Writing as an article of faith

Nathan Englander talks to Colette Sheridan about ‘cultural Judaism’ and his dedication to the short story

NATHAN Englander, winner of the 2012 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, says literature was his saviour while growing up in a “suffocating” religious atmosphere.

The 42-year-old American writer, brought up as an Orthodox Jew, describes himself now as a cultural Jew. His winning short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, is steeped in Judaic references, with the title story referring to a chilling parlour game where two couples, one Hasidic, one secular Jewish, have to state whether they would protect one of their party if threatened with capture. Underlying this story is the spectre of a second ‘holocaust’, with one of the characters using this term in relation to intermarriage and the disappearance of tradition. There is much irony and humour here but also darkness, palpable tension and questions about faith.

Englander, who was at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork on Sunday to collect his €25,000 prize and read at the Cork International Short Story Festival, was reared as part of the Orthodox Jewish community in West Hempstead, New York. He attended a “full-on religious Jewish school where I was taught by all these rabbis”.

Access to English literature was limited but Englander remembers the thrill of coming across his sister’s copy of George Orwell’s 1984 as a boy. “I was a sincerely religious kid. I wish I had been wild, stealing my parents’ car and smoking cigarettes. But what I had were real theological questions. I had this English teacher, the only Catholic teacher in the school, who was a leftie. She saw I was a kid who could be helped by books. She recommended Kafka, Camus and Conrad, which I read. It was great to find these writers who were not afraid to tackle some of the questions I had. You don’t have to have answers; sometimes it’s calming to share the experience of asking.”

Englander held onto his religion for years but begged to be allowed attend a secular university while his classmates were going to Jerusalem to continue their education. “I went away to state school (Binghamton in New York). Not everyone is being shaped for fancy schools. For my parents, it was a real stretch to even send me to state school.”

“Dragged” by his room-mate on a visit to Israel, Nathan says that he “honestly gave up religion in my first week there.

“When you’re raised in a particular world, you don’t know any other world. I went to Jerusalem and saw all the biblical places are identifiable. I got to meet atheistic and radically secular Jews as well as agnostic Jews. For the first time, I realised I had access to a language, a culture and a history. It was an epiphany to understand that there was a way to be a cultural Jew.”

Looking back, Englander says he always had a dream to be a writer. “I don’t understand why. It wasn’t a job that was done in my town. People didn’t have a life in the arts. My dad was an engineer and my mother worked in an insurance office.” She dropped out of art college at 18 to marry Englander’s father. A member of Reform Judaism, which maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernised and compatible with participation in the surrounding culture, Englander’s mother was a strong influence on him. She brought up her children to have respect for art.

After state university, he graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Englander has a lot of respect for masters in creative writing degrees.

“For me, with my background and big holes in my education, I was able to study the craft of writing. It changed my life. I believe writing is a moral act. There’s a long history of troubled writers. Writers might make all the wrong choices in their lives but I really feel that the obligation to work as a writer, to respond to the rhythm you need in your life, is moral. There’s the idea of having a personal morality when one is writing.”

Englander studied under American Pulitzer-prize-winning author, Marilynne Robinson. “I really sat at her feet. Even if she hadn’t said a word during those two years, just to see the grace with which she exists in the world, would have been a whole education for me.”

As well as What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Englander has published another short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges as well as the novel The Ministry of Special Cases. He also teaches creative writing at Hunter College in New York. Authors Colum McCann and Peter Carey are his colleagues. Does he find teaching stimulating or is it just a way to pay the bills?

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t find it stimulating. I like working with Colum and Peter. We don’t have meetings. Nobody needs to be there in that way. Writing is the thing. Teaching takes up a lot of time but I find it really rewarding and useful for myself. And it’s really exciting to see my students’ books coming out.”

AS someone who was saved by books and by teachers that changed his life, Englander says it’s good to give something back. But he stresses that the craft of writing is what is primarily taught on masters in fiction courses. Innate talent is something that should ideally be there before a student ever signs up to a course. The student writer also needs to find his/her voice.

Englander doesn’t take any notice of claims that the short story and the novel are dead because of the internet, social media and shorter attention spans. He sees these declarations as cyclical. “I think there are waves of reading. If there’s an ebb now, that’s fine. But I’m not worried about the form. I deeply believe in them (the novel and the short story). I always say that the photograph didn’t kill the painting and the movie didn’t kill the photograph. The talkies killed the silent film — but then you had the silent film, The Artist, which won a bucket of Oscars.”

Somebody who nurtured Englander’s talent was the late writer and director, Nora Ephron, who was a friend and mentor to him.

“I miss her very much. She helped change my life. When my first collection came out, she saw a play in one of the stories. She optioned it as a producer and wanted me to write it. I told her I first wanted to write my novel. She said to go ahead. It was nearly ten years before I surfaced from that. Nora and I would have lunch once in a while — and she waited for me. Her job was putting stories out into the world. That’s what I learned from her. She taught me how to write a play. I’d go to her house for four-hour periods. We’d have breakfast or lunch and she would teach me the rules of drama. She was involved to the very end.”

The play, The Twenty-Seventh Man, opens at the Public Theatre in New York on November 7. “I’m sad she’s going to miss that opening,” says Englander.