8/30/2000

It was the restaurant people went to when they wanted to feel important or beautiful. It wasn't always easy to get a reservation but then that was what made it seem so special. The restaurant was The Bistro on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, and the ring master/owner was Kurt Niklas. The Bistro gave birth to The Bistro Gardens down the road and to The Bistro Gardens at Coldwater.

Kurt Niklas has documented this history in his book "The Corner Table: From Cabbages to Caviar, Sixty Years in the Celebrity Restaurant Trade"(Tuxedo Press $29.95). It's by Kurt Niklas as told to Larry Cortez Hamm. They must have had some wild conversations as Niklas spares no one in telling this story.

The book is also about Kurt's early youth in Germany where his mother, Resl, a young Bavarian, was in love with a middle-aged married Jewish man, who was Kurt's father. The family was dependent upon him for their resources, when the Naziis rose to power not only the funding was terminated but so was his father, Siegfried Levi. He died at Alexanderplatz.

I said to Kurt when we taped that as a "mischling", a half Jew, he has been "damned if did" and damned if he didn't" since he suffered from the Nazi Germans and then the problems he suffered in Beverly Hills being called an "anti-semite", partly because of a perfectionist Germanic attitude and , one might say, a cantankerous way of putting it. Yet, there were many Jews who invested in his restaurant.

I did laugh with him that he could boast of having served Adolph Hitler, when he worked at the Hotel Esplanade under the direction of Albert Speer, and President Ronald Reagan. But, that corner table belonged to the late Sidney Korshak. If he wanted it, he got it. According to Kurt, he saved Kurt's life after Kurt had a run-in with Johnny Roselli. You'll have to read the book to learn the names of Sidney's good lady friends.

Billy Wilder had a call on that table, too. It was Billy, who convinced Kurt to think about opening a restaurant; but it was Kurt who picked out the design that he wanted. He and Billy would also have rough times with each other throughout the years.

Some other names who grace this book are: Frank Sinatra, of course, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, who still couldn't get a table for fifty dollars and a quick flash when they were all booked. And then there was that night when Meyer Lansky was at one table and next to him was William French Smith, the Attorney General.

There was the time when Ma Maison began to take lunch patronage away and Kurt decided to open The Bistro Garden which reestablished his claim on the "folks who lunch". But it's been well documented the tragic turn of events with the well-loved and respected Ellen Byrens and her demise. There was no second chance, the restaurant was doomed. Today, it's Wolfgang Puck's jewel.

Kurt has suffered a stroke, but he is still a commanding figure who seeks no sympathy. One could say that he is not unlike Alexander Wollcott, "The Man Who Came To Dinner", amazingly outspoken for one in the service business. This is not your usual "speak no evil" celebrity restaurant book with favorite recipes, as a matter of fact, there are none in this book.

Unique and different are two words that apply to Aimee Bender's novel "An Invisible Sign Of My Own" (Doubleday $22.95). She has written in a style that if it were a painting it would be in primary colors. Mona Gray, who is nineteen , when the book begins has been hired to teach math to children in the second grade.

It is a town with no name that carries traces of the simplicity of "Our Town". Mona lives with the fear of her father, who is a dermatologist, dying of his unnamed illness. Her mother is a strong personality who moves Mona from the dependency of living at home, room by room until Mona's bed is out on the front lawn.

Mona 's class is assigned a math game called "Numbers and Materials". She has transferred her love of numbers to them. To Mona every items looks like a number and along with her numbers she is compulsive about knocking on wood. In contrast to Mona is Benjamin Smith, the science teacher, who is equally imaginative in teaching his class. Not only will they clash, but they will fall in love.

A book that has a future of nominations for writing awards is Jeanne Guillemin's "Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak" (University of California Press $27.50). In April 1979 sixty-seven people died from the anthrax bacteria in Sverdlovsk, Russia.

In 1988 a group of academics under the direction of Harvard Biologist Matthew Meselson, Professor Guillemin's husband, arranged to have an invitation from the University of Yekaterinburg, which they needed under Russian government law, in order to go study the outbreak.

There were conflicting points of view in Russia as to what were the causal factors. Dr. Burgasov believed that the animal factors caused the gastrointestinal deaths, and the late Dr. Nikiforov and his son felt that it was inhalation of anthrax spores in the air.

The agenda for Professor Guillemin, Professor of sociology at Boston College and a Senior Fellow at M.I.T., was to find the points of common exposure and the missing records. When we talked, I said that she had written this book like a John LeCarre novel. Literally knocking on doors so many years later, she would use the sociology term "snowballing" to explain how she got her information. One family would lead her to another.

Another main concern was the Soviet's reserve about Compound 19, the army's unit for experiments. Since the Soviets had signed the non biological weapons agreement, if they were experimenting with Anthrax , it would be a breaking of the treaty. How Jeanne Guillemin, with the help of Russian Dr. Faina Abramova, who had saved her slides from the autopsies in 1979, and Dr. Lev Grinberg, makes her findings is mesmerizing.

Jeanne and I also talked about the worldwide fears, real and imagined, of future threats from biological weapons. She mentioned the Aum group from Japan who used Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. They have a center in Moscow. The danger is from a rogue nation. Anthrax is the weapon of choice since it can pass from grazing animals to humans, the anthrax spore in the ground can live seventy years.

8/23/2000

They could be called idealists, dedicated, educated, strivers or they might be called rapacious, greedy, manipulative, ends-justify-the means ego maniacs. They are the men who form Nina J. Easton's "Gang of Five : Leaders At The Center Of The Conservative Crusade" (Simon & Schuster $27.00). Who comprises the Gang of Five? They are the white males who grew up in the late 60's and 70's and who led the College Republicans Organization in what would be called a "war without blood" and a "take no prisoners" mentality.

They are Bill Kristol, Ralph Reed, Clint Bolick, Grover Norquist, and David McIntosh. Easton begins the book by giving a run down of them, their background and education. She points out the influence of the University of Chicago philosopher, Leo Strauss on the Harvard students. Strauss, who was a Jewish refugee from Germany, believed that the political life engendered a high moral calling that could make the students believe in their own self importance. They believed that Plato would have chosen them to be the leaders in the Cave.

The other political influence came from the University of Chicago's Law School from Professor Richard Epstein's theory that "… regulation constituted a 'taking' of property. This would have an enormous affect on David McIntosh first when he served as a White House Aid and championed the Administration's move to give companies broad rights to increase their emissions of air pollution and who proposed removing restrictions on storing and disposing of 45 percent of the nation's hazardous waste. In the House of Representatives from Indiana he had been part of Newt Gingrich's Freshman Class that would later turn on Gingrich for compromising on issues in order to get a bill passed. Newt became a "squish".

I mentioned to Nina Easton, when we talked, that I had always understood that to be the basis of government, neither side gets 100 %. The Coro Foundation had always had a week in its Fellows Program to understand how decisions are made. This is something that this gang of five have never understood.

Thank Clint Bolick for being a leading force in killing Affirmative Action, sinking Lani Guinier's appointment and for his legal work in Milwaukee with Ken Starr to get school vouchers passed and then for vouchers to be used in parochial schools which would invalidate the premise of separation of church and state. Each segment of Bolick's story seems to close another door on democracy. Nina Easton wrote her book with a different intent as she made clear to me as we talked but I wouldn't have known these facts if I hadn't read her book.

Grover Norquist's organization in Washington, D.C. is known as "leave me alone" group dedicated to the abolition of taxes. Nina laughed that it is his weekly group that meets to plot the demise of Democrats, and especially Bill Clinton, whom the Rightist hate the most for co-opting the middle road and their ideas.

Ralph Reed would have been perfect casting for "What Makes Sammy Run?", certainly well known for his leadership of the Christian Coalition and his anti-abortion stand. It was coming home from a meeting in Texas with Governor George W. Bush that he decided to resign from the Christian Coalition and form his own consulting firm. Nina says that Reed is charming but she writes about how he stuffed an election of the College Republicans at the University of Georgia, and later how he would manipulate the truth for news media attention and then apologize.

Add them all together and one can understand Jane Alexander's frustration when she was chairman of N.E.A.. What this group doesn't like, they don't just cut their budget, they vote to eliminate the program entirely. Nina Easton writes, "To this new generation of College Republicans, politics wasn't a sport, it was a calling.. They traded talk of their own political 'conversion experiences' as if they were on some evangelical mission. They despised the moderates in their own party almost as much as any Ralph Nader-Jane Fonda…etc."

As you can see this book can provoke discussion no matter your political identification. But in reading this book one sees the force behind change and issues. To be forewarned is to be prepared, so that the environment is not raped and our air stays clean and clear. Sharon Lovejoy has written a delightful looking book called "Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together With Children"(Workman $13.95). She explores the joys of working together in the garden and sharing the pleasure of watching plants grow.

Along with her knowledge of planting, she has illustrated the book with charming paintings which include making a garden teepee. And, do you know how to make a mini greenhouse? Cut off the bottom of a plastic jug and set it over newly planted seeds. Remove it when seedlings appear. For the Tom Sawyer in the family, Sharon gives advice and information about worms. Eek!

8/16/2000

Max Byrd combines historical research with a novelist's gift to make history come alive. His new book "Grant" ($23.95 Bantam) is sub-titled "A Novel" but he assured me that outside of the character Nicholas Trist III, a writer who lost an arm at Cold Harbor in the Civil War, who tells the story, all the other characters and facts are, exactly that, facts.

The book opens with the first line of a book written by Grant's friend, Sylvanus Cadwaller, called, "The Secret Life of U.S. Grant" with the addition of "(not for publication). The line reads, "Start with his horrible mother." In Grant's eight years as president, she never visited the White House. She never gave him any credit for helping to win the Civil War. And his father was no better. Hiram Ulysses Grant was a small, lonely boy who was comfortable on horses and studying math. It was his father who got him his appointment to West Point.

It is hard to believe that this man who began in the quartermaster division of the army, who was kicked out of the army for drinking, would end up as the general in charge of the Union Army and a two term president. What I didn't know and what Max Byrd brings to life, is that in 1880 in Chicago at the Republican Convention, after four years out of office and a triumphant tour of the world, Grant was running for the Republican nomination for a third term. Those were the days when the conventions stood for something. On the other hand, it took thirty six ballots to finally nominate James Garfield, who had given a "Brutus" type speech for Grant which ended up being a self-nominating speech.

Byrd portrays an era of technological change. The gas lights were being replaced by Edison's invention, and telephones were appearing, with Mr. Bell's admonition to answer, "Ahoy there." Using the Cadwallader biography as a device, Byrd is able to tell the Grant history and still remain in the present tense of the nomination and the political scene which is relevant to today.

Max Byrd writes of Mark Twain and his friendship with Grant. He laughingly told me that at one point he had thought to title the book, "General Grant and Private Twain". It seems that Samuel Clemens fought in the Confederate Army when he had to shoot his gun and kill a man, he couldn't stand it, went AWOL and went to live in Nevada. He would help Grant write and publish his memoirs. Twain sold subscriptions to the book before it was printed.

Max told me that he had the most fun researching The Washington Post which was an up start newspaper in Washington, D.C. in those days. He found fascinating Henry Adams and his wife, Clover, whose letters to her father were published in 1936, but who, in fact, did commit suicide. As we talked Max told me that he was leaving to go to Squaw Valley Writers' Conference.

He told me that when he came to California from Yale University, where he had been teaching, he went as a participant to the conference; there he met Peter Gethers who offered to read any students' work. He read Max's first chapter and he offered to publish the book. So Max feels a debt to return. Not to dissimilar from Deborah Iida, author of "Middle Son", who got her agent and publisher at the Maui Writers Conference.

The summer is a perfect time to take children to the museum. Shelly Kale and Lisa Vihos have created a terrific book for kids and adults to put into context what they have seen in "My Museum Journal: A Writing and Sketching Book ( J. Paul Getty Museum $14.95) Although they use the Getty as a background, this could be used at the LA County Art Museum or the Metropolitan, or the Boston Art Museum, as well. It's a lift off for the imagination after a museum visit.

Although she kept her head and eyes down as we talked Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" (Random House $24.95) is an extraordinary novel from a twenty-four year old woman. Two friends who meet in the English army in World War II. Archie Jones is from London and Samad Iqbal, a Bengali Muslim, is from Bangladesh, who takes great umbrage at being referred to as an Indian.

Their friendship will carry through their marriages. Archie marries Clara, a six foot Jamaican and they have a daughter, Iris, who will narrate part of the book. Zadie, who is a graduate of Oxford where this book had its inception, is also the product of an English and black Jamaican marriage. Samad marries, in an arranged marriage, Alsana. They have twin boys, one of whom will be sent back to Bangladesh to become a devout Muslim.

8/09/2000

What strength these women had and have. These are the women who comprise the mothers in "Las Mamis: Favorite Latino Authors Remember Their Mothers"(Knopf $20.00) edited by Esmeralda Santiago and Joie Davidow. Esmeralda, who is the author of "When I was Puerto Rico" wrote a fabulous story about her mother, Ramona, who had four children by the time she was twenty-one, and had eleven children by the time she moved to New York City from Puerto Rico.

In her old age she would bemoan to Esmeralda that she was still alive because "… you won't let me die". There was a period of five years when they were estranged, later her mother would move into a trailer park in Florida. As Esmeralda writes, "It's exhausting to be her child", "… but her lessons are written on every page of my life."

Then there is Maria Amparo Escandon, whose mother is the Mexican American Princess. She doesn't cook, clean or wash clothes, but she can shop. Maria used to wake her up when she came home from school. All the authors have pictures of their mothers. Maria's is one of the most beautiful. By the time Maria was ready to go to college, her mother went with her. Her mother dressed for school every day and looked askance at Maria's jeans.

Her mother went on to become the most aggressive, most beautiful and best dressed professional training executive in the Mexican Chamber of the Construction Industry. I did love the fact that her mother, like mine, always said that there are no "natural beauties after eighteen" so wear make-up.

From the son's point of view, there is Dagoberto Gilb, who wrote "The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna", and his mother, Elizabeth Yolanda with whom he had a stormy relationship during his adolescence. She wanted to be thought of as youthful which was difficult with a son who matured early and looked old for his years.

He had adored her but he did not appreciate the men she brought home and whom she married. Again there was a period of separation but one night he had an ESP sensation that she was ill, which she was and he arrived at the hospital in time to tell her that he loved her.

Interesting too, is the story of Marjorie Agosin, who was born in Valparaiso, Chile, and is the chair of the Spanish Department at Wellesley College. The family had come to Chile from Vienna during World War II. Her mother would never talk about the missing aunts who had ended up in the gas chambers.

The grandfather had brought the family to Chile, falling into debt in order to finance visas to Chile. But in the 70's the military took over the Chilean government and once more they saw soldiers burning books that the government considered "dangerous" and they were able to come to North America. Her mother is "Frida, Friduca, Mami" of whom she writes, "Before you appear, a delicate fragrance infiltrates the corridors of the house where dark and secret things dwell."

Joie Davidow told me how difficult it was for her working on this book as her mother died during this time. I commiserated with her and we both took that line of Marjorie Agosin's to heart, keeping something of one's mother that carries the smell of her perfume.

Julia Alvarez's "In The Name Of Salome" (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill $23.95) is based on a real heroine of the Dominican Republic, her name was Salome Urena, who wrote the poetry that could cause revolutions. The story is told through her daughter, Camila ,a Spanish professor at Vassar College, who is retiring to teach in Castro's Cuba. She has determined never to return to the Dominican Republic as long as Trujillo rules.

Camila has three brothers, one of whom serves as an ambassador for the Trujillo government, one who is the professor at Harvard University and an outstanding historian, and one who becomes the president. It is also Alvarez's novel writing about Salome's youth and marriage to the doctor who leaves her for years at a time to study in Paris. The story is written in present and past time but the writing always flows. Julia Alvarez told me that she found in the attic of a building at Middlebury College, where Julia teaches, a trunkful of material that pertained to Camila. At one point Camila and her brother Pedro were used to demonstrate political messages that they preferred America to returning to the Dominican Republic which they refuted strenuously. Meanwhile, this book is the perfect way to learn about the history, character and human relations mixed with beautiful writing and poetry.

Two literary events not to be missed. Lisa See's book "On Gold Mountain" about her great grandfather's trip to California from China and the beginning of the See family in America has been turned into an art event at the Autry Museum in Griffith Park. The art event was coordinated by Lisa and her cousin, Leslee See Leong. There are letters, and clothes, and paintings that bring the gold rush and the building of the railroad to life.

There is an excellent audio-video show telling the stories of other immigrants from China and of the bigotry and discrimination that they faced. The Autry Museum is also trying to raise money to take this show to the Smithsonian in July 2000. For those who donate $250.00 or more, their names will be on a credit panel at the entrance to the exhibition in Washinton,D.C..

A little sooner and at a wonderful time of year, the Santa Barbara News Press is presenting the 2nd Annual Book & Author Festival on Saturday, September 23rd from 10:00am to 5:00pm at the De La Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara.. There will be panel discussions with authors John Cleese, T. Coroghessan Boyle, Gayle Lynds, Lou Cannon, and cook book writers with cooking demonstrations. See you there.

7/26/2000

When all is said and done, the worst terror and crimes in the world relate to man's inhumanity to man and to child. Peter Straub, a master of writing and horror, has written "Magic Terror" (Random House $24.95) which incorporates both superb writing and the known and unknown torment. This is a book of seven tales as if one were sitting around a camp fire and the ancient seer was telling ghost and horror stories to the mesmerized group.

The first story, "Ashputtle" is the story told in the first person by a kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Asch, the "Mrs. Being entirely honorific, no husband having ever been in evidence, nor ever likely to be." She is very fat, and appears to be jolly, as a mask for a woman who wants to "drown, suffocate, stifle, bury their lovely, intelligent little Tori in golden words."

She is the teacher who will punish her class when they do not respond to her "or else" by turning off all the lights and putting these five year olds in the dark. As she ruminates she thinks of the lost child whom she may have killed, as she makes plans to leave the school at the end of the semester. Peter Straub told me that when he lives in Connecticut someone told him about a teacher who would put her class in the dark.

Straub's story, "Bunny Is Good Bread" is truly "Magic Terror", which he dedicates to his good friend, and sometime writing partner, Stephen King. Fielding Bandolier, who is five, lives with his father Bob who has beaten his mother to eventual death. Bob is a maniac who takes out his anger at being fired from his jobs in run down hotels on Fielding. He sends the boy to afternoon movie houses where the boy is raped by pedophiles.

After the mother's death, the boy is shipped off to her family in Cleveland. As he grows up strange drawings are found under his bed which he disclaims, a neighbor's dog is found stabbed to death, a cat is found with its throat cut. He is sent to live with another family nearby and as the years go by Fielding or Fee, as he is called, learns to hide his behavior. He enlists in the army after a woman disappears. Her mutilated body is found six months later. Straub's implication is that this is how murderers develop from the abused child.

Straub, himself, spent a painful year in a hospital after being hit by a car as a child. It left him with chronic pain and deep anger, which took many years of analysis to help him understand his own behavior. When I asked him about writing and mentors, he shook the question off with the answer that he was a voracious reader and he learned from the best.

The best includes Melville, from whom the story "Mr. Clubb And Mr. Cuff" is derived. Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff are hired to do serious damage to a cheating trophy wife and her lover by an older Wall Street mogul. They had been found for him by a childhood friend from New Covenant, Connecticut who had served time in jail. Clubb and Cuff move into his office, they take over the mogul's life after performing the deed. In the end they also discipline him in the most ghastly manner. They give new meaning to the uses of dental floss.

I did ask him how Stephen King was doing? He is getting better, the pain is less and he is learning to live with it, if one can truly learn to live with pain. Straub and King are planning to write a sequel to "The Talisman".

Speaking of Stephen King, of course, he is included in a book entitled "About The Author" by Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner (Harcourt $16.00). It is subtitled "The Passionate Reader's Guide to the Authors you love, including things you never knew, juicy bits you'll want to know, and hundreds of ideas for what to read next".

I suppose "juicy" bits means reading that William Goldman served as a judge for Miss America and for the Cannes Film Festival in the same year his 27 year marriage broke up. On the other hand, I would not have known that Mark Twain had many books published by subscription houses where interested readers paid in advance and only after there were enough subscribers would the book actually be published. And that Twain, himself, published the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant this way. They also suggest that if you like one author, you might like the work of another.

Children of all ages will find the package of book, audio tape and an activity guide in "Bears Beat Bowls in the Bathtub" a delight.(Hit-It Kits,$19.95 P.O.Box 139, Gedney Station, White Plains, NY 10605). There is a full hour stereo cassette wonderfully read by Geoffrey Holder, with original music by the Hit-It Band which is played on home made instruments that kids can make too. The story book which can be colored in is by Kathy Tech and illustrations by Roy Doty.

The activity guide is written by David Yoken who is known for his collaborative composing and percussion performances with dancers, especially in Finland. He uses all kinds of instruments that can be found in the home to make the various sounds and rhythms. For instance, tie a knot so that clay flower pots can be suspended, and hit gently with a wooden spoon. This works well with metal pots and pans, colanders and bowls upside down on the floor. If it works too well, take two aspirin and turn on the TV.

7/19/2000

In the style of the story tellers who create a world of characters with stories to tell that the reader in reading the book travels to that world and vicariously identifies and lives their lives, Norris Church Mailer has written "Windchill Summer" (Random House $24.95). It is the summer of 1969 in Sweet Valley, Arkansas. Cherry and her best friend, Baby, the only Filipino family in Sweet Valley, are working in the local pickle factory to save money for college in the fall.

Cherry comes from a family that belongs to the Holiness church, which Norris told me is the "Don't" religion of the south. Cherry is tall, long legged and a virgin when the book begins. Baby, who adores Cherry, keeps her own secrets. Baby's high school boyfriend, Bean, has gone off to Vietnam.

The book opens with the murder of Carlene Moore who had gone to high school with them. Carlene had been "the bad girl" of their class who left school because she was pregnant; after the birth of her son, she was working for the local lake side, night spot which closed on weekends for late night banquets for local politicians who liked to drink and have waitresses serve as whores.

Carlene's story becomes a strong vein in the book, something Norris told me that she had not expected when she started to write the book. The character took over and wrote her story. Carlene had been abused by her jealous obsessed father who doubted his parentage because of Carlene's flaming red hair which resembled her mother's boss more than his own. At eleven Carlene shoots him after he has raped her. The body is hidden with help which she does not reveal to anyone.

Norris has created this small town world of religious extremists balanced by porno after hours depravity. On the larger canvas is the Vietnam War which will affect them all either by the death of a loved one or by the death of the spirit of those who survived. Norris told me that her knowledge of Vietnam was based on her first husband's experiences in Vietnam. As for Cherry, her life changed when the tall blonde Vietnam veteran, Tripp Barlow, comes to town and Cherry, like girls of that generation, discovers sex which becomes her drug of choice. Tripp is a prototype of Robert Redford mixed with William Holden in "Picnic".

As you can gather by her last name, Norris has been married to Norman Mailer for over twenty-five years. They have two sons in their twenties. Norris replied to my questions about Norman's input to her writing that he did not read the book until it was in hardback cover. He had told her that if he read it before that he couldn't help himself from venturing comments and that it would no longer be her work. Her sons and daughters-in-law read it along the way but this is Norris Church Mailer's work. It only took her thirty-one years to write!

The Mailers now live in Provincetown on Cape Cod which she finds conducive to writing. Her next book, which is in the works, will be the further stories of Cherry and Baby. She promises that it will not take another thirty-one years to write.

One of the ways a non-published writer can get their work read and, possibly, represented is to attend a writers' conference. I have always been a fan of writers' conferences from those in Santa Barbara to the one that used to be in La Jolla. I never forgot Jean Auel telling me that this was how she met her agent and the rest is history. So, when anyone asks me about their unpublished manuscript this is what I recommend.

One of the best is The Maui Writers' Conference which is held in Wailea, Maui, Hawaii on Labor Day weekend, September 1 through 4, 2000. There are over 90 sessions from screenwriting craft to writing children's books to food writing to fiction writing and, when all else fails, how to self-publish. There is a list of writing stars that looks like the MGM of publishing, "more stars than there are in heaven" with the McCourt brothers, Ron Howard, Carl Hiaasen, Dorothy Allison, etc. For this one anyone can attend.

Prior to the Writers' Conference, they also hold an indepth The Maui Writers' Retreat from Saturday, August 26th to Thursday, August 31st, with an exceptional fiction writers' faculty. There are requirements for enrolling but you can find out more by calling 888-974-8373.

What bargain would you make with God or Satan if your child was lying in a hospital bed in a coma? I'll do anything, just let him live? Fran Dorf has written "Saving Elijah" (Putnam $25.95) It is at this point "…grief is everywhere, even inside your mouth. You are flailing about, swallowing water, it's filling every organ and cell, and you are going down for the last time" and Dinah Rosenberg Galligan hears music in the waiting room that no one else can hear. Her husband, Sam Galligan, has gone for food, her son, Elijah, lies in a coma, and they are keeping a vigil day and night.

Elijah had been born with physical defects. Dinah, a therapist, was thirty-nine when Elijah was conceived. She had lived through being avoided by the other mothers in the "Mommy and Me" group and had faced the facts of Elijah's problems by putting him in a school for Special Children. She had two healthy children, Alex and Kate who are in their teens. When Elijah becomes deathly ill, Dinah gives up her husband, her children and her career to keep Elijah alive.

The music Dinah hears comes from her dead lover Seth who appears before her. Dorf writes, "I expect the demon had been stalking me for a long time, just waiting until I was weakened and confused and vulnerable before it moved in for the kill in that hospital corridor." Elijah will go in to remission and seem to improve. Like a ghost story, the book will keep you riveted to the end; but Fran Dorf is a masterful writer who presents situations that are of this world. Fran and her husband 's son died.

I was going to write that they "lost" a child, but that implies that he could be found. No child who dies can be found. Fran is able after eight years to fictionalize what a hell she and her family went through. It's her story and yet, as she told me, all the facts are changed to tell the story of a family and how an illness can affect them all.

7/12/2000

Obviously the book buying and reading public, like the movie going audience, want to laugh, which is why Janet Evanovich's "Hot Six" (St.Martin's Press $24.95) is in the number one spot on the Publishers' Weekly list and on the New York Times list. A droll woman with a sharp eye, Janet left romance writing to give life to Stephanie Plum, her thirty year old, never to age, bounty hunter heroine.

Janet Evanovich grew up in the "Burg" outside of Trenton, NJ. She went to college, married, had two children, and as a "stay at home" mom began writing romance novels. Twelve of them, as she told me, until she became bored with the genre. When she wanted to add more humor to her stories, she was rejected by the romance editors. As she said, she had run out of positions for the bodies.

I asked her to tell me what she did to cross the bridge to murder by laughter novels. She took a year and a half off with time spent watching television and watching movies that were commercial hits. I should add that Janet's husband is a mathematician and that her thinking seems to follow that logic. So, she found the answer to "what sells?" in Stephanie Plum in her first book, "One for the Money".

Not to denigrate the alphabet murder books, Janet's numbers can go on for ever. In "Hot Six", she opens the story with the last scene of "High Five" where Stephanie is in a sex scene of dropping her black dress for an unnamed man. After millions of hits on Janet's web sight demanding to know who the man is, she reveals in the first two pages that it is Joe Morelli. Coming to Stephanie Plum's life in "Hot Six" as a neophyte I had to have this explained to me, since I just took it as a grabber of an opening.

The plot revolves around a murder of the youngest son of an international black market arms dealer Alexander Ramos who is forbidden to smoke but is always hitching a ride with Stephanie to buy a pack of cigarettes, which no one in his estate compound will buy him. Stephanie has agreed to dog sit for a friend. The dog, Bob, will serve as a mighty weapon for her in one of the funniest scenes written. Not to give it away, suffice to say that Bob will eat anything he finds, including two boxes of prunes.

Stephanie's Grandmother Mazur is worthy of a book of her own. Janet Evanovich writes loveable characters, even when they are villains. I dare you to read this without laughing. Living in New Hampshire where she looks out to the mountains when she writes, Janet has made a cottage-industry of her books.

Her husband quit his government job to manage her company. Her son, who graduated Dartmouth, is the financial officer of the company. Her daughter, who taped our show while I interviewed her mother for my show, designed, set-up and runs Janet's website, which has chat rooms, cartoons, games and competitions to name her books.

It also receives a million hits a month! I'm impressed. Janet has sold all rights to Stephanie to Warner Brothers. I asked her about the cartoons on her web site and she said to avoid any problems they do not use Rex, Stephanie's hamster, but Rex's cousin, Angus, the hamster from Scotland. Clever!

Michael York and Adrian Brine have written a wonderful book that will make Shakespeare come alive for those who have never seen one of his plays, it will take the lead out for those who are assigned his plays to read and it will delight those who love Shakespeare and just want to know more about this genius of an entertainer. I tell you this because the title of the book, "A Shakespearean Actor Prepares" (Smith and Kraus $19.95) might lead the readers to think that, since they are not actors, that it is not for them. Not so.

Michael and Adrian met forty years ago. Where Michael has become one of the English speaking out standing actors on stage and in films, Adrian chose the European countries for his career, essentially in Brussels as director of Rideau de Bruxelles. During these years Michael and Adrian kept up a correspondence on Shakespeare, as well as other subjects. Adrian had to look at Shakespeare 's plays from a different point of view when they are translated to a foreign language.

When I spoke with Michael York, one word kept coming up in reference to Shakespeare's characters, the word "but". Shakespeare never gives you one aspect of a hero. In the book, they write, "Shakespeare really discovered Jekyll and Hyde. All those great roles encompass opposite poles of human behavior.

Hamlet's half man of action, half thinker with 'puzzled will', paralyzed by indecision. Macbeth - poet and slaughterer. Othello, peace-loving soldier and beastly murderer. Iago, clubbable fellow and serpent. That's what makes them so bloody difficult to play!" That's also why reading this book clarifies the plays.

Did you know that of Shakepeare's seventeen plays only three had original plots? That the word "role" for actors came from the fact that the plays were written on "rolls"? And that the priceless Folios were printed seven years after Shakespeare's death? It was the Golden Age of theatre that could entertain the audience that loved cruel bear baiting and the philosophic gentlemen who quested after the meaning of life.

In 1642 the theatres were closed down by the Puritans and not reopened until 1666. In that time, a new generation grew up who did not know how to stage the plays. They treated Shakespeare as an icon, which we have a tendency to do today in high schools, forgetting that Shakespeare wrote some of the bawdiest lines for his comic characters.

It was a moment of wonder and beauty to see and hear Michael York with his cello-like voice read from the book. Thank you, Michael, and maybe the next edition should be named "Shakespeareance" or "Everything you wanted to know to enjoy" or how about a web like Janet's with cartoons, games and chat rooms about that grand old man, William Shakespeare, a man who was not ashamed to be politically correct when his Queen Elizabeth ruled. See Bertram Field's book on Richard the III.

7/5/2000

As the boy is father to the man, so is the girl, the mother to the woman. Reliving the emotions of her youth, the unique and brilliant June Jordan has written her poetic and lyrical autobiography, "Soldier: a Poet's Childhood" (Basic Books $20.00). June's father, to whom she dedicates the book, had much in common with Pat Conroy's of whom Pat said that he belonged to "the Nazi PTA". And, yet, they both loved their fathers.

Her parents were both West Indian immigrants. Her mother was a nurse, her father, who had left school in grade school in Jamaica was self educated, got his first job in New York City as an elevator operator. He was a militant man, a follower of Marcus Garvey.

The title of the book comes from his concept of what a "Negro" parent had to teach their progeny in order for them to possess dignity and power. She writes of him, "He taught me everything from the perspective of a recruiting warrior. There was a war on against colored people and poor people. I had to become a soldier who would rise through the ranks and emerge a commander of men rather than an infantry pawn. I would become that sturdy, brilliant soldier, or he would, well, beat me to death."

She writes of him waking her up at night to beat her for what would appear for no other reason than to toughen her up. His desire to rise in this world moved them from Harlem to Brooklyn; but it is the culmination of the stresses of mortgages and debts that, from an adult's point of view, caused his irrational behavior. But June has written the book from a child's point of view so she writes, "And his beating me continues until he's spent and his fury, subsides….and I hear him rumble shut those doors, those cursed phony walls that never hold together to protect me, and I guess I am supposed to settle myself back to sleep."

He is also the dominant force for taking her to museums and concerts and to the library when she is six years old. He takes her on a fishing trip to make a "mon" out of her. He would dress up "like a million dollars" and go to Parke-Bernet Galleries where he would bid on odd items like a hand-carved coffee table. He would lecture June on "quality" things that would have beauty and last.

The book covers her middle school years, her time at camp and her first love, Herbie Wilson, Jr., an older man of sixteen, who "… made me feel I didn't have to do anything at all. Or almost anything ." But it is at this time of civil rights that she is approached to apply to Northfield boarding school, where she is offered a full scholarship, all incidentals and transportation.

When she goes for her interview and she wavers about accepting, one look at her father's face and she nods agreement. "And I wondered if I was about to become a 'first'". Her father takes her to the railroad station and his parting words were, "Okay! Little Soldier! G'wan! G'wan! You gwine make me proud!"

It's no secret, I loved her writing. When I talked with June I was apologetic that I had not read her other works. When she returned to San Francisco where she is Professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, she sent me a wonderful package of her books. We will do another taping when she is in Los Angeles. She told me that the cover of the book is her picture and the writing, "June & Spot the first day at school" is her father's writing. Don't miss reading this beautiful book, June Jordan is also a very funny writer.

Another book, but a novel, of growing up in America is Tony Early's "Jim The Boy" (Little, Brown and Company $23.95) which is not quite autobiographical but Tony told me that he did grow up in North Carolina. The book takes place in 1934 in Lynn's Mountain, North Carolina where just ten-year old Jim Glass lives with his mother and his three uncles, Zeno, Coran and Al. Coran and Al were twins. All the uncles lived in separate houses which Jim's mother kept clean for them. Jim's father had died at age twenty-three when he went to hoe cotton and did not return for lunch.

Jim's grandfather, Amos Glass, is the evil menace whom Jim will hear about and will never really meet. Like a river that meanders but holds you captive, Tony Early makes Jim, and his relatives, people you want to know and for whom you want life to be good. Jim is taken to see the Atlantic Ocean by his uncle Zeno. His friendship with Penn Carson, a boy at school, will teach him about sharing, humility and compassion. Penn is a better ball player than Jim but Jim won't let him use the catcher's mitt when they are showing off for Ty Cobb on the train. Jim bests Penn in getting the dollar from the pole; but when Penn comes down with polio Jim learns about true friendship and courage.

Tony Early teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a man who loves his mountains and the country life. He was a delight when we talked and especially when he read from his book.

Jean Sasson went to Saudi Arabia in 1978. She lived there for ten years where she worked in hospital administration. At a party for the royal family she met the woman, named "Sultana" with whom she became great friends and who opened the doors for Jean to learn about the women's role in Saudi Arabia.

Yes, they have diamonds and Dior's designed for them. Yes, they have many servants. But, yes, they do have loveless marriages arranged for them and they will be stoned and killed for adultery and any offense to their family that results from their behavior.

Jean told me that all the storied are absolutely true, including the one about the young swimmer of thirteen who was spied upon by the religious family next door whose scholarly son took pictures of her in her own pool, showed them to the Mullah and his father claiming that he could no longer study with this distraction. The crime was solved by forcing her father to marry her to the boy's old father.

Jean told me that the great crime in Saudi is the enslavement of young women as young as ten and eight who are brought from the Philippines and from Pakistan to be maids and are used as prostitute slaves.

Sultana's husband loves her and his daughters but even he will not allow her to behave in any way that will humiliate him in the eyes of other men. She has two daughters, one of whom is strictly looking to the West for her life and the other who is dedicated to the strict Islamic rule for women.

Interesting book to learn about a totally different culture. Americans forget that not all countries think like we do, nor do they want to. The same Judeo-Christian rules of ethics are not the code of ethics that they live by. It is naïve to think that they will change.