The rumors spread by the Camp's inmates, other Nazi officers, and the Kommandant's own family insist that she was his "mistress," but was she, voluntarily? Told from three different perspectives - that of the formerly idealistic Kommandant, the young Jewish inmate who captivates him, and the ostensibly objective historical biographies of the protagonists - this novel examines one troubling moral question over and over: if your staying alive was the only "good" during the War, if your survival was your sole purpose in this horrific world of the Concentration Camps - whether you were Nazi or...
The rumors spread by the Camp's inmates, other Nazi officers, and the Kommandant's own family insist that she was his "mistress," but was she, volunta...
"Where Lightning Strikes" includes all Szeman's Holocaust poetry, from the poems featured in her Ph.D. dissertation "Survivor: One Who Survives, " to the original versions of "Rachel's poems" appearing or mentioned in Szeman's award-winning, critically acclaimed first novel "The Kommandant's Mistress." The poems in this collection revisit the classic themes that have inspired poets for generations: love, passion, betrayal, doubt, loyalty, despair, faith, and survival - this time in the context of the period before, during, and after the Holocaust with its systematic persecution and...
"Where Lightning Strikes" includes all Szeman's Holocaust poetry, from the poems featured in her Ph.D. dissertation "Survivor: One Who Survives, " ...
"Love in the Time of Dinosaurs" includes all Szeman's non-Holocaust poetry from 1980-2010. Many of the poems begin with a narrator's or character's questioning his expectations of life versus the reality s/he encounters. In "Portrait of the Poet as a Woman, " the poems, firmly grounded in everyday objects and people, examine marriage, children, and family relationships; eventually expanding the narrator's or character's view to include the universal human condition, especially that of women. The narrators of all the family dramatic monologues speak poignantly of our desire for acceptance...
"Love in the Time of Dinosaurs" includes all Szeman's non-Holocaust poetry from 1980-2010. Many of the poems begin with a narrator's or character's...
When Claudia Sloane is arrested for the murder of her mother-in-law, everyone is stunned, especially her husband Sam. Claudia loved Eleanor as if she were her own mother and would never have hurt her. At least, that's what Claudia insists. But even Sam begins to wonder how far Claudia would go in the name of love: did she help the terminally-ill Eleanor commit suicide?
Upon first marrying Sam, Claudia thinks she's found the "happily ever after" life she's always dreamed of. She has an affectionate and devoted husband, and in Sam's mother, Eleanor, the orphaned Claudia finds the...
When Claudia Sloane is arrested for the murder of her mother-in-law, everyone is stunned, especially her husband Sam. Claudia loved Eleanor as if s...
The same dark humor, morally ambiguous subject matter, and sophisticated treatment found in Szeman's novels and poetry collections are present in her stories. Quirky characters abound. "BusMan," in the story of the same name, re-invents himself as a superhero after an unexpectedly frightening incident on his daily route. Vincent, "Hunchback of the Midwest" and member of a traveling freak-show, regales his audience with tales of conquests over beautiful women, all the while longing for the one beauty he fears he will never possess. Thirty years after the end of the violently protested...
The same dark humor, morally ambiguous subject matter, and sophisticated treatment found in Szeman's novels and poetry collections are present in h...
