Set in 1973 New York City, this debut novel has everything from sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll to an est-like self-help program. The Rogen Treatment Program uses the Holocaust to make people aware of how good their lives really are. Well-drawn characters in vivid settings, along with plot twists, guarantee an unforgettable reading experience.
Set in 1973 New York City, this debut novel has everything from sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll to an est-like self-help program. The Rogen Treatment Program uses the Holocaust to make people aware of how good their lives really are. Well-drawn characters in vivid settings, along with plot twists, guarantee an unforgettable reading experience.
Too often during the year before she left for college, Michelle Cooper spent nights cringing in her room, mortified that her father was at Don Wang’s, a restaurant a few blocks from their house. She pictured him sitting at the tiny bar, accosting neighbors who went there to eat or get take out, and what they said about him afterward. The nights when he’d come stumbling home with a DWI ticket in his pocket there were loud, ugly fights with her mother who by that time of night wasn’t exactly seeing straight either. Life was unbearable for Michelle then, and after leaving it was only marginally better.
On a Friday afternoon, making her way through herds of people, glaring light from Christmassy store windows and street lamps, and the incessant ringing of Salvation Army bells, Michelle thought about Harvey. It was probably good that he was gone, and if he showed up she’d tell him to fuck off and never darken her doorstep again. He was more trouble than he was worth; she wiped her eyes tearing from the cold. True, they had shared some good times getting high, making love, laughing.
But Harvey was a lunatic, certified manic-depressive, with the hospital papers to prove it. She knew that if she’d been living in a place where she didn’t fear for her life, she would have been less likely to share the space with someone bursting out of his own skin. The sad truth was that when he was there, she didn’t feel quite as vulnerable.
In the seven months since she had first met Harvey waiting for takeout in a neighborhood Cuban Chinese place, he had disappeared twice. Part of his m.o.; he just couldn’t stay put. So Michelle became too familiar with her ambivalence over whether she hoped he would come back, or not. On most days she tried unsuccessfully to devise a plan for the evening that would involve more than just going home to be alone in her off-kilter little room.
Despite her capacity for introspection, Michelle failed to make the obvious connection between Harvey being gone, her father going to Don Wang’s, and her own practice four years later. Located on West Fifty-Seventh Street in Manhattan, the Yang Tse River Restaurant was somewhat more cosmopolitan than little Don Wang’s in a Pleasant Hills, Long Island strip mall. The bar was four times as large, and usually contained several people, mainly men with loosened ties fortifying themselves before going home. Occasionally, there were women, too, the female version of the men, wearing high heels and business suits with coiffed hair and reapplied makeup.
Approaching the Yang Tse River, she had no intention of going in but found herself doing so anyway, as if her will came from somewhere other than herself. Drawn to the long, dimly lit bar, she answered without hesitation when the middle-aged, ruddy-faced bartender slapped a napkin in front of her and said, “What can I get you?”
“A sweet Rob Roy on the rocks.” It rolled off her tongue, like a Scottish lilt oft-repeated and loved.
Within seconds, the first half of the drink was gone, and within two minutes of arriving she was starting the second. She took off her coat and placed it on the stool next to her, regretting not being able to block the one on her other side. What she wanted, or needed, was to think, despite friends telling her she thought too much. How could she think too much? They didn’t think enough. Especially when she had such a driving need to figure out her life, how could she not. Then they usually said, “You have to get out there and do things, not just think about them.”
Michelle felt a warm fondness for the Yang Tse, for its combination of anonymity and homeyness, for the hush of people talking, and the glitter of tinsel strewn across the mirrored backdrop of glowing-gem liquor bottles. Now sipping instead of gulping, Michelle stared into the bronze liquid and shrinking ice cubes, as if the answers she sought were there.
“College”: it was a misleading word for the four-year whirlwind that had ended a few months before. At the beginning, she’d made a sincere effort, going to classes and doing homework, but the deeper she got sucked into dorm life with new friends, and the exhilarating release of being away from her parents, schoolwork became a serious burden. After two years she changed schools, hoping that suburban New York would be quieter and less distracting than Boston, and she’d be more serious about studying. Unfortunately, the spirit of the summer of Woodstock, nineteen sixty-nine, was ubiquitous. The life of partying and escape through chemicals had sunk its teeth into her, and she was caught.
The irony, Michelle thought, sipping her Rob Roy, was that college had not been completely without learning. One thing she thought she knew had been confirmed, that she was challenged both by living with people and without them. As much as she had thrived off living in a dorm with her friends, she often felt driven to get away and be alone.
There was also one event to which her current thoughts clung with hope, when a teacher had said Michelle’s poems reminded her of the work of Sylvia Plath, known as much for her poetry as for ending her life with her head in an oven.
Perhaps the most important thing Michelle had not learned was how to live. Sixteen years of schooling and she was still ignorant about the most crucial subject: how to fill her days and nights and make them meaningful while also earning a living. It boggled her mind how people like Howie at the store knew just what to do, yet she hadn’t a clue.
“Is anyone sitting here?” A man stood by the empty stool next to her. Too numb to really think about it, Michelle said, “No.” Another time she would have said yes just to keep him from sitting there, unless she happened to be attracted to him.
The man said, “I’m Randy and you are…?”
“Clara,” she said impulsively.
“Clara. That’s my grandmother’s name,” Randy said, ordering and downing a mouthful of beer.
“Great.” Like she cared.
“So, what do you do, Clara?”
She studied him. He was actually kind of pleasant-looking, with a benign, even kind face. Moderate features, nothing too big, or too small. Ordinary brown eyes. Decent smile.
“What do you do, Randy?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“Really. That’s a coincidence.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m working as a bookkeeper and today I met an accountant I’ll be working with.”
“Hey, that is a coincidence. I guess there’s a lot of us in the city.”
“Well, Ida isn’t a real accountant I don’t think. I mean, how many accountants do you know who are also shoplifters?”
Randy polished off his beer and motioned to the bartender. “Can I get you another one, whatever that is you’re drinking?”
“Sure, thanks. Sweet Rob Roy on the Rocks. Scotch and sweet vermouth.”
“Wow.” Smiling, he nodded at the bartender, and pointed to her drink. “Hey, I want to ask you something. You look like the kind of girl, er, sorry, woman, who might have heard of this.”
“Heard of what?” Michelle nodded thanks at the bartender for her new drink.
“At my office today, someone was talking about something called “Quest”. You know about it?”
“Not really, I mean I’ve heard of it, read about it. Why? You thinking of doing it? You don’t strike me as the type…”
“I’m not, but you look more like someone who is….”
She studied his face with heavy-lidded eyes. “You know, it might not be a bad idea. I don’t like group things usually, but maybe I’ll check it out.”
“The person was saying they make you sit there for long hours and don’t let you go to the bathroom.”
Michelle frowned, “And that’s supposed to help you? It sounds kind of fucked up. I don’t know if I could tolerate it.”
“The woman said it was pretty hard but she’s glad she did it.” Randy yawned. “Sorry.”
“Anyway, Randy. Thanks. Now let me tell you something that happened to me today. Tell me what you think, okay?”
She began to tell Randy how she had gone into Henri Bendel’s which was next door to the bookstore she worked in - well, she didn’t actually work in the store, she worked in its office - to buy a tee shirt.
She stopped to sip her drink and they laughed, as Randy had heard of Bendel’s and knew it wasn’t a store one went to for a simple tee shirt, and she went on, how she saw this frail little woman wearing a babushka, like she just got off the frigging boat, stuffing a cashmere sweater into a bag.
Randy, listening, took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves, all of which encouraged Michelle to continue.
“Should I go on?” she asked.
“Please,” he said, leaning his head on his hand.
She guzzled down more scotch and sweet vermouth and was about to resume the story but noticed Randy’s eyelids fluttering. Great, she thought and then said out loud, but Randy, still leaning on his hand, was asleep. Wasn’t that fucking typical… well, it was just as well; he certainly wasn’t her type. Then again, she stared at him, he’d probably be a good lay. His hands had that look of strength along with the ability to touch with consciousness; his lips were sensual. Should she wake him? Nah…
Putting on her pecan-brown faux fur coat a sleeve accidentally hit Randy in the face and his eyes popped open.
“Oh, sorry, did I fall asleep? Really, Clara. It’s been a long week. What were you saying? Bendel’s?” Michelle buttoned her coat watching Randy try to act in control. Nodding, his eyes reflecting interest and sympathy, Randy said, “You’re leaving?”
“Listen, my name’s not Clara, it’s Michelle. I don’t know why I said it was Clara. Sorry.”
“So it’s not the same as my grandmother.” Randy finished off his beer while Michelle watched red light from somewhere cover his hair, like blood. “Too bad.”
“Why, is that important?” The first swirls of queasiness in her throat intensified her need to get going.
“No, it’s not important,” Randy said. “Listen, are you okay? You look pretty out of it. Let me go with you, make sure you get where you’re going, okay?”
Michelle sipped the last drops of Sweet Rob Roy. “Maybe I should have another one?”
“If you’re asking me,” Randy said, “I’d say no. But of course, it’s up to you. Anyway, I thought you were leaving.”
Leaning on the stool, Michelle waved at the bartender, but when he approached, Randy said, “Come on, Michelle, why don’t we walk?” shook his head at the bartender, and paid the tab. After Randy put on his own coat, he helped Michelle with hers, and they pushed their way through people waiting for tables and take-out.
The cold air and relative quiet of the street gave Michelle a bit more clarity, helping her breathe more easily through alcohol-saturated lungs. Faint snowflakes came at her face like a swarm of insects at a car windshield. At the same time, she fought against the pressure in her facial muscles of wanting to cry because she wasn’t with friends. She continued to consider whether to go home with Randy.
They walked a short distance without talking, hands in their pockets, into their own thoughts. At Columbus Circle for the second time that day, Michelle’s sense of emptiness intensified, for the environment had a stability that in contrast she was thoroughly lacking.
“You want to get something to eat?” Randy said.
They stood in the falling snow, waiting for the light to change. Feeling as if each car’s revolving tires were churning in her stomach, Michelle said, “I don’t know. I feel sort of nauseous.”
“Maybe it’s because you haven’t eaten. Have you?”
“Uh, no, maybe… You know, making decisions isn’t one of my strong suits.”
“So let me make this one for you,” Randy said, stamping his feet on the snowy ground. “Come on, let’s go eat. There’s a place right over there. My treat.”
She looked from Randy to the restaurant. “No, I don’t think so, but thanks anyway. I’m gonna go home.”
“Okay, sure. You want company? Or want to come to my place?”
She considered; he was nice enough. But what if Harvey showed up? She could find a phone, and see if he was there, but even if he wasn’t he might show up later and that wouldn’t be a pretty scene. Whether she was there or not there.
“Randy, maybe another time. Then again, probably not. I have a boyfriend, sort of… But also, we’re really pretty different, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know you well enough to say.”
“Come on, walk me to the subway.”
“Here, let me pay for a cab for you.” He started to walk to the curb to hail a cab. “So you have a boyfriend, eh?”
Michelle grabbed his arm. “It’s complicated. Wait. What about you? Don’t you live on the Upper West Side too?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to walk. Come on, you look freezing. Taxi!”
One pulled over and Randy opened the door. “My last name’s Showalter if you change your mind. Randy Showalter. Here.” He handed her a ten dollar bill. “Be safe, Michelle. It was fun meeting you.” He kissed her on the forehead. She looked down so he couldn’t see tears that again had started to blur her vision. “Thanks. You, too.”
“Where to?” the cabdriver asked.
She gave the address and sat back, watching the Manhattan streets, aglow with color and lights, brighter in the snow. She had just made a very poor choice, giving up someone kind and wholesome for what, a raving drug addict?
The cab was nearing her building. “Pull up to the corner, please? I’ll get out there.”
The snow was falling harder as she headed straight into the liquor store. In addition to the bottle of vermouth, she bought two packs of Beer Nuts, remembering she hadn’t eaten. Who said she couldn’t take care of herself?
The main character, Michelle, in Thirty Years Hence, acknowledges that "the prevailing hippie lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll embraced her like a lost child." She feels depressed and unprepared for life and is of the generation that demanded its freedom from parental conventions but then managed that freedom badly. She associates with a succession of unsavory men, including a drug addict and a Nazi sympathizer she picks up in a bar and wonders why she feels like a prisoner of her "obsessive self-torture." When she befriends Ida, a traumatized survivor of Auschwitz, we could hope that Michelle recognizes the transcending reality of Ida's anguish, survivor's guilt and lingering grief, all typical of Holocaust survivors. However, Michelle continues to live with her own addiction fueled angst, not recognizing that "booze and drugs" are the reason for her self-imposed unhappiness. Ida finally, is willing to learn about "the art of being free" and the two women undergo a bizarre program run by an unqualified guru named Charles using shock therapy with Nazi role-players in a grotesque and in my opinion, dangerous way to resolve trauma and surely not one that would be approved by the ethics committee of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Social Work. The fictitious Rogen Treatment Program makes a mockery of the need for Holocaust survivors to have sensitive therapeutic help for their lasting complex psychological damage; Michelle simply needed Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous to achieve self worth. She has a brief "epiphany" when she decides to become a doctor, but soon relapses with cocaine.
The author did well in depicting the often sordid details and characters in Michelle's story but fails to offer a convincing or satisfying redemption in the lives of her two main characters. Ida and Michelle become good friends - but after all they have been through, is that enough?