Sharks bit three people last week off the beaches of Long Island. The Robert Moses State Park Field Beach was briefly closed on July 4 following a shark sighting. Swimming was banned at several Nantucket beaches earlier this week after great white sharks were spotted in the area. It’s Jaws all over again! Which is why H & I joined a friend to see the original movie when it was playing on the...
Almost 60 million adults in the U.S. are living in multigenerational family households, according to data from The Pew Research Center. It’s four times the number that did so in 1971. The percentage share also more than doubled, to 18% of the U.S. population. Disclosure: I live in one of these multigenerational family households. Both of our young adult, employed college graduates are...
I’m not usually one for patting myself on the back, but I know I did one thing right as a parent: fostered a love of reading in both of our kids. It began with countless hours of Harriet and I reading to the kids when they were young, then came the phase of pressing upon them to read this or that book I thought they’d appreciate, and now we’re in what I call the era of reciprocity: now they’re...
My siblings and I jointly own a summer cottage in Canada that my father left to us in his will. Growing up in Buffalo, we spent our summers in Canada, in our early years at a place we called Three Acres upon which my father and his buddies hand-built six very rustic cottages in the 1950s. Our current cottage Old cottage Almost fifty years later my dad upgraded to a new place—bigger, with reliable...
1. I’m on my bike riding through a residential neighborhood, zipping down one of the only hills in Bethlehem to gain enough speed to climb up the other side. Ahead of me, I spot two other riders, a man and a woman heading in my direction. They’re on my side of the road. Someone has to move to the other side, and it should be them. They just keep on coming in my direct path. I take a quick look...
The family is together. We’re heading to a birthday party on Long Island. I’m driving seventy-five miles an hour southbound on the New York State Thruway and the hybrid warning light comes on the dashboard with the command to TURN OFF ENGINE. The car immediately loses power. This happens right where Route 17 South merges with the Thruway, five lanes of traffic coming together and we’re in the...
He wrote one of the most powerful, memorable novels I have ever read—The Road, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2007—and now he’s dead. Cormac McCarthy, age 89. The Road is a simple story: a father and his young son traverse a post-Apocalyptic world in search of . . . what they are searching for is not explicitly stated. Safety. Humanity. Hope. The next breath. Like very few novels, The Road...
Within walking distance or a short bike ride from our place in Thunder Bay are a number of tennis courts. I pass by them and am reminded of another era, the 1970s when most of these courts were probably installed and tennis was booming on the global stage. The big stars back then were Bjorn Borg, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, and Chris Everett. Bob Klein, serving big...
The pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson (The Grifters, The Getaway, A Hell of a Woman—and many more) said, “There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.” And to realize that truth about fiction, chances are you have to read to the end of a book. The ending is the most important part of any novel—because no one reads a book to find out what happens in the middle. I’ve been hearing from some...
Ah, Sunday morning. Do you ever get sucked into one of those existential moments? When you’re deep in the throes of contemplation about the nature of human existence—all its mystery, uncertainty, and complexity. Its pleasure and suffering. Its beauty and horror. And you’re compelled to evaluate your role as the architect of your brief and minuscule life? They can be a struggle, these existential...
It’s been ages since the four of us have gone out for dinner, but finally the stars align and we decide to go out to celebrate some family milestones. We choose a restaurant with a good reputation that we’ve been to before and that works for all of our tastes. Some of us have a cocktail, and we order two appetizers to share and four entrees. So far, so good, except Harriet’s cocktail, although...
Today I honor the two most influential mothers in my life: my own mother, Irene Klein, and my life partner and mother to Julia and Owen, Harriet Jaffe. Irene It’s been forty years since I’ve had a mother. I have only the same few memories of my mother, and many of them are foggy. I can form no new ones. And many memories are long forgotten. But I know this: I loved my mom deeply. I felt a strong...
The milkweed is coming up in our yard. We’ve never planted or cultivated it, but over the years it has appeared on its own and we appreciate every plant, even the ones that pop up in the middle of the lawn. Harriet taught me all about milkweed and how it’s the only plant where a monarch butterfly will lay its eggs. She’s an expert at finding the eggs. Some she raises until they hatch into...
If you haven’t had a chance to read my most recent novel, In Flight, you can get it here. There’s a brief scene in which our hero, Robert Besch, who survived a plane crash, fails to adequately explain his new outlook on life to his colleague, Dennis. But Dennis, who’s had his own near-death experience, thinks he understands what Robert might be going through and why things...
When I enter someone’s home for the first time I look for the bookshelves, and if I discover bookshelves full of books, I’ve found my conversation starter. If I don’t see any books or bookshelves, I’m disappointed, even concerned. I admittedly jump to conclusions about my host, although I shouldn’t be in such a rush to judgment. You can imagine my reaction when I read a New York Times article...
