The Koret Diaries 2

BY RACHEL KADISH

Click here to read Rachel Kadish’s first entry.

Being from Boston, at the start of California’s rainy season, feels a little like being from Planet Krypton. Normal New England stoicism—which doesn’t earn you any points back home--suddenly looks heroic. The radio station here announces a first “winter storm.” I look out my window but can’t find the storm. All I see is a little rain, which I bike through (along streets normally crowded with bicycles, now abruptly bike-free), to get to the library. We’re the only apartment on our row with its windows open. My toddler is the only kid out playing in the rain. I am savoring feeling like a superhero now, because I know this California sojourn is quietly softening me up. I fully expect to spend most of January (when we’re back in Boston) whimpering and raving about palm trees while my Boston friends shovel their way past.

Working on my novel, I recognize yet again that the revision process involves removing many of the devices that allowed me to write the book in the first place. Sort of like taking the ugly scaffolding off a building that is finally (can it be?) almost finished. One of the things I cut from the novel the other day was a series of section-headers (“Fight Season”; “H.M.S. Relationship”; “In Which Adam Cries Out for Dramamine”, etc.), which I initially thought quite clever and amusing. But now I see these headers as moments when I removed the reader (and myself) from the action, took our collective foot off the gas, and basically communicated to the reader—Now I will smugly tell you what to expect in the next section, so you won’t be as shocked as the characters.

Now, revision-pen in hand, I think: No way. The point of a novel is, it ought to feel risky, to the reader as well as the characters. We ought to feel as helpless and joyous and submerged and incapable of escape as the characters feel in their own lives.Off with the headers.

I wish I could say I’ve been sailing along uninterrupted on my novel, but there have been some detours along the way. For one thing, I was just about to turn in the final draft of my essay for the forthcoming Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt (Dutton, summer 2005), when I had one of those rug-pulled-out-from-under-my-feet conversations…

My assignment had been to write about guilt in the context of the Holocaust. I had plenty to say, having grown up with survivor grandparents. In my essay, I discussed some of the traumas and difficulties of survivor families, as well as some experiences I’ve had while researching a project about Holocaust reparation claims. I was extremely careful to be respectful—survivors and those who devote themselves to preserving the Holocaust’s legacy deserve, first and foremost, respect. I worried, though, that I might have been inadvertently offensive, so as a last precaution before turning in my final edits, I showed the essay to a writer I admire immensely, himself a son of Holocaust survivors.

His response stunned me. He said that there was nothing offensive in my essay—but that that was a very big problem. He felt I’d been so careful not to offend anyone that I’d said nothing new.

Well…true. The Holocaust is so sensitive a subject… and the cries of How dare you? so loud against those critical of survivors or their legacy…that I’d unconsciously steered clear of anything edgy or provocative. (If I were in a more post-Modern mood, I could now re-write this as an essay about how guilty I felt writing this essay.)

So—back to the drawing board. This time, I threw it all onto the page: the things that make me ambivalent about the way we teach the Holocaust to students these days; the sometimes complicated politics of speaking out about the Holocaust in our current Holocaust-saturated culture (did you know that the U.S. Holocaust Museum is by far the most popular attraction on the Washington Mall? Smithsonian doesn’t even come close.); the worst case of misbehavior I’ve seen by someone purporting to commemorate the Holocaust’s victims (you’ll have to read the essay for that one).

I’m editing this new version now, trying to push away the thought that I may have to join the federal witness protection program after I publish the essay, but also with the conviction that my friend did me the biggest favor one writer can do for another: he challenged me to set the bar higher.

Last week I spoke at the San Francisco Jewish Bookfest, on a first-fiction panel with Julie Orringer and Josh Braff, moderated by Peter Orner. The first time I met any of them was two minutes before the panel, but I think we conducted a lively and fun conversation. Among the more interesting questions, from Peter and the audience: Do you consider yourself a “Jewish Writer”—and if so, what does that mean to you? How do you approach writing about politics? Are your characters based on real people?

Then on Tuesday I gave a reading at the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco. Next week I’m off to U.C. Santa Cruz to speak to a class about Jewish literature of the American city. Then back to Stanford for a Thursday evening reading.

That’s all for now…except to say that yes, the leaves do change colors here, and it’s quite pretty…though to my eye a red maple still looks absurd next to a palm tree.