Larry Zuckerman is the author of the new novel To Save a Life. His other books include Lonely Are the Brave. He lives in Seattle.
Q: What inspired you to write To Save a Life, and how did you create your characters Malka and Yaakov?
A: Several years back, I visited the Orchard Street Tenement Museum in Lower Manhattan, and when I saw those matchbox-sized rooms, I wondered how the people crowded into them hatched such grand dreams amid little light or privacy or fresh air.
They could have been my grandparents, who came around 1910, and so the idea of writing about Jewish immigrants began to grow on me. But nothing tangible struck me until I conceived of Malka and Yaakov, who, I decided, escaped Russia years apart but in similar fashion to one another–traveling alone, under circumstances they conceal out of shame.
Next, I imagined how their shame taints the freedom they emigrated for and stops them from living fully. And since each carries a secret they refuse to reveal, what will happen if they meet–and what will make them try to change?
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I relied on photographs, memoirs, and secondary sources about the Lower East Side in general and about particular facets of life, like the Yiddish theater or popular music.
A history of the garment workers’ union, for example, mentioned the strangest story about Eastern Europe: how Jews of modest means–cobblers, tailors, carpenters, and other artisans–resented that wealthy merchants got to read from the Torah scrolls in synagogue, when they themselves never did. Fistfights resulted, which I found hard to believe; I just couldn’t picture that in a sacred context.
But I had no trouble accepting that the cobblers and tailors decided to emigrate, in part, because they had heard that “the land of Columbus” was a place where a man who worked with his hands could have dignity.
They might or might not better themselves economically in America, but if they could hold their heads high, I could see how that alone might justify leaving everything behind and starting over.
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I had a rough idea how the novel would end, but not how the story would get there. The past few novels I’ve written, I’ve taken to working without an outline, because I like the spontaneity, the chance to discover the unexpected.
A novel with two main characters, like To Save a Life, offers a simple, effective way to experiment with that. Whenever it’s time to shift point of view from one protagonist to the other, I think about who stood in his or her way a few chapters back and summon that antagonist for another appearance. That keeps the conflicts alive and may lead to narrative twists I hadn’t anticipated.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: My title comes from the Talmud’s discussion of Cain and Abel, which likens saving a life to saving the world. But as with all religious texts, interpretations vary, so it’s not surprising that two characters in my novel with opposing outlooks quote the same passage, and that their actions have vastly different consequences.
Further, though physically saving a life is the literal meaning, Malka and Yaakov have saved themselves from emotional death in Russia, only to face the same threat in America. Gradually, they each realize that if they are to live a life worthy of their sacrifices, they’ll have to rescue themselves once more–but how?
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m writing a Holocaust novel that takes place in 1943, based on a true story about three men who try to stop a train headed to Auschwitz. With a lantern, pliers, and one pistol among them, facing heavily armed German soldiers guarding the train, the trio plans to free as many Jews as they can.
You couldn’t make up a story like that, and when I ran across it last year, I knew I had to write it. I’ve always liked literary thrillers, where character matters as much as plot, creating even greater tension because the reader has invested in them–that’s what I’m trying to do.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I love the challenge of re-creating the mindset of a past era, which emerges in headlines and fashion, for instance, but runs much deeper—so deep that no one living back then would need to explain what was self-evident.
Portraying that mindset faithfully and subtly requires viewing the era the way its contemporaries did and conveying that to a modern reader without calling undue attention to it.
But whatever mores or prejudices commonly belong to a time or place, I don’t like to pull punches or “protect” my characters so that readers will like them. If I can’t tell a story straight up, I won’t write it. I try to make sure that my main characters have real flaws and that my antagonists have dignity and believe implicitly in what they do.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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