Carol Bergman

I went to see the Diane Arbus exhibition—her early work—at the Met Breuer last week. The arrangement made me dizzy—free standing syncopated columns. But walking through them, around them and, sometimes, into them, I began to experience the photographs in a new way. Many of the images have become iconic so the unusual curation was necessary to witness anew the work of a controversial photographer. She was a “super recognizer” of what used to be called freaks, people living on the edges of life, who may or may not have had mental or physical deformities. Arbus asks us to know and accept them, as she has done, and to reflect on our own afflictions. She grew up in a privileged world where suffering was kept at arms length and rarely acknowledged. What was her quest? I believe she wanted to find an affinity with the suffering of others so that she could feel her own—and to acknowledge it with her camera. Sadly, she took her own life in 1971 at the age of 48.

Not every artist or writer lives as intensely, of course. At the very least, we observe differently—with a heightened sensibility like the marginalized freaks in the Arbus portraits, like Arbus herself. And what we produce is far from perfect. Maybe the rendering isn’t clear enough, or we’ve faltered in our understanding, or we’ve made errors of judgment, or gotten a chronology wrong, or our readers/viewers take offense. They may even assert that we have no right to tell their story in concert with our own. And though our eye penetrates and the heart is full, a negative response is always startling.

Years ago, when I began “Searching for Fritzi,” the memoir about my Viennese family and the genocide that had killed nearly all of them, my mother did not want me to write the story. Our famous cousin, an Oluympic ice skating champion, had disappeared during the war. What had happened to her? It didn’t take long for me to find out. Fritzi had married a Japanese national and spent the war years in Japan. Worse, she had entertained German officers when they visited the Japanese High Command; she was a collaborator. My mother feared that Fritzi would sue if we exposed her even though the facts had been corroborated multiple times. Nonetheless, my mother’s intuition was correct because she had grown up with Fritzi Burger, watched her become a celebrity, and knew that she would not tolerate a tarnished image.

Fritzi had died before the book was published but her son and grandson were still alive. Both of them threatened to sue. The threat itself—like terrorism—was enough to scare me, of course. What writer has the money to go to court to defend a libel suit? None that I know. But I checked and double-checked what I had written and I still stand by it. The book has had legs—it found it’s way not so long ago to a library in Berlin and was taken up by a scholar there who has lived in Japan and speaks and reads Japanese. He’s dug even deeper, pulled articles from contemporary newspapers, and continued the examination of Fritzi Burger’s war years in Japan. I’m gratified by his attention to this piece of history.

Like Diane Arbus, who also was a writer, I write to see, to understand, and to share whatever insight I’ve managed to attain about subjects that others cannot or will not write about. If I allow any kind of prior restraint—whether it is a wish that I not write about a certain subject, or a warning that if I do I might be sued, or a request to read the copy before it is submitted, I could not continue being a writer. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances—when we write about loved ones, for instance—but they are few and far between. And, even then, we should pause before we hand over copy.  Read More 

A respite today from the election and international bad news as I prepare for two writing workshops this week. I love teaching and meeting my new students. So here's a post I wrote before the Chelsea bomb blast and the first presidential debate. I hope that my readers who are not writers will find metaphors--boundaries, for example-- buried herein:

Palimpsest: A manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.

I worked hard on a blurb for the jacket of a book. It was a commissoined writing job from a publishing house and there was no reason for me to take ownership, to feel pride, or to demand anything. So when the editor completely rewrote the blurb and said, “pretty good, huh?” I could and should have felt nothing. It wasn’t my book, it wasn’t my publishing company, it was just a job. But I couldn’t let it go. I felt resentful. He’d used my flair and expertise and made it his own just enough to claim it as his work. Traces of my work were there. They had provided inspiration and I could still see my well-wrought phrases inside the editor’s sentences.

I’d been working with the editor for a while and knew that he was a frustrated writer. I might have had compassion, but I didn’t. I said something mean and then regretted it. Not only on a personal level, but professionally. This guy was not going to hire me again.

Then there’s the story of one of my writer’s groups many years ago, or a writer’s group that failed instantly, I should say. I’d gathered some colleagues I didn’t know well for an introductory evening of discussion. Everyone brought two pages of a work-in-progress, any genre. I had been writing poetry and printed out a still raw long poem, just a first draft, I said when it was my turn to present to the group. I skipped out to the bathroom as everyone was reading it silently to themselves and by the time I returned, they were all abuzz with comments. Except for one person. She remained silent. When everyone else was done, she handed me my manuscript which she’d scratched over with multiple suggestions, corrections and rewritings. “It would work better this way,” she said. My words were visible under her words but my connection to the poem was damaged. When everyone left, I tore it up, and even though it was still in a file on the computer, I never could go back to it.

It was my first experience of a writer/editor who thinks she’s being helpful by overwriting my work with her words.

Kingsley Amis talked about a bad editor as someone who “prowls through your copy like an overzealous gardener with a pruning hook, on the watch for any phrase he senses you were rather pleased with, preferably one that also clinches your argument and if possible is essential to the general drift of the surrounding passage.”

Most editors don’t want to make the copy their own, nor is every editor a frustrated writer. They are another breed altogether, as are fellow writers who think they know better than you do how to revise your work by stealing it from you.  Read More 

“It was a bright cool day in September and the clocks were striking thirteen,” the perfect ( “1984”) Orwellian description of our election season. I am sure you will agree, dear reader, that it has been painful.

I had a plan to meet a friend and his sweet Beagle, Sugar, for our bright cool day in September Saturday walk and talk. I peeled away as the path descended to Dyckman street in the Inwood section of Manhattan. The Saturday farmer’s market on Isham was sure to have early apples and I craved them. I was waylaid by bric a brac and books for sale on tables outside the church, and then a friendly greeting by a tall, lean man in a striped shirt and tie handing out flyers; Scott Fenstermaker, Candidate, running as an Indpendent for Congress in the 13th District, Rangel’s seat. I decided to stop and chat, not as a journalist but as a citizen. I thought to myself: good, a fresh face, new ideas, new solutions. We need politicians like him in Washington. “I don’t really see myself as a politician, he wrote to me in a follow-up email exchange, meaning that he won’t necessarily say what the electorate wants to hear and that he’s still “unsocialized,” as a politician, which I found amusing. He then launched into a deep analysis of the collapse of the global economy and its direct impact on the domestic economy. A long discourse, new ideas for me, much to ponder. And he’d taken the time to write.

After a stint in the Air Force, Scott went to Harvard Law School, graduating one year behind President Obama. He didn’t mention that he’d ever met him; he wasn’t trying to impress. And he shared that he has a daughter who is a freshman at NYU where I am an adjunct. So, most certainly, he cares about her future, what occupation she decides on, what her job options will be. The personal and the political merged in our email conversation; it felt human scale, it felt sane.

In the decade I lived in England, I interviewed many MPs in their local—sometimes-- scrappy offices which I preferred to appointments in the House of Commons which was noisy and frenetic. Out in the constituencies I was offered tea and conversation with very few interruptions. I got to know the MPs and to hear their bleakest and most optimistic musings. They lived near their offices, had families, children. I sometimes met them, too. I wasn’t handed policy papers or spin sheets as soon as I walked in, nor was I handled by PR’s. I took notes and recorded what we both had to say. Our conversation was a conversation, not a screed marinated in platitudes.

I hope this quaint authentic political world hasn’t entirely vanished from England since my return to New York, though I fear that with extra security measures and the recent murder of Jo Cox, Labour MP for Batley and Spen, it can’t possibly be the same. But I have fond memories of my years there as a journalist and Scott Fenstermaker brought them back to me. I wish him the best in the upcoming election and hope that he remains accessible and “unsocialized” when and if he makes it to Washington.  Read More 

My husband, Jim, and I were a block away from the undetonated bomb in Chelsea last Saturday night. We didn’t hear the blast on 23rd Street because were in a sound-proofed concert hall at the National Opera Center on 28th and Seventh Avenue listening to life-affirming music. Afterwards we went with our musician friends to a very loud pub downstairs to celebrate, still oblivious to what had happened. Sirens and emergency vehicle lights in New York are a constant; we didn’t pay attention. So it was only when we were ready to leave and began to check our travel apps that we knew something had happened: there was no 1 train. This meant walking to the A train which was several blocks away. By then we knew there had been a blast. NYU alerts told the rest of the story. Protocol is: stay alert, keep away from hubs, move out of the area as quickly as possible.

Before we even begin to think about the causes and consequences of such violent acts, we are into survival mode. New Yorkers, city dwellers around the world, and travellers, are now good at that. And we probably will have to be for the forseeable future.

Then comes the aftermath, the thoughts about what might have happened, how we have been spared, the lists of those who have been injured and, for me, flashbacks to 9/11, and nightmares. The next morning I may still feel unsteady but I force myself to write in my journal—actually that is a relief—and to post on Facebook. Those posts are important for friends and family who live far away. They want to know if we are okay and we want them to know we are okay. But once the post is up, the “likes,” are not enough: I wish people would call. Electronic voices may be rich in feeling if the FB friend takes the time to write more than one sentence; mostly they are fast and shallow.

I think we forget sometimes how we have communicated with our loved ones: was that a text, a phone call, an email, an IM? And we forget the importance and solace of the human voice. True, I hear people “talking” to me electronically, but it is not the same. There are situations—and last Saturday night was one of them—when written words are not enough.

Recently, a friend who lost her father told me how hard it was to read condolences on Facebook. “I’m sorry for your loss,” was the favorite shorthand cliché when people were at a loss for what to say. It works and then it doesn’t. What we need in such moments is some originality, a willingness to interrupt routines and pleasures to show some real-time warmth, even if it’s a long distance hug on the phone and an empathetic ear.  Read More 

Did you know that there are therapy dogs for people with diabetes? I met a woman on the street who stopped to ask directions. I was with two friends on our Saturday morning dog walk and talk in Fort Tryon Park. The woman with diabetes bent down to pet the dogs and said she had a therapy dog and loved dogs. Then she told us about her diabetes and how her dog nudges her when her sugar elevates. If she ignores the warning, he barks.The news about the therapy dog made everyone smile which is why I am reporting it here. It’s my personal news story of the day.

In general, the news has been so worrying of late, that I have been highlighting stories that make me smile and writing about them in my journal. For example, a story about donkeys. Pictures of a Donkey Park in upstate New York appeared in a column called “Pet City,” by Andy Newman in The New York Times on September 4th. The first sentence was: “A miniature donkey can change your life.” Unlike Isis fighters or presidential candidates, the donkeys are “contemplative” and “gentle.” We definitely need more of this, and of them. Every day.

On the same day, there was a story in the business section by Claire Martin about MaineWorks, a company started by Margo Walsh that secures construction jobs for paroled prisoners. Ms. Walsh is a former recruiter for Goldman Sachs and a recovering alcoholic. She has replaced her addiction with a sense of purpose and so have her clients. Her business is thriving. MaineWorks’s revenue last year was $250,000.

I found the news stories quoted above in a paper copy of the newspaper I treated myself to on September 4th. I read every section thoroughly. Real paper and the smell of newsprint and business and real estate and art and opinion. When I read electronically, I skim, dear reader, what about you? I settle on what seems most important and interesting, and move on. But turning the cumbersome paper pages forced me to slow down, so I noticed life-affirming stories buried in the morass of troublesome news. I discussed this phenomena with my husband and we decided to change our subscription to a Sundays-only home delivery for the duration of the election season. And though the Sunday paper is loaded with useless paper advertisements—more than ever, it seems—and is, therefore, environmentally incorrect, he agreed that we should do it.  Read More 

I have just lost one of my cherished literary friendships. Gerry Oppenheimer died in Seattle on August 23rd, aged 94. In hospice care at home these past few months, he was dignified and alert to the end. I called him regularly, as I had promised when his wife, Mildred, died a couple of years ago. He hadn’t been a great telephone conversationalist and I had usually talked to her at greater length, but I enjoyed them both—books, politics, family. Both Mildred and Gerry were librarians. There wasn’t an author or book they did not know about. Mildred read more novels, Gerry more history. Both were avid consumers of the New York Times and The New Yorker.

When our daughter, Chloe, was born in London, they sent a beautifully illustrated book about children from all over the world. They were cultivated internationalists in the best sense of that word, and maintained their friendships with a devotion rarely experienced these days, despite the ease of social media. We never felt out of touch with them no matter where we lived.

Mildred was my husband, Jim’s, cousin. Their family had settled in Seattle at the turn of the 20th century. Originally fish brokers in Berlin, they also had salmon fishing traps in Ketchikan, Alaska. Youngsters in the family got to spend their summers working there and photos in the Ketchikan newspaper archives are testament to the family’s integration into the Innuit community. Only the boys were invited to Alaska, of course. The girls—still domesticated and religiously observant—stayed home. But the history of Seattle is also the history of the Bergmans in Seattle, and all of it is captivating. Gerry came to the city later, as a refugee from the Nazi genocide. He was a historian of the period and the perfect person to consult as I began working on a memoir about my Austrian and Czech family. So during one trip to Seattle, I took a long meandering morning walk with him and talked about what I was working on. He was a wonderful listener and asked sharp, useful questions. And as an archivist and researcher par excellence, he offered tips and then followed up with hard research he had done himself. “Searching for Fritzi,” would not have been written without him. So when I say Gerry was a literary friend, I mean just that; he wasn’t a writer himself. But he understood how to encourage and support a writer struggling with a project. He had nothing at stake except his desire to help. Later, when the book was in galley, he read it thoroughly and made corrections and suggestions.

And then came Trollope. This was during another stopover in Seattle, on our way to Alaska. More walks and talks along Lake Washington. Did I know, Gerry asked, that he belonged to a Trollope club? No, I did not! I had never read Trollope, I confessed. Should I read Trollope? Deep, rumbling laughter followed, very Trollopian, I now know since I have read Trollope ever since. In the very bedroom where we were staying during that visit was a shelf-full of Trollopes, all 47 of them. “The Warden first,” Gerry suggested. And that was that. I was hooked.  Read More 

Yesterday was my husband’s 39th birthday. The celebrations will continue all week with table tennis (he’s a tournament-level player), good food, friends and family, laughter and stories.Planning the celebrations was a welcome break from work and worry, election propaganda and its unrelenting hyperbolic speech. After a while, no matter our political preference, everything the candidates say sounds like a big lie.

I am getting into a virtual hammock for a few days. I leave it to my news junkie 39-year-old husband to keep me apprised of important developments that cannot be ignored. And, of course, I do scan the news alerts and worry about terrorist attacks and my Turkish student, but I will take it a bit slower for a few days, not carry all the world on my shoulders, and swim as as much as I can. That’s where I relax the most, where ideas for new writing come to me. The text of Nomads 3 is finished. More reason for a refueling hiatus.

The Guardian newspaper in London is running a series of articles this summer about books that give us hope. The first on their list is Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead.” She is what some call a “meditative” writer; she writes with intention, not to cure us, but to give us perspective.

I have a few such books on my shelves also, books I return to often. Here’s a shortlist of the authors whose humanity, psychological insight and literary skill have joined my personal pantheon: Graham Greene, Anne Tyler, Raymond Carver, Kent Haruf, Willa Cather, Alice Munro and Edith Wharton.

And that’s just a shortlist.

I find that reading a lot of history also helps me maintain perspective on this violent world we are living in. I have just finished "When Paris Went Dark" by Ronald Rosbottom, which was riveting. It's a well-researched book about the Nazi occupation of Paris. As Ur-Fascism is still with us...you can fill in the blanks.

Enjoy what is left of the summer, dear reader, and if you are traveling, travel well, home safe.  Read More 

I last heard from my Turkish student—I’ll call him D—on July 21, just a few days after the attempted coup, but before the arrests of 61 journalists.

In that email, in response to my concerned email, cc’d to his workshop class, D wrote: “Hey everyone, I'm okay & safe now. Still in Istanbul, and working at my office, _____Newspaper. Thanks for your support & messages, Carol. It means a lot. Best, D.”

D came into my workshop at NYU last spring. He had been posted to New York and wanted to improve his reporting and writing in English. My high-powered writing class was not the best place to work on his English, but he was determined. He did very well. He was lively, engaged, perceptive and brave. Yes, brave enough to begin writing about a demonstration he’d participated in as a student in Turkey and the arrest of two friends.

I have had more international students in my class in recent years than ever before. They have come from China, Russia, Thailand, Iran, and other despotic regimes where there is no freedom of speech or freedom of the press.

It’s hard for them, at first.

Learning to write well in English—in America—demands a bold, unfettered voice. I have to assure my students that my workshop is a safe room and that they are not obliged to publish anything they write. But while in my class, I insist that they assume an absolute freedom to write. And they cannot remain quiet; they must participate in discussion.

My American-raised students benefit from this mandate, too. They also carry fears into the classroom, though ending up in jail is not one of them.

I try to stay in touch with my overseas students after the workshop is over. If I hear that someone is in trouble, I do what I can from New York. Both PEN America and Amnesty International advocate for persecuted and incarcerated writers.

I am confident that any students who have tasted the freedom to write in my classroom will never again be able to self-censor their words. I wish them all safe passage and courage in the difficult years ahead.  Read More 

It was a hot, humid city Thursday. I got off the A onto the steamy platform at 59th St. to change to the C train. Oh, it was hot on the platform. I had forgotten to bring a bottle of water. The air-conditioned train will be here soon, I said to myself. Just relax. Breathe. Dream of Tokyo where the subway platforms are air-conditioned. Imagine you are in the pool. As most thoughts, these were fleeting. Heat descended, the train didn’t arrive. I turned to my right and there was a man, buds in his ears, holding a notebook against a pylon, writing. He put the book down a moment, then lifted it again to write some more. He was using a pencil, I recall, because who can write in that position using a pen, right? It doesn't work. And I recognized that Staples notebook. Unlike other cheap composition books it has a soft cover easily turned inside out, lighter to carry. My journal of the moment is the same!

So I couldn’t resist: I went over to the man and said, “What are you working on?”

I’d interrupted his writing reverie and he was startled. Then he smiled. The B train arrived, not my train, but I got on it anyway. I could get off at the next stop and still be okay for my destination. I wanted to talk to this writer who wrote on the subway platform.

His name is Jason Faust.

“Faust as in Faust?”
“Yes. I’m a playwright, I’m working on a play.”
That was in answer to my question as the train arrived.
“Had anything produced?”
“A one-act.”
“Day job?”
“At a theater. At least I’m in the business.”

One stop and we had talked a lot, as writers do. I asked Jason permission to write about him in this blog and to post a photo of him I’d snapped before I so rudely broke his reverie. He said, “of course,” and handed me his card. I gave him mine. Now we were networking!

I know many writers who concentrate best when they are surrounded by noise and activity, but never have I met anyone who writes on a subway platform. This was a first.  Read More 

I was awakened by milling on my street at 2 am, brewed up some tea, and made the mistake of turning on my iPad.

More unbearable breaking news: cops shot in Dallas during a demonstration against police brutality. Before the gunfire, protestors and police were posing for photographs—peacefully. This lovefest does not answer the endemic racism, but it may be a watershed moment. Unless we become inured to killing, it will stop. We are not Boko Haram training drugged children to kill by slaughtering chickens or their own parents. We are Americans. We’ve had our civil war, our revolution, our Bill of Rights. We can fix this.

For what remained of the night, even as I attempted to rest my brain, I was writing this blog post and thinking of all my African-American friends who have been stopped by the police. My husband’s screenwriting partner, Gerard Brown III, author of “Juice,” a cult classic, has many stories to tell. He has a gentle, loving nature so when the cops stopped him, frisked him and searched his backpack one afternoon in the neighborhood where he lives, he was able to stay calm and civil. The humiliation and disrespect stayed with him.

And that is just one story among too many stories. An ex of my daughter’s carried a police badge in his wallet. His dad was a court officer and got it for him. But what if he had reached for it one day in the car when he was stopped, my daughter riding “shotgun.” What an image that is!! When I asked him one day—as a mom—if he was being careful, he pulled out the badge. I had never known he was carrying it until then.

For weeks now, many of my FB friends have been writing the most heart-rending posts about the latest killings. It’s so hard for all of us to know how to respond. FB is helpful because it enables us to have a conversation and, therefore, some solace. Articles are posted. Petitions. This morning I signed a petition to Loretta Lynch. Thousands upon thousands of people signed it.

What a world we live in. What, if anything, has changed? Have we made progress? Is it possible to maintain an historical perspective? Where can we find sanctuary and wisdom? Read More