the book in the world

An update on the book, which is making its way like a steady tortoise. The cover was featured in the Nov. 18th "New York Times Book Review," no less, in an ad for the fascinating website secularculture.com that runs a precis of the book. It also received a review in December in the "Jerusalem Report," a magazine distributed with the "Jerusalem Post." The critic writes about the "invaluable contribution" of my book, which "admirably combines scholarly research, critical analysis and personal memoir."

If he only knew how much those words mean! I struggled endlessly with a central problem: the book was both a biography of a once-famous person and a personal reflection on the meaning of his life to his descendants. When my agent in New York sent the manuscript to the big trade publishers, one after the other responded that it was too factual - not enough fun.

And when I subsequently sent it around to the university presses, I was given the impression that it was just too damn much fun, with too much personal stuff for a scholarly press. I did cut some - not all, by any means - of the personal material for Syracuse. That's the next book - all those juicy bits on the cutting room floor. But to receive praise - from Jerusalem, yet - for what had always been pointed out as the book's weakness ... brought a tear or two.

The reviewer wraps up by comparing the dismissive way Gordin was treated with "the cruelty visited on King Lear by his heartless daughter Goneril and Reagan. Fortunately," he concludes, "Jacob Gordin has a faithful and loving Cordelia in the person of Beth Kaplan."

How I wish I could show the old man THAT.