Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 16 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE May 23, 1986
JEWiM-i DdCinG fleCVKHK
A Nice Way
to Meet
Nice People.
Sherry and Rae
(404) 252-0251
STEVE GREENBERG INSURANCE
329-0674 (office)
325-6606 (home)
Your independent
| ogenr who serves
the communiiy.
PC Qox 5557 Arlonro GA 30307
AUTO-HOME-HEALTH-GROUP-LIFE-DUSINESS-PERSONAL
The dabbler’s doorway
Pella mikes your home a better place to live.
Sandv Springs
and
College Park
open on
Sat. 9-12
Come see us!
Y ou needn’t he a French Impressionist to make a French impression. When the
view is worth framing, it deserves the charm of a Pella Traditional French Dixir.
This pair is an arranged marriage between heautv and common sense. The insulating
air space between double panes is iusi the spot to tuck optional Pella Slimshade® blinds,
sale from dust and rattling breezes. N'o need to hide vour French doors' solid wood
elegance behind drapes.
Chixise special glass or Slimshades that reflect heat, or removable wood windo
dividers to reflect vour warm spirit.
Whether vou’re building, remodeling, or replacing, our expert staff can help vou make
.inv space a tavorite place with Pella \X indows. Doors, Sunrooms and Skvlights. Stop bv
todav, and ask for vour free booklet ot Pella home improvement ideas.
epane
The Pella
Window
^ Store
Pella of Georgia
Sands Springs • The Prado Mall Upper Level 1
5600 Roswell Road • 257-0976
College Park • Old Natl. Village •
5147 Old National Hwv • 768-2716
Doraville • 200-A Piedmont Court • 449-54 52
( )pen Mon-Fn 9-5 Other awes bv apfxxrurneru
Suntfv Spruip and ( JiUesy Park open hemmiar 9-12
Willett Toyota
2650 N. Decatur Rd.
Decatur, GA 30033
299-0551
Danny Tourial
Danny invites you to see
and drive the all-new
1986 Toyotas.
Fleet
Leasing all
cars
makes and
and
models
trucks
MR 2
Seed of creativity planted
in author Welt’s childhood
by Vida Goldgar
“I’m a novelist. That’s what 1 do,”
says Elly Welt. And from the early
reviews of “Berlin Wild,” she does
it very well indeed. Her comment,
as she settled in for yet another
interview on a hectic three-week
publisher's promotion tour, re
peated the answer she gave a woman
who came up to her and said, “Oh,
my dear, how do you find time to
write?”
“Berlin Wild” was started in 197.3
and finished in 1976. “It wasn’t
right,” she says, “and I put it away
and wrote another one (“Joanna
Reddinghood”) and then 1 came
back to this one.” Obviously this
time it is right. Book-of-the-Month
Club has snapped it up. The late
John Ciardi, Elly Welt's mentor,
called it “the sort of book that can
happen only when a master talent
finds a master subject.” In last
Sunday’s Journal-Constitution,
Sidney Thomas predicts that “Ber
lin Wild” will be this year’s book
“that stands out above all others
for its daring and originality and
for its brilliance of execution.”
Atlanta was more than just an
other stop on the tour. For Elly
Welt it was an opportunity to visit
her sister Bonnie Pike, and their
mother, Pauline Haykin. For that
reason—and because the arduous
travel and multiple daily interviews
had left Elly in need of a little extra
emotional support—her husband
Peter had come to Atlanta, too. He
accompanied her to The Southern
Israelite. With an affectionate look
in his direction, she said, “1 just feel
better when he’s with me. He picks
up the pieces at the end of the day.”
It was Peter’s own experience in
wartime Berlin, as a 17-year-old
who was good in biology, working
in a Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, that
provided the impetus for “Berlin
Wild.” Though she says emphati
cally that Josef, the novel’s pro
tagonist, is not based on her hus
band’s experience, the root is there.
In the book, the institute is a
bizarre, enclosed world where
humane scientists hide a numbei of
BATHROOMS
SHOULDN'T
BE BORING
■■ (K
Complete bathroom
renovations
Plumbing repairs
& installation
Shower pans
replaced
MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE
(404)971-8162
I MARK BRESSLER LYNN BRESSIER
■ VIASTtiV PLUMBIR JOUKNt »MAN I’lUMBI
R HUIuJf R UtMON .Pit IAUS>
Jews and other “non-Germans’
and carry on phony research to
maintain what one reviewer calls
“a tiny cocoon of survival ol the
sane in the totalitarian madness of
Hitler’s wartime Berlin.”
Though “Berlin Wild” is of the
Holocaust period, it is not a Holo
caust book. Welt was fascinated by
the story of the scientists at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute because.
she says, “These were good—ac
tively good - people. I don’t believe
in passive goodness,” she says, “To
me passive goodness isn’t good; it’s
nothing. But they went out on a
limb to save people, and l thought
that was something to write about.”
Without being at all defensive, she
says, “Some people don’t like to
hear that there was a ‘good’ Ger
man.” In her book, the evil is sub
tly explicit because of the actions
of the good. “These were top-drawer
scientists doing real work. They
had a little atom smasher and they
were doing genetic research but
not with people, with fruit flies,
which is the way real scientists do
it.”
Even now, Elly Welt seems a lit
tle puzzled about her new fame,
though confident of her writing
ability. Leaning back in her chair,
she laughs good-naturedly when
she says, “When 1 read the reviews
1 understand the book better.”
When the conversation switches
from the book back to her familv
and her sister Bonnie’s success with
her first produced play, “Three
Brass Monkeys.” she laughingly
says, “Mother doesn’t show pic
tures of her grandchildren; she
shows clippings about her daugh
ters.”
Elly Welt credits her parents for
influencing her and Bonnie toward
creative endeavors. “There were
books all over the place. Mother
always read a lot to us. She was the
perfect Jewish mother.” She pauses,
then retracts the statement: “No. 1
won t call her a ‘Jewish mother;’ 1
don’t like that. She didn’t smother
us.” But, Elly says, “She left us
alone to use our imaginations. We
were not enrolled in 68 things.”
Her father, who died about 25
years ago, was, she says, “brilliant.”
He was “a learned man. a lawyer, a
scholar. He read Shakespeare to
us, he played word games at the
dinner table and made us edit our
conversation." She remembered.
too, that “his letters were exqui
site” and he could recite poetry at
the drop of a hat.
Despite the Eastern elitist view
that anything west of the Hudson
River is a wasteland. Bonnie Pike
and Elly Welt grew up in Omaha,
Nebraska, with the proper Con
servative Jewish upbringing of the
times. Elly started Hebrew School
at Beth El Synagogue when she
was nine and even now remembers
the rabbi as a “wonderful, brilliant,
educated man.” And, she says,
“our cantor was a Viennese-trained
gentleman.” She sang at the syna
gogue and admits to having a nice
voice. “We had a wonderful, won
derful synagogue there.” She has
grave concerns about Judaism today
and says, sadly, “the substance is
gone.”
Elly remembers feeling like a
second mother to her younger sis
ter Bonnie and, admitting that they
are different in many ways, says
they share a love for words and an
appreciation of good things.”
Though both showed early tal
ent, it was not until much later,
after marriage and children, that
either turned to serious writing. “1
knew I could write when 1 was 21,”
Elly says, “but 1 didn’t have a thing
to say.” In the years that followed,
one of her sons was ill with kidney
disease, she had an unhappy mar
riage (this is a second marriage for
both Elly and Peter) and, she says,
“1 had a lot of pain. When 1 had
enough pain piled up, 1 started to
write." She was in her mid-30s
(she’s 54 now) when she declared
herself a serious novelist. “Nove
lists develop late,” she believes.
“Unfortunately, 1 think good writ
ing comes out of pain.” Bonnie,
with a happy marriage to Larry
Pike, had her own physical pain
with a serious back problem.
Elly admits writing takes disci
pline, and says she spends around
four hours a day at it, five or six
mornings a week. Nodding to Peter,
she says, "He says 1 go through an
obsessive-compulsive routine," and
adds, “If Peter touches a pen, or
puts his glasses on my writing
table, I have a fit.” She sharpens a
dozen or so pencils, smokes a spe
cial brand of cigars from the Can
ary Islands where they have a home,
gets a cup of coffee and finally set
tles down to write. “If 1 get inter
rupted. 1 go to pieces,” she says.
In addition to the home in the
Canary Islands, they have a new
home in Key West, Fla. Though
she has taught creative writing at
Northern Kentucky University for
a number of years, she is presently
on leave. That will be followed by a
sabbatical, so they sold their house
there, although she enjoys teaching
and no doubt will return.
Elly Welt’s next book is already
planned. A memorial tribute to
John Ciardi—a little book, she
calls it—will be called “Dear John.”
Plans for her next big book are in
the works, but she win not talk
about it vet.
But for now, it is Thursday, May
15. It’s Elly Welt’s birthday and her
mother has a big cake waiting.
— IIITM ~BIT1 • • r* t 2