Michael Lavigne, author of Not Me
Latest reviews:
Baltimore Sun: The premise of Lavigne's debut novel is nothing short of brilliant. Michael Rosenheim, a stand-up comedian in his 40s, grew up with a father who survived the Holocaust to become a pillar of the New Jersey Jewish community, a fervent supporter of Israel, and a champion of Jewish causes around the world. Now, as the old man is dying of Alzheimer's in a Florida nursing home, Michael finds a box of diaries revealing that in fact his father was not Heshel Rosenheim but Heinrich Mueller, a Nazi accountant at the death camp Majdanek who, in the final weeks of the war, pretended to be Jewish, starving and tattooing himself in order to be rescued as a survivor.
Stunned by his father's masquerade, Michael is unable to corroborate the diaries' allegations: His mother is dead and his father disappears deeper every day into the fog of Alzheimer's. As the novel shifts back and forth between the diaries and Michael's horrified re-evaluations, it builds into a gripping meditation about the fluidity of identity. Avoiding every gimmicky pitfall, Lavigne's tale has poignancy, real philosophical depth, and a thrilling momentum.
Boston Globe:This surprising novel starts with a complex and compelling premise and concludes with a neat and satisfying ending. Michael Rosenheim, recently divorced from his still beloved wife and distant from his needy son, visits his old and demented father in Florida. From tattered old journals, he learns that his father, Heshel, a model of Jewish philanthropy, ''a one-man Jewish National Fund," is in fact a Nazi war criminal. Born Heinrich Mueller in Berlin, he was the bookkeeper at the Majdanek concentration camp, listing shoes, eyeglasses, wedding rings, and gold fillings taken from Jews. He also counted bodies. Knowing the war was ending and that his safety was in peril, he starved and tattooed himself to resemble the emaciated inmates he had known only as anonymous numbers, and hid himself on a pile of their dead bodies. His ruse succeeded, and he was swept up in its consequences. Ending up in Palestine, he became a fearless fighter for the Jewish cause. Later, a husband and father in suburban New Jersey, he became a store owner and a tireless worker for all Jewish causes.
Unfolding in suspenseful increments, the tale ties up nicely with historical accuracy and moral ambiguity.
The Jewish Week, New York: Michael Lavigne’s debut novel turns on a son’s shocking discovery. A box of letters and journals also plays a role in Michael Lavigne’s intriguing and ambitious first novel, “Not Me” (Random House).
Michael Rosenheim is caring for his dying father in a Florida retirement home, when, one day, the elderly man, suffering from Alzheimer’s and other diseases, mysteriously presents him with a set of papers in a decaying box. He had no idea that his father kept journals. The son — a second-string stand-up comic who manages to get some funny lines into the narrative — says that his father, a well-known Jewish humanitarian whose apartment was filled of photographs of him posing with Jewish dignitaries, was the last person whose intimate details he’d want to know.
The journals, woven into the novel’s text, reveal a shocking family secret: The elder Rosenheim had been a Nazi accountant, responsible for creating inventories of materials taken from Jews. Just before the camps were liberated, he transformed himself in order to save his life — he went so far as to have a number singed into his arm.
This is a novel of suspense with moral and philosophical underpinnings, as a son comes to terms with his father’s past. It’s a story of the burden of guilt, the possibilities of redemption, the nature of identity and the pull of family.
Pre-publication notices:
"Lavigne carves a new portal into the depthless mystery of the Holocaust, writing insightfully and imaginatively about the survival instinct and the thorny love between fathers and sons in a debut even more accomplished than Nicole Krauss’ much-hailed Holocaust novel The History of Love (2005). Michael Rosenheim, a smart and endearingly self-deprecating stand-up comic, hides within a fortress of jokes in the wake of the early deaths of his sister and mother and his divorce. Now Heshel, his father, is in a Florida nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s. Holed up in his father’s Judaica-festooned apartment, Michael feels as though he has gone through the looking glass as he starts reading a set of old journals. Lavigne alternates with increasing drama between the ruefully funny “live” scenes and the utter hell the blunt diarist describes in chronicling the life of Heinrich Mueller, an SS death camp accountant. As the Allies approach, he steals the identity of a dead Jewish inmate named Heshel Rosenheim and ends up in Israel, where Holocaust survivors fight heroically for a homeland. Performing a phenomenal balancing act between light and dark, past and present, guilt and forgiveness, Lavigne sets in motion profoundly complex moral dilemmas in a vivid, all-consuming, paradoxical, and quintessentially human story." --Booklist Starred Review by Donna Seaman
“A novel with a powerfully unsettling moral conundrum at its heart: Is radical evil indelible; can anything undo it? But what philosophy cannot resolve, storytelling triumphantly can. Lavigne’s radiantly imagined portrait of human possibility never obscures the blackest abyss of real history, and his Heshel Rosenheim emerges with all the complexity of a modern Raskolnikov.” -–Cynthia Ozick , author of Heir to the Glimmering World
"A disturbing and important meditation on the question of identity. But NOT ME is more than that. It's a pleasure to read. The suspense is there on every page." --Arnon Grunberg, author of Blue Mondays and Phantom Pain
"What a daring, even dangerous, act of the imagination this novel is! Not Me challenges one emotionally and intellectually. It’s that rare phenomenon: a philosophical thriller that will draw you in and leave you arguing furiously with yourself after you’re done." -–Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler
"Michael Lavigne has an immensely powerful story to tell of guilt and redemption. Beyond its riveting plot, Not Me is a novel about the loss and recovery of love. In this sense it reminded me of Dickens’s Great Expectations: Heshel Rosenheim is as mysterious and haunting as Magwitch, and the lesson that his uncanny life imparts to his son, and to Lavigne’s readers, is on a grand human scale, and unforgettable." --Jonathan Wilson, author of A Palestine Affair
"Family secrets, awful historical truths, the nature of good and evil, and the bond between a son and his father are woven seamlessly into a page-turning plot. Michael Lavigne writes with generosity of heart and he leaves the reader with an abundance of hope. Not Me is a powerful debut novel." -–Binnie Kirshenbaum , author of An Almost Perfect Moment
"A disturbing yet surprisingly tender read that grips the reader from page 1 and never lets go. Michael Lavigne tells his intriguing story with intelligence, sensitivity, and flashes of scintillating wit. What more could you ask from a novel?" -–Aaron Hamburger, author of Faith for Beginners
"...crisply written and never less than engaging" --Kirkus Review
Baltimore Sun: The premise of Lavigne's debut novel is nothing short of brilliant. Michael Rosenheim, a stand-up comedian in his 40s, grew up with a father who survived the Holocaust to become a pillar of the New Jersey Jewish community, a fervent supporter of Israel, and a champion of Jewish causes around the world. Now, as the old man is dying of Alzheimer's in a Florida nursing home, Michael finds a box of diaries revealing that in fact his father was not Heshel Rosenheim but Heinrich Mueller, a Nazi accountant at the death camp Majdanek who, in the final weeks of the war, pretended to be Jewish, starving and tattooing himself in order to be rescued as a survivor.
Stunned by his father's masquerade, Michael is unable to corroborate the diaries' allegations: His mother is dead and his father disappears deeper every day into the fog of Alzheimer's. As the novel shifts back and forth between the diaries and Michael's horrified re-evaluations, it builds into a gripping meditation about the fluidity of identity. Avoiding every gimmicky pitfall, Lavigne's tale has poignancy, real philosophical depth, and a thrilling momentum.
Boston Globe:This surprising novel starts with a complex and compelling premise and concludes with a neat and satisfying ending. Michael Rosenheim, recently divorced from his still beloved wife and distant from his needy son, visits his old and demented father in Florida. From tattered old journals, he learns that his father, Heshel, a model of Jewish philanthropy, ''a one-man Jewish National Fund," is in fact a Nazi war criminal. Born Heinrich Mueller in Berlin, he was the bookkeeper at the Majdanek concentration camp, listing shoes, eyeglasses, wedding rings, and gold fillings taken from Jews. He also counted bodies. Knowing the war was ending and that his safety was in peril, he starved and tattooed himself to resemble the emaciated inmates he had known only as anonymous numbers, and hid himself on a pile of their dead bodies. His ruse succeeded, and he was swept up in its consequences. Ending up in Palestine, he became a fearless fighter for the Jewish cause. Later, a husband and father in suburban New Jersey, he became a store owner and a tireless worker for all Jewish causes.
Unfolding in suspenseful increments, the tale ties up nicely with historical accuracy and moral ambiguity.
The Jewish Week, New York: Michael Lavigne’s debut novel turns on a son’s shocking discovery. A box of letters and journals also plays a role in Michael Lavigne’s intriguing and ambitious first novel, “Not Me” (Random House).
Michael Rosenheim is caring for his dying father in a Florida retirement home, when, one day, the elderly man, suffering from Alzheimer’s and other diseases, mysteriously presents him with a set of papers in a decaying box. He had no idea that his father kept journals. The son — a second-string stand-up comic who manages to get some funny lines into the narrative — says that his father, a well-known Jewish humanitarian whose apartment was filled of photographs of him posing with Jewish dignitaries, was the last person whose intimate details he’d want to know.
The journals, woven into the novel’s text, reveal a shocking family secret: The elder Rosenheim had been a Nazi accountant, responsible for creating inventories of materials taken from Jews. Just before the camps were liberated, he transformed himself in order to save his life — he went so far as to have a number singed into his arm.
This is a novel of suspense with moral and philosophical underpinnings, as a son comes to terms with his father’s past. It’s a story of the burden of guilt, the possibilities of redemption, the nature of identity and the pull of family.
Pre-publication notices:
"Lavigne carves a new portal into the depthless mystery of the Holocaust, writing insightfully and imaginatively about the survival instinct and the thorny love between fathers and sons in a debut even more accomplished than Nicole Krauss’ much-hailed Holocaust novel The History of Love (2005). Michael Rosenheim, a smart and endearingly self-deprecating stand-up comic, hides within a fortress of jokes in the wake of the early deaths of his sister and mother and his divorce. Now Heshel, his father, is in a Florida nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s. Holed up in his father’s Judaica-festooned apartment, Michael feels as though he has gone through the looking glass as he starts reading a set of old journals. Lavigne alternates with increasing drama between the ruefully funny “live” scenes and the utter hell the blunt diarist describes in chronicling the life of Heinrich Mueller, an SS death camp accountant. As the Allies approach, he steals the identity of a dead Jewish inmate named Heshel Rosenheim and ends up in Israel, where Holocaust survivors fight heroically for a homeland. Performing a phenomenal balancing act between light and dark, past and present, guilt and forgiveness, Lavigne sets in motion profoundly complex moral dilemmas in a vivid, all-consuming, paradoxical, and quintessentially human story." --Booklist Starred Review by Donna Seaman
“A novel with a powerfully unsettling moral conundrum at its heart: Is radical evil indelible; can anything undo it? But what philosophy cannot resolve, storytelling triumphantly can. Lavigne’s radiantly imagined portrait of human possibility never obscures the blackest abyss of real history, and his Heshel Rosenheim emerges with all the complexity of a modern Raskolnikov.” -–Cynthia Ozick , author of Heir to the Glimmering World
"A disturbing and important meditation on the question of identity. But NOT ME is more than that. It's a pleasure to read. The suspense is there on every page." --Arnon Grunberg, author of Blue Mondays and Phantom Pain
"What a daring, even dangerous, act of the imagination this novel is! Not Me challenges one emotionally and intellectually. It’s that rare phenomenon: a philosophical thriller that will draw you in and leave you arguing furiously with yourself after you’re done." -–Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler
"Michael Lavigne has an immensely powerful story to tell of guilt and redemption. Beyond its riveting plot, Not Me is a novel about the loss and recovery of love. In this sense it reminded me of Dickens’s Great Expectations: Heshel Rosenheim is as mysterious and haunting as Magwitch, and the lesson that his uncanny life imparts to his son, and to Lavigne’s readers, is on a grand human scale, and unforgettable." --Jonathan Wilson, author of A Palestine Affair
"Family secrets, awful historical truths, the nature of good and evil, and the bond between a son and his father are woven seamlessly into a page-turning plot. Michael Lavigne writes with generosity of heart and he leaves the reader with an abundance of hope. Not Me is a powerful debut novel." -–Binnie Kirshenbaum , author of An Almost Perfect Moment
"A disturbing yet surprisingly tender read that grips the reader from page 1 and never lets go. Michael Lavigne tells his intriguing story with intelligence, sensitivity, and flashes of scintillating wit. What more could you ask from a novel?" -–Aaron Hamburger, author of Faith for Beginners
"...crisply written and never less than engaging" --Kirkus Review