Looking back on his childhood, author Edward Schwarzschild remembers how his salesman father refused to see Arthur Miller’s stage classic “Death of a Salesman.” It was, he says, “too close to home.”
That blend of the literary and the humdrum ultimately paid off for the younger Schwarzschild, who has just published his debut novel, “Responsible Men.”
It’s the story of Max Wolinsky, a fortysomething Jewish salesman and con artist with an aging father and a rebellious teenage son. Though Max claims a modicum of integrity, he still hopes to pull off one last big con. What and how he does so comprises the novel’s fun and fancy.
Schwarzschild, 40, is quick to note that though he comes from a long line of Jewish salesmen, his father maintained the highest ethical standards throughout his career.
“One reason this wound up being my first novel,” says the author, “is that my father distanced me from what he did. How he spent his days was pretty mysterious to me. Writing it was a way of getting to know him.”
Schwarzschild will be in the Bay Area next week for book-signings.
The Jewish con as a literary type has a long history, particularly in the works of writers like Isaac Singer. As a fan of American fiction, Schwarzschild is pleased to add his voice to the ongoing conversation.
“I like the idea of con men with a conscience,” he says. “I’m drawn not to characters who are incredibly evil or innocent. I’m drawn to the people who inhabit the middle ground.”
Schwarzschild’s day job is teaching writing and literature at the State University of New York at Albany. It’s a job he loves, especially as it dovetails nicely with his literary career. “I find it a good thing to do alongside writing,” he says, “especially reading current work and teaching students how to write.”
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. For most of his early years, Schwarzschild planned on becoming a doctor. Growing up in a Reform household in Philadelphia, Schwarzschild enjoyed a rich Jewish upbringing (which included a summer with a kosher Boy Scout troop, an ordeal comically recreated in the novel).
His father never wanted Schwarzschild to go into the family business of sales, and urged his son to aim higher. Medicine seemed the way to go, but a stubborn artistic temperament kept getting in the way.
“I was always a reader,” he says, “and I loved to write. In college I took creative writing workshops, wrote stories all the time, as well as premed courses. I signed up for the MCAT three times and each time I said I was not ready. That’s when I realized I shouldn’t go to medical school.”
Instead, he earned a Ph.D. in American Literature, followed by a teaching post at Sweetbriar College in Virginia. Four years later he earned an MFA at Boston University and a fellowship in the Wallace Stegner program at Stanford.
“I loved San Francisco,” he says. “I lived at Masonic near the Panhandle, and in my workshop we had Julie Orringer and Adam Johnson. It was paradise. There’s nothing better for a writer than to have such great teachers and colleagues.”
Of course, even the most respected professionals can get weak in the knees when it comes to impressing mom and dad. How did the novel go over with Schwarzschild’s father?
“I was really nervous about my dad reading it. I didn’t want him to read a bound galley. I wanted it to be a real book. When he was reading it, I was so nervous, I couldn’t even be in the house. But he enjoyed it a lot.”
That hurdle met, the writer has been hopping, skipping and jumping around the country on his first book tour. So far, he says, his novel has been an easy sell.
“On the road,” notes Schwarzschild, “the section that’s fun to read is the kosher Boy Scout section. Even if I have to explain what ‘kosher’ is, people find something [in the story] for themselves. Even in Austin, Texas.”
Edward Schwarzschild will appear 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 11, at the Terrace Room, Margaret Jacks Hall, Stanford University; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 12, at the Avid Reader, 617 Second Street, Davis. Information: (530) 758-4040; and 7 p.m. Friday, May 13, at Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books, 601 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Information: (415) 441-6670.
“Responsible Men” by Edward Schwarzschild (352 pages, Algonquin Books, $22.95).