It all starts with a place.
Where I’ve been is what I write about.
I tell my older brother, Jim, that so far as I can tell, I am working—professing, turning out magazine articles—at an age when all the relatives I know of have retired. I don't know if writing keeps you young but it does keep you busy. The paperback edition of my family-based—(New Jersey, German-American) novel A Call From Jersey is due out in a few weeks from Overlook Press. My new novel, The Master Blaster, is appearing in March. The novel is set on my Peace Corps island of Saipan, which I have visited many times since my first stay there in the late 1960's. The book concerns Saipan, in particular, but it also contemplates the archetypal and enduring dream of islands. It's a dream that—no matter what happens—I can never entirely shake. And I know I am not alone in my preoccupation with the rewards—and pitfalls—of life in a small place. Oct. 20, 2012
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Kirkus Reviews is applauding A Call From Jersey
as ”heartfelt, funny and poignant.”
The Latest
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A Call From Jersey, my new novel, is part of an old story with a long-delayed happy ending. It draws on my New Jersey home, my German immigrant family, my uncles and cousins on the wrong side of World War II. Also, boxing--especially Max Schmeling, who trained at a camp a few miles from my childhood home. First written 20 years ago and long put away, I took another look at the urging of my agent, Matt Bialer. For all its early faults, A Call From Jersey spoke to me and I spent all summer with it. It is good to have it finally here, in hand. Check out this reading of an excerpt at the Berkeley Heights NJ library, near my hometown.