Richard Alther
Richard Alther was raised as a Lutheran German-American in a small New York City suburb, rife with anti-Semitism. After graduating as an English major from Cornell University, he supported himself and his family as a writer of vegetable gardening manuals from their Vermont homestead. Fueled by his ongoing search into the roots of Nazism, he studied German and Jewish history, folklore, and languages. SIEGFRIED FOLLIES approaches the aftermath and legacy of the Holocaust from a perspective coequally gentile and Jewish. This is his second novel. Alther has been an exhibiting painter for many years. In addition, he trains and competes nationally as a Masters Swimmer. He and his new spouse live in Vermont and California. |
Siegfried Follies
In brief: Blond, blue-eyed Franz, a Hitler youth, in fleeing his Nazi birthing home as bombs destroy Munich, saves a filthy, speechless boy thrown from a train. They squat in an opera house cellar, soon concocting sell-out puppet shows of Wagnerian folk heroes. Franz trades cigarette butts for food, eventually hawks sausages and porn as a teen, to support “J” in school. J rebels against Franz’s goal for him, determined to become a Jew, first joining an Israeli kibbutz, then studying at Yeshiva University, finally eking as a Hebrew storyteller/puppeteer in New York where he descends into despair and degradation. Meanwhile Franz pursues the American dream as a heartland salesman, married with two children, but forever plagued by J’s rejection. Eventually he tracks down J who visits Franz and captivates his sculptor wife Marcy, dogged by the legacy of her anti-Semitic family. Franz battles the balance of work and family as J finds his place as caregiver to the children and mentor/lover to Marcy, who sires their son. |