The Arts

This is a novel about identities: those that are real and those that can be created.  You need only think of yourself or your children to know about real identities.  But what about created ones?  There are those you might take on yourself — such as an actor does in assuming a new role — and there also are those that are imposed upon you. [Donald H. Harrison]

A Jewish detective imprisoned in Auschwitz is drafted by the camp commandant to determine who has stolen the ledger in which there is an accounting of the gold extracted from the bodies of murdered prisoners.  Shimon Divko knows that he will be sent to the gas chamber whether he solves the mystery or doesn’t — the first alternative because he would then know too much; the second as punishment for failure.  [Donald H. Harrison]

Following a chance meeting aboard an airplane, a doctor simply identified as “J.” is invited to give a lecture at Nevergreen College, which was built on an island that formerly housed an insane asylum.  When the time for the lecture arrives, no one is there to attend it, not even the woman who invited him.  He delivers it nevertheless.  The following morning, he tours the campus, noticing at a student club expo that there are  tables for almost every kind of belief, however ridiculous or contradictory.  [Donald H. Harrison]