The Brothers Kramm Revisited

I'm happy to say that my story The Brothers Kramm made it into Tightrope Books' The Best Canadian Essays of 2010, an anthology edited by Kamal Al-Solaylee and Alex Boyd. The Brothers Kramm previously appeared in Queen's Quarterly. I wrote it after returning from a trip to Frankfurt in 2005. I hope it will become part of a book and a group of stories and essays about family written from the perspective of my not-German and not-Jewish identity, i.e. my negative capability. I suppose a book of creative non-fiction. "It occurs to me that what pushes people to lie and falsify is precisely the pressure to tell the truth."

Seamlessly Elegant

Over at Canadian Literature, a Quarterly of Criticism and Review, Lisa Grekul reviews Eva's Threepenny Theatre alongside Ray Smith's Century. The years and years I spent obsessing (not writing) over structure are not lost:

While he develops a rich “cast of characters,” including his grandfather, his father, Eva’s sisters, and Eva’s last partner, Steinmetz is no detached recorder or alienated observer. And yet, the “singular” (to revisit Foran’s language) achievement of Eva’s Threepenny Theatre is that Steinmetz makes no apology for the seamlessly elegant ways in which he plays the “playwright.” Guided by Brecht’s notion that “[a]rt is not a mirror to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it,” Steinmetz makes his hammer apparent without bludgeoning readers with it. We don’t need to be told that he can never know the full truth—and yet, we somehow sense that he has come stunningly close.

The Brothers Kramm

A soldier takes aim on the Eastern Front, and somehow the bullet strikes home again and gain, for generations to come. The Brothers Kramm is a new story which you can find in the 'False Papers: Biography and Real Life' issue of Queen's Quarterly (Winter 2009). The Brothers Kramm, both soldiers, who served in the Third Reich, are Eva's brother's brothers-in-law (sorry, you'll need to do the math in your head). Here's a quote from near the end of my story:

"It occurs to me that what pushes people to lie and falsify is precisely the pressure to tell the truth. This is something I understood implicitly when I insisted all there was to know about my great uncle Hrolf was contained in his glass eye. It was impossible to know with certainty what the solution to his character was. And forcing the discovery of facts, pushing too hard, would deaden the chance for illumination."

Ottawa Book Award Winner

Eva picked up the Ottawa Book Award - fiction category - in October.

Jury Statement:

“A compelling and unique blend of fiction and memoir, Eva’s Threepenny Theatre explores the life of Steinmetz’s great-aunt Eva through her tumultuous childhood in Germany before the Second World War, to her involvement in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, to her life in post-war Berlin and her old age in Canada. In an extraordinary feat of form echoing content, the story is told in shards, like glass shattered during Kristellnacht. At times devastating and poignant, at times hilarious, this book is brilliant and profound.”

Finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Award

Eva’s Threepenny Theatre is a finalist for the 2009 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Established in 1997, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize recognizes Canadian writers of exceptional talent for the year’s best novel or short story collection.

The other finalists are Nicole Brossard for Fences in Breathing, translated by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood; Douglas Coupland for Generation A; Alice Munro for her short story collection Too Much Happiness; Annabel Lyon for The Golden Mean. For more information about the award, visit The Writers' Trust.

All of the 2009 finalists will read during the International Festival of Authors in Toronto on October 28, 2009. Tickets for the event can be purchased online through the IFOA website.The prize winner will be announced at the Writers' Trust Awards on November 24, 2009 at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto.

rob mclennan's 12 or 20 Questions

rob mclennan has posted 12 or 20 Questions: with Andrew Steinmetz on his blog. Below is an excerpt:

Q9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
A9 - Hold on to the boat.

Q13 - What was your most recent Hallowe'en costume?
A13 - Salman Rushdie.

Q16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
A14 - Play attacking midfield for Arsenal FC alongside Arshavin and Fabregas.

Q18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
A18 - When you write you don’t have to open your mouth.

Had enough? NO, then go here.

Ottawa Book Awards

Eva is a finalist for the 2009 Ottawa Book Awards. Hurrah!