While composing this announcement, I just learned that This Möbius Strip of Ifs is the winner of the 2012 National Indie Excellence Book Award! See particulars at indieexcellence.com.
I am delighted to say that my story collection “I Truly Lament – Working Through the Holocaust” has been chosen as a finalist in the 2012 Leapfrog Fiction Contest. Only three adult fiction finalists will be awarded this year, out of 422 manuscripts.
In the years 2010-2011 short stories were published in the following online magazines by editors whose gracious support encouraged me to go on with the manuscript.
- “Archipelago,” Subtletea, 2010
- “Cantor Matyas Balogh,” Fiction Fix, 2010
- “Sincerely, Max Weber,” Serving House Journal, 2010
- “Homage to Kafka,” Wilderness Literary Review, 2010
- “Of No Use,” Eclectica, 2010
- “Soap,” Serving House Journal, 2011
- “Freud in Auschwitz,” Ascent Aspirations Magazine, 2011
- “Slave,” Del Sol Review, 2011
I Truly Lament, is a varied collection of stories, inmates in death camps, survivors of these camps, disenchanted Golems complaining about their tasks, Holocaust deniers and their ravings, and collectors of Hitler curiosa (only recently a few linens from Hitler’s bedroom suite went up for sale!) as well as an imagined interview with Eva Braun during her last days in the bunker. The intent is to perceive the Holocaust from several points of view.
An astute historian of the Holocaust has observed that it is much like a train wreck, survivors wandering about in a daze, sense and understanding, for the moment, absent. No comprehensive rational order in sight.
An “elevator pitch” description of my book—also called a “hook,” that is meant to grab booksellers, reviewers, and readers, might be this:
A weirdly wonderful short story collection exploring the Holocaust from various literary angles ranging from gothic and romantic to phantasmagoric.
As I will turn 72 in July, I can say that the tortoise has won.
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