Not Me (30 page)
So much of conflict is in the realm of imagination. You get a Muslim and a Hindi in the same room. They sit down to dinner, share jokes, and have a nice time. But you take the idea of Islam, and the idea of Hinduism—and then all the sudden you have Kashmir, and everyone is killing each other. How is that possible? As it happens, that seems to be the subject of my next book—not Kashmir, but the tragedy that while conflict is largely imaginary, it is at the same time absolutely inescapable.
BK:
What elements of Not Me, if any, are autobiographical?
ML:
When I wrote Not Me, I was convinced nothing in it was autobiographical. And indeed, there are no Nazis in my family, and no Holocaust survivors, either. No terrible family secrets, no journals, no horrible parenting. My real father was born in Newark, New Jersey. I don’t think fiction should be autobiographical—it’s so much more interesting and pleasant to make things up. But of course, much of me did intrude into the story on slippered feet, so to speak. At first it was the use of familiar locations, which helped in creating a sense of reality for my characters. The father’s apartment is my parent’s apartment, much exaggerated. Kibbutz Naor looks very much like the one I lived on for a short time when I was seventeen. But then I noticed that little events, memories of which I was only partially conscious, crept into the story. The violin in the closet (I had forgotten entirely that my real sister did play the violin as a child), the business with the magic act for show-and-tell (in real life, it was playing the saxophone—I stood up to play and realized I had forgotten how—but I got so many laughs, everyone thought I was being awful on purpose: a great life lesson)—things like that. And of course, I must have been dealing with my own father’s death, though I was only vaguely aware of it as I was writing. But no, the novel itself is not autobiographical!
BK:
Please tell us a little about your writing process and perhaps you can use that to segue into a brief mention about the contents of your next project.
ML:
I don’t like to talk about what I’m working on, because, who knows, I may just tear the whole thing up and start on something else. But mainly, if I talk about it, it loses some of its energy, and becomes harder to write. My process, though, is to begin with a premise—a “what if”—and go from there. I don’t know who will inhabit the book, and certainly I don’t know what will happen except in the vaguest outline. I do write notes from time to time, but they are also in the form of “what ifs.” I like to set up road blocks for myself, allow things to happen for reasons I have not yet understood. I sometimes create histories of characters, timelines, relationship schematics, things like that. I also do an enormous amount of research, mostly as I’m writing. But basically, I just sit down and write at least three pages a day, five days a week, and see what happens. In Not Me, the premise was “What if my father were a Nazi?” In the new book the premise is something like: “What if someone frees himself from tyranny, only to become the victim of something even worse?” I’m trying to be unclear. I hope I’ve succeeded.
1. How does the nature of memory play an important part in this story? What traps and opportunities does memory create for Michael and for the people around him?
2. Discuss the role of place setting in this novel and in fiction in general. How, and why, are places “characters,” and how does place affect you personally?
3. What kind of person is Heinrich? Do you know any people like him? Could you be such a person?
4. What feelings are aroused in you by the descriptions of the concentration camps and by Heinrich/Heshel’s role in the murder of thousands?
5. Why do you think the author opted to make Heinrich a bookkeeper as opposed to a Nazi soldier?
6. Hannah Arendt created the phrase “the banality of evil,” referring to Adolph Eichmann, the architect of the Nazi death camp system, and those like Eichmann who commit unspeakable acts under the guise of “just doing their job.” Does Heinrich fit that description?
7. Do you think it plausible for a person to change as dramatically as Heinrich/Heshel did? Is it plausible that someone like Heinrich could find salvation by embodying the nature of his enemy?
8. What is the role of God in this novel?
9. Everyone tells lies. Why do we lie to ourselves and others? What secret knowledge do we all carry with us? Consider a time in your life when you have been unsure whether to reveal or to conceal an important truth, and had to choose between “the truth shall set you free” and “what they don’t know won’t hurt them.” How did you resolve it?
10. Every family has secrets. What are the effects of family secrets and how do they affect Michael’s life? How have they affected yours? What happens when they are uncovered?
11. Part of the plot structure of this novel is in the form of a mystery or detective story. Is it successful in sustaining an aura of suspense until the novel’s conclusion? Do you feel the mystery of Heshel’s identity has been solved? Why or why not?
12. Is guilt what drives Heshel Rosenheim? If so, what is the true nature of that guilt? If not, what is it that drives him? Do you think guilt itself can be a conduit to redemption?
13. If Heshel Rosenheim is indeed Heinrich Mueller, do you think his son should be able to forgive him? Could you forgive him? Can the good that Heshel/Heinrich has done in his life make up for the bad? What is the role of good works in the balance sheet of redemption?
14. Michael’s relationship with his sister is unique within the novel for its purity and wholesomeness—yet it is this relationship that pushes Michael to commit a terrible crime, and become, in essence, like the man in the journals. What are the moral implications for Michael, for causing destruction in the name of love?
15. The relationships between fathers and sons in this novel are ambiguous and complex. In what ways do they disagree on how to live their lives? Which of the generational disagreements would you attribute to historical change, and which to individual character differences?
16. April Love is a mysterious woman who keeps popping up in the oddest places, including in bed with a man ten years her junior. What does she represent to you? Why did the author bring her into the story?
Heartfelt thanks to Michael Carlisle, who for some reason had faith, to his father, Henry Carlisle, who had faith even earlier, to my excellent editors at Random House, Dan Menaker and Adam Korn, who worked so hard on this book’s behalf, to Cecile Mooch-neck, who opened the door, to Jennifer Futernick, for an excellent reading, to Emmy Smith, for telling me to write about something Jewish, to Rifka Postrell, for help with the Hebrew and for telling me stories of the early days, to Susanne Stolzenberg, for correcting my German, and most of all to two people without whom this book would never have been written: Sam Lavigne, my son, whose editorial acumen made all the difference, and my dear wife, Gayle Geary, whose insight into the nature of secrets and the possibility of transcendence forms the spiritual core of this book.
In the course of my research, I used many texts and websites, but I would like to single out a few without which this novel would have been much the poorer:
Genesis 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War
by Dan Kurtzman, Abba Eban’s
An Autobiography,
David Ben-Gurion’s
Israel: A Personal History,
Menachem Begin’s
The Revolt,
Konnilyn G. Feig’s
Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness,
particularly her account of events at Majdanek, including her translation of the list of goods shipped from that camp (which I amended and abridged), Raul Hilberg’s
The Destruction of the European Jews,
Yaffa Eliach’s
There Once Was a World,
and
The Holocaust Chronicle,
Louis Weber, publisher. And most of all, I am indebted to two heroic writers, Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, whose every word informs this work.
M
ICHAEL
L
AVIGNE
was born in Newark, New Jersey. He began seriously writing fiction only at midlife and was a participant in the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
Not Me
is his first novel, and he is currently working on his second, set in Moscow, where he once lived. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Gayle.
Praise for
Not Me
“A gripping mediation about the fluidity of identity.”
—Baltimore
Sun
“A compelling portrait of shame, guilt and redemption…One’s sympathies are torn this way and that while reading this novel because Lavigne does the near-impossible: He manages to put a human face on someone who worked with the abhorred SS…. Vastly credible.”
—
Rocky Mountain News
“Goes against the grain—in a positive, literary manner…pushes us to deal with the humanity of one justifiably banished from our sympathies…by forcing us to not simply succumb to the allure of the reprobate, but to care.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
“Lavigne carves a new portal into the depthless mystery of the Holocaust.”
—
Booklist
(starred review) “Captivating…highly recommended.”
—
Library Journal
“Crisply written and never less than engaging.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Always interesting…From the first page
Not Me
holds the reader’s interest…. A novel that raises all kinds of moral and philosophical questions surrounding the Shoa.”
—
New Jersey Jewish News
“Suspenseful…In his examination of identity, Lavigne raises issues ranging from adoption to Zionism, euthanasia to ennui…. This remarkably original novel was no doubt written in anguish in order to process the Holocaust and share some thoughts—many of them very interesting and painfully honest.”
—
The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California
“Michael Lavigne has an immensely powerful story to tell of guilt and redemption. Beyond its riveting plot,
Not Me
is a novel about the loss and recovery of love. In this sense it reminded me of Dickens’s
Great Expectations:
Heshel Rosenheim is as mysterious and haunting as Magwitch, and the lesson that his uncanny life imparts to his son, and to Lavigne’s readers, is on a grand human scale, and unforgettable.”
—J
ONATHAN
W
ILSON
, author of
A Palestine Affair
“What a daring, even dangerous, act of the imagination this novel is!
Not Me
challenges one emotionally and intellectually. It’s that rare phenomenon: a philosophical thriller that will draw you in and leave you arguing furiously with yourself after you’re done.”
—R
ON
R
OSENBAUM
, author of
Explaining Hitler
“A disturbing yet surprisingly tender read that grips the reader from page one and never lets go. Michael Lavigne tells his intriguing story with intelligence, sensitivity, and flashes of scintillating wit. What more could you ask from a novel?”
—A
ARON
H
AMBURGER
, author of
Faith for Beginners
“A disturbing and important meditation on the question of identity. But
Not Me
is more than that. It’s a pleasure to read. The suspense is there on every page.”
—A
RNON
G
RUNBERG
, author of
Blue Mondays
and
Phantom Pain
This is a work of fiction. Though some characters, incidents and dialogues are based on the historical record, the work as a whole is a product of the author’s imagination.
2007 Random House Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Michael Lavigne Reading group guide copyright © 2007 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
T
RADE
P
APERBACKS
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
R
EADER’S
C
IRCLE
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lavigne, Michael.
Not me : a novel / Michael Lavigne.
p. cm.
1. Alzheimer’s disease—Patients—Fiction. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Fiction. 3. Parent and adult child—Fiction. 4. Terminally ill parents—Fiction. 5. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 6. Jewish families—Fiction. 7. Philanthropists—Fiction. 8. Jewish men—Fiction. 9. Comedians—Fiction. 10. Ex-Nazis—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.A94425N68 2005
813'.6—dc22 2004051496
eISBN: 978-1-58836-611-5