{"id":12164,"date":"2019-03-17T20:43:39","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T00:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=12164"},"modified":"2019-03-17T20:43:39","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T00:43:39","slug":"episode-312-bram-presser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-312-bram-presser","title":{"rendered":"Episode 312 – Bram Presser"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 312:
\nBram Presser<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Episode_312_-_Bram_Presser.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“To me, this is a book about how we tell stories, and how we come to understand stories.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>What sort of person breaks into<\/em> Auschwitz? An author — and semi-reformed punk rocker, recovering academic and occasional criminal lawyer — in search of answers. Bram Presser<\/a> joins the show to talk about his award-winning, fantastic debut novel The Book of Dirt<\/a>\"\", a memoir-fiction hybrid about his family’s experience in the Shoah. We get into the myths of how his grandfather survived the concentration camps and what they meant for his family and his book, the years of detective work (and the lucky breaks) researching his grandparents’ stories and records and the limits of knowing anyone else’s life, the exceptionalist vibe of Czech Jews, the stories he was afraid to learn and the heroism that redeemed his great-grandmother and her family, the challenges of researching an unheard-of story of survival when archivists are already put off by your punk-rock appearance, and how Bram avoided Holocaust cliches while giving agency, dignity and social dynamics to the prisoners in the camps. We also get into Bram’s worries about feedback from his mentor Dasa Drndic, the value of documentary fiction, the aspects of his other careers that supported his ability to write The Book of Dirt<\/a>\"\", that Auschwitz break-in, and why Talmudkommando<\/em> would have been a better name for his Jewish punk band than Yidcore. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go buy The Book of Dirt<\/a>\"\"!<\/p>\n

“One thing I took from writing this book is that we really don’t know much about the people we love. We accept an idea of who they are, but that’s all we have.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n