The Golems of Gotham
A Novel
by Thane Rosenbaum
List Price: $25.95
Pages: 384
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0060184906
Publisher: HarperCollins
Thane Rosenbaum is the author of Second Hand Smoke and Elijah Visible. He lives in New York City with his daughter, Basia Tess.
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Can you explain briefly what a golem is, and describe its place in Jewish history?
The Golem is essentially a monster made of clay, in the shape of a man but without a soul. The kaballah, the central text of Jewish mysticism, provides a how-to manual on how to make a golem. An ancient Jewish legend of 16th century Prague has it that during a time when Jews were particularly vulnerable to persecution, the Chief Rabbi created a golem for the purpose of defending the Jewish ghetto from harm. The idea is that a golem is a creature of rescue and retribution, a kind of secret weapon that the Jews could conceivably create if they needed to. You bring on a golem when the conditions are necessary and desperate.
Your novel examines various Holocaust survivors who struggled -- and are still struggling -- to comprehend the impact of the Holocaust on their lives and on civilization. You imply that Oliver, as a writer and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, has an obligation to do the same, even though writing about this event can be painful, exhausting, and confusing. How can writers, and everyone else, avoid trivializing that subject matter?
Well, the first thing is to always remember that the grand narrative of the Holocaust is about mass death. That's the ultimate message. Even for those who survived, the damage and spiritual rupture is irreversible. Anything that marginalizes, dilutes, diminishes, beautifies the central message of the Holocaust ultimately contributes to trivialization. That's why this novel even takes a position against the film, Life is Beautiful, because among other things, life in the camps was not beautiful, and the conditions were so overwhelmingly hopeless that trying to reduce survival in the camps to a child's game, for the sake of art, is patently immoral and vulgar.
What do you expect your non-Jewish readers to take away from this novel?
The messages in this novel are universal. We all long to be rescued and freed from our demons, to remember what's sacred, but also not to be imprisoned by the harshness of our histories. Moreover, we all wish for respect, to not have our pain mocked and trivialized. We all want to be reunited with our lost families -- to the extent to which we have lost them -- and our loved ones, to the extent to which we have suffered such losses. We all want to feel safe in our homes, and of course, to be cared for and to be loved.
As Oliver, Ariel and the Golems celebrate Passover, they revise the rituals to reflect events of the Holocaust. Are you suggesting that the Holocaust rendered these and other religious holidays irrelevant? Should Jews try to incorporate the Holocaust into all their religious obligations?
It's not so much that they are irrelevant, it's just that they can't be performed anymore without the Holocaust lurking in the shadows of lit candles, and heard within the silences of chanted melodies. And yes, I don't see how Jewish rituals can be performed without invoking the Holocaust in some appropriate way.
Certain aspects of your novel seem eerily prescient in light of the events of September 11. How might the novel have been different if you had written it after that day?
It would have been completely the same. It's just that now, to most Americans, the idea of rescue and healing has taken on new, personal meaning. This is a novel about healing the world by resurrecting ghosts who have things to say that we need to hear. There's no question that such a remedy and result would be useful to us now, as well.
Excerpted from The Golems of Gotham © Copyright 2010 by Thane Rosenbaum. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved.
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