ISBN: 0-88739-427-2
144 pp.
Size: 6 x 9
Pub Date: 4/2001
Paperback Original
Price: $12.95
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Stand-up Tragedian
Chaim Bertman
CHAIM BERTMAN graduated from the University of Michigan, has studied in Jerusalem and Florence, and now lives in San Francisco. This is her first novel.
To an American, the most difficult thing to absorb, as a tourist, was the foreshortening of distances. Hinom was less than forty yards wide; and across the valley, behind its ancient walls, was the original Jerusalem. I looked up from my coffee in awe at this place. It occurred to me then that I had never believed in Paradise, not even for a minute; and yet, for some reason, it had never been quite so hard to imagine that there might just be a Hell. Likewise, I never much felt the holiness of the holy sites in tourist brochures; and yet, here above the valley of Hinom, I thought that if I could only push my brain enough, I might feel the power of suggestion emanate from this ancestral valley, the shadow of Saturn, which swallowed up its children at the foot of Jerusalem. But honestly, I did not know what to do, on paper or otherwise, with this sight. It was as dead to me as a postcard.
Bio: CHAIM BERTMAN graduated from the University of Michigan, has studied in Jerusalem and Florence, and now lives in San Francisco. This is his first novel.
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