arts & life
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SUMMER READII from page 35

His latest book is an antidote
to the arguments of the late
atheist advocate Christopher
Hitchens, who penned the
book God Is Not Great: How

NONFICTION
■ Sabbath-observant Jewish pro-
fessionals face unique challenges
in remaining true to values and
religious obligations on inter-
views and in the workplace. In
Can I Wear My Kippah on Job
Interviews? (H. Delilah Business
& Career Press), Lavie and
Rachel Margolin provide career
guidance and strategies for navi-
gating through tricky situations.
■ Oak Park native Schneur
Polter works as a tax attorney
in Southfield, but he is also a
rabbi and accomplished author.

Religion Poisons Everything.
Rabbi Polter says his retort,
God Is Great!: How Hitchens
and His Ilk Distort God and
Religion (David Harp, $9),
offers "a fresh, new and excit-
ing perspective and twist:'
He adds, "I try to show how
evil and suffering are smoke
screens and say little about
the existence or inexistence
of a creator ... and I dispel
much of the atheist's flawed
perceptions and beliefs regarding
the essence of God and who and
what He really is."
■ In a collection of poems
that transport readers from her
upbringing in Detroit to her
current life on Cape Cod, Marge
Piercy's Made in Detroit (Knopf)
strikes a balance between deep
pain and simple pleasure, explor-
ing the juxtapositions of her
experiences. With poems about
social injustice, her Jewish cul-
ture, the small pleasures of daily
life and her marriage, Piercy's
work will resonate with readers,

especially those who share her
Detroit roots.
■Called a "literary Louis C.K."
by writer Brett Wood, Joseph
Skibell has written a collection
of essays in the forthcoming

My Father's Guitar and Other
Imaginary Things (Algonquin
Books; Oct. 2015). Addressing
the small moments in life with
disarming honesty, Skibell blurs
the lines between the imaginary
and the real.
■In 1945, Langston Hughes
noted: "The two problems have
much in common — Berlin and
Birmingham. The Jewish people
and the Negro people both know
the meaning of Nordic suprema-
cy. We have both looked into the
eyes of terror:'
In Selected Letters of
Langston Hughes ($35; Deckle
Edge) by Langston Hughes and
edited by Arnold Rampersand,
readers see, in atypical can-
dor from the iconic African-
American poet, that he identified
with the Jewish people beyond
victimhood.
Among the comprehensive
life in letters are correspondence
with Zora Neale Hurston, Carl
Sandburg and Martin Luther

Achievement: The Compendium
of a Culture, a People, and
Their Stunning Performance
(Deucalion, 2009), now tackles
the "why" and "what" of dispro-
portionate Jewish achievements
in The Debate Over Jewish
Achievement: Exploring the
Nature and Nurture of Human
Accomplishment (Deucalion).
To do so, he surveys more
than 100 years of major theories
including cutting-edge findings in
genetics, neuroscience, evolution-
ary psychology, child develop-
ment and sociology. While Pease
ultimately credits Jewish culture,
he provides an objective, readable
compilation of the major facts of
this sensitive subject.
■Well known for his works of
fiction, including The Adventures

class young women – and was
one of the founders of New
York City's Yiddish theater,"
Avi says. "Another grandfather
was named Zunser, and he was
a famed Yiddish poet in Russia
and the U.S."
Suffering from dysgraphia,
Avi struggled with writing until
he enrolled at a private school,
where he found a dedicated
tutor. He decided to try writing
plays, "a fair number" of which,
he says, were less than memo-
rable.

Then he married and had
two sons who loved stories;
at night, the boys asked their
father to instantly come up
with enchanting tales about a
crayon or a garbage truck, and
he always did.
Eventually, Avi wrote down
his ideas and they made their
way to a publisher.
But that's making it sound
easy.
It did not happen overnight,"
Avi says of his career, "and
writing is not a story spilling
out, all bright and sparkling, in
a matter of hours. It is work."
His Bright Shadow, about
five wishes that may be able to
save a kingdom, took 14 years
to write. Usually putting years
into a book is a sign that it's
probably not going to work, he
says, but with this one, "There
was something about it that
made me want to come back to
it." Then there's Sore Losers,
which he wrote in a day.
Avi writes and then he
rewrites, at least 70-80 edits
per book. In fact, "I don't write
well," he insists. "I rewrite

All About Avi

The JN chats with the popular
young-adult fiction author.

Elizabeth Applebaum

Special to the
Jewish News

W

hen he was 7, Edward
Wortis imagined a
career designing

planes.
As a man, Edward's imagina-
tion takes flight every day. He
created life for a boy, accused
of a crime he did not commit, in
14th-century England; a wicked
gang in New York City in 1893;
a girl named Charlotte and her
remarkable adventures aboard
a ship sailing from Liverpool;
and a child whose decision to
hum the national anthem puts
him at the center of a national
debate.
Today, Edward Wortis goes
by Avi – a nickname his sister

36 July 16 • 2015

gave him when they were little
– and he is one of the best-
known contemporary authors of
fiction for young adults.
He has written more than 70
novels and won the Newberry
Award. His latest book, pub-
lished in March, is Catch You
Later, Traitor (Algonquin Young
Readers), the adventures of a
boy who loves Sam Spade and
suddenly finds himself in the
middle of his own mystery: It's
1951, and his father may be a
communist.
Avi was born in New York, the
son of a psychiatrist (his father)
and a social worker. Earlier
relatives shared a passion with
their one-day famous descen-
dant: "One great-grandfather
had the pen name Shomer,
and he wrote trashy Yiddish
romance novels for working-

King Jr. From them, we learn
that his mother's father was a
Jewish slave trader in Kentucky,
that Hughes wrote the text for a
cantata presented as a modern-
ized yizkor (and was praised
for it conveying appropriate
Yiddishkeit) and that his writing
often argued for mutual compas-
sion and understanding.
■Steven L. Pease, who wrote
the hefty The Golden Age of Jewish

of Augie March, Humboldt's Gift
and Herzog, Pulitzer and Nobel
prize-winner Saul Bellow also
was a prolific and insightful
essayist, critic and lecturer. In
this year, the centennial of his
birth and the 10th anniversary of
his death, There Is Simply Too
Much to Think About (Viking) is
appropriately published.
Editor Benjamin Taylor pres-
ents a comprehensive collection
of Bellow's nonfiction from the
1950s through the 2000s. Among
the works are his reviews of
Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus
and op-eds on Chicago politics.
■ Also new is The Life of Saul
Bellow: To Fame and Fortune
1915-1964 (Alfred A. Knopf),
Zachary Leader's first of two
planned volumes written in
cooperation with the Bellow
estate, which added roughly 150
boxes of papers — including
hand-corrected manuscripts,
essay and novel fragments,
appointment books and more
— to the University of Chicago's
Bellow Archive. The biography
traces Bellow from his Russian
roots to his travels in Mexico,
Europe and Israel to his rise in
literary prominence.

very well." It's a challenging,
rewarding, exasperating experi-
ence. "There's not a writer who
hasn't experienced despair," he
says.
Avi has no schedule when he
works, and while he does have
a basic idea for a book when
he starts, he is not rigid. Like
poet Robert Frost, he believes
that, "if there are no surprises
for the writer, there are no sur-
prises for the reader." So "I sort
of know what I'm doing, but I'm
happy to be surprised."
Ideas often are sparked by
moments from his life. At 14,
Avi read to a blind man; it was a
small job, but it became a seed:
In Catch You Later, Traitor, a
blind man plays an important
role in the story. So there is a
whisper of truth; the existence
of a blind man was real, "but
on the other hand, it's not real
at all."
Sometimes, people imagine
themselves as Avi's inspiration.
One of his books, a thriller that
features a psychopath, was set
on a college campus where Avi
was working as a librarian. A