Forty Years in the Making

I completed the first draft of this story well over forty years ago.  At that time a publisher had selected for publication.  I was subsequently informed by my agent that the book, then titled Generation After, had been removed from the publication list because, “The public is not ready for stories dealing with the Holocaust.”

Life being what it is, I had a few friends read the story before I buried the manuscript in the proverbial sock drawer where, from time to time, I pulled it out, revised it, sent it to publishers and buried it even deeper.

I have often asked myself why I wasn’t more persistent in pursuing publication.  I don’t know the answer to that question with any sense of accuracy, but here goes.  I start with the proposition that I shouldn’t publish a story about the horrors of the Holocaust without having street creds with respect to the subject. 

As I have noted before, my family blessedly escaped the atrocities and what I actually know has come from reading and listening to survivors who have been willing to tell their stories.  Forty years ago there were not so many people willing or emotionally able to tell their stories, accordingly much of what Bernard Helgman (my fictitious character) experienced in the camp is pure imagination.  Life in the camps was so horrible as to defy even the most active imagination, and so I have been reluctant to pursue publication because I don’t want to trivialize the Calamity. 

Out of the Depths, while entirely fictional, deals with one person’s anguish over what he did in the camp in order to preserve his own life.  This anguish is manifest after his release and affects everyone who knows him. (taken from David's notes)