

Expires 10/26/13.
Not good on daily specials.
Before taxes.

248-351-0777

99°
Coney's

29221 Northwestern Hwy.
(at 12 Mile)
Southfield, MI 48034

L

DINNER

www.rfamilydining.com

... ALL DAY
EVERYDAY!

$2 OFF

Add Soup to any Sandwich

for

99°

(any order of $20.00 or more)

Expires 10/26/13.
Not good on daily specials.
Before taxes.

10% DISCOUNT FOR SENIORS EVERY DAY
EXCEPT HOLIDAY AND SPECIALS (65 & UP)

Carry Out, Catering and Delivery Available

1867910

4,

QUALITY KOSHER

catering

TURNING MOMENTS INTO

MEMORIES.

248-352-7758

WWW.OUALITYKOSHER.COM

n his memoir and essays, Andre
Aciman has captured the inner
life of exile, what it's like to stand
in one place and be reminded of
another, to long for that other place,
even knowing it no longer exists. He
embraces his new land
of America, while his
motherlands, Egypt and
Europe, are very pres-
ent. A masterful writer,
Aciman is most at home
in the place of not feel-
ing at home, anywhere.
The narrator of
Aciman's third and
newest novel, Harvard
Square (Norton), sounds
like Aciman. He's a
Jewish immigrant who
was expelled from Egypt when he was
14 and, in 1977, is a Harvard graduate
student.
The story of his friendship with a
Tunisian cab driver he meets at Cafe
Algiers in Cambridge is bookended by
an account of the narrator taking his
son to Harvard as part of their college
tour and trying to interest his son in
the monuments of his past.
Aciman has said that all of his sto-
ries have what he calls a fast-forward
moment, bridging the then with life
now.
The friend from Tunis is known
as Kalaj. He's smart, opinionated and
charming. "He foresaw what people
might do or say, figured things out
even when he couldn't understand the
first thing about them, and sniffed
out deceit and shortcuts most mortals
were simply unaware even existed."
Kalaj was a great talker, and much
of his effort went toward attracting the

attention of women. At Cafe Algiers,
he held court at the center table, not
just to be seen but to see who was
coming and going. He prefers shade to
sunlight, "like almost everyone born
and raised on the Mediterranean."
For the two men, this
cafe in the shadow of
Harvard is their imagi-
nary Mediterranean
cafe on the beach — it
brought Kalaj back
to Tunis as it brought
the narrator back to
Alexandria.
The narrator reflects,
"I was, it occurred to
me, no different from
Kalaj. Among Arabs he
was a Berber, among
Frenchmen an Arab, among his own
a nothing, as I'd been a Jew among
Arabs, an Egyptian among strangers,
and now an alien among WASPs, the
clueless janitor trying out for the polo
team."
The summer that the two men
meet, the narrator has just failed his
comprehensive exams and is prepar-
ing to take them again, pressured to
pass this time. In Kalaj, he finds a
friend who understands him and his
attempts at assimilation, but who also
tests his limits.
When the narrator returns to
Harvard Square as an older man, he
resists visiting Cafe Algiers. He speaks
of memory, a theme that perme-
ates Aciman's work. As if in order to
experience this thing called the past, I
needed distance, temperance, tact, an
inflection of sloth and humor even —
because memory, like revenge, is best
served chilled." ❑

1867060

Forgiving Maximo Rothman

A

C-A/STORAGE

www.ezm i acorn

your second month's rent!

Serving Farmington Hills

p

11120 L: -

44

October 10 • 2013

29221 Orchard Lake Road

(248) 855-9610 859250

.J. Sidransky's impressive
debut novel is out of a little-
known slice of Jewish histo-
ry. It's a murder mystery, a father-son
tale, and an-only-in-New York story.
Forgiving Maximo Rothman (Berwick
Court) invokes the Dominican
Republic's role in saving Jews during
the Holocaust. At a time when the gates
of most countries were closed to Jews,
the Dominican Republic, under the
leadership of Raphael Trujillo, granted
sanctuary to about 850 European Jews.
The first group arrived in 1940 and
established a settlement in Sosua, on the
northern coast of the island, where they

by A.J. Sidransky

thrived.
Sidransky, whose great-uncle and
aunt were granted sanctuary in Sosua,
accentuates the positive ties between
Jews and Dominicans.
The novel is set in Washington
Heights, where waves of refugees and
immigrants have settled, including
German Jews and later Dominicans,
Russian Jews and Mexicans. Sidransky,
who lives there now, knows his neigh-
borhood well.
His big-hearted Russian NYPD detec-
tive named Tolya is addicted to thick
Dominican coffee. The German Jews
enjoy the cakes their relatives bring