SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD — Historical fiction likely brings to mind sweeping battles and headline-making proclamations for many. But history is in the details, and those details are movingly and meticulously caught in Peter Golden’s second novel, “Wherever There Is Light,” to be released by Atria Books on Nov. 3. Golden will appear at Words Bookstore in Maplewood on Nov. 5, at 7:30 p.m.
Peter Golden, above, who grew up in South Orange-Maplewood, will be at Words Bookstore on Nov. 5 to discuss his most recent book, ‘Wherever There Is Light,’ which tackles issues of race and the effects of war in the early to mid-1900s.
In his novel, Golden, who grew up in Maplewood and South Orange, tackles hefty issues such as race, religion, crime, war, despair and love. Whittling them down to the human emotions that stem from them, the novel follows the on-again, off-again love affair of Julian Rose, a Jewish immigrant bootlegger from Germany living in South Orange, and Kendall Wakefield, a black artist whose family went from slavery to affluence in South Florida, from the 1930s through the 1960s. Through Golden’s artful writing, the reader sees the Jim Crow laws of the South, the Jewish mob scene in Newark, the artsy yet restricted Greenwich Village, and post-World War II Paris — all through the eyes of these two likable and intriguing characters.
As an award-winning journalist and historian, Golden brings realism and impeccable research to “Wherever There Is Light.” He also brings a bygone South Orange to life; the novel even opens with Julian eating ice cream at Gruning’s, which had a life in the village for more than 80 years.
“I’ve wanted to explore South Orange and Maplewood and various issues from that era for a long time,” Golden told the News-Record last week in a phone interview. “I had these characters in mind for a very long time. I always knew I was going to do something about race.”
Golden explained that he wanted to show aspects of the past that seem to take a backseat in the history books. He wanted to show Newark in that era, incorporating bootlegger Longy Zwillman, while staying true to the Jewish immigrant experience. As his grandparents were European immigrants to Newark, Golden grew up hearing about the complexities of life then and the shades of gray involved.
“In my father’s and grandfather’s generation, Jews were like nothing else,” Golden said. “These guys came back from the war not scared of anything.”
Agreeing with sentiments expressed by writer Leon Uris, Golden wanted to portray a full-blooded Jewish character from the Newark area, especially in response to author Philip Roth’s literary view of Jews, which Golden, like Uris, finds anti-Semitic.
And he knew he wanted this well-rounded Jewish character to be a citizen of Maplewood and South Orange, where Golden lived from 1954 to 1971, when he headed off to college.
“To me, what was so remarkable about South Orange-Maplewood is it was a Norman Rockwell town — two of them — filled with very ambitious parents, ambitious for their children, and a great school system,” Golden said. “It was diverse, racially and economically. It’s the kind of town that encourages you to look under the surface.”
Golden was drawn to the urban aesthetic of the two towns, despite their suburban location. “I’ve never found another place like it, in fact,” he said.
As for Kendall’s character, Golden had her in mind for a long time and wanted to shed light on early 20th-century black universities.
“There were so many remarkably successful African-American universities in that era. It’s an underexplored topic,” Golden said. “And I knew I wanted to get (Kendall and Julian) together somehow.”
He found his way while reading “From Swastika to Jim Crow: Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges,” by Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb.
“I read this small book about German Jewish professors rescued by African-American colleges,” he said, “and then I knew how they met.”
Kendall’s mother, Garland Wakefield, a character whom Golden said he admires greatly, runs a black college in South Florida and she brings Julian’s parents to the United States from Germany so his father can teach there. And the two main characters meet.
Although the first part of their interracial relationship stayed on the East Coast facing the American prejudices of the 1940s, later in the novel, Golden brings them to Paris.
“I was very curious to see what would happen to them in Paris, to examine their relationship from a place that didn’t forbid it,” Golden said. “I wanted to see who they were in Paris. Turns out they were the same that they were in New Jersey and Florida.”
He used the Parisian environment, which was artistically freer and yet facing the privations of a formerly occupied country, to hone in on Julian and Kendall’s convoluted characters and relationship.
“I love shades of gray. When writing a novel, you live in a wonderful world of gray,” Golden said, explaining that the same complex emotions that revolve around choices and actions today influenced people back then, too. “People see historical characters as bloodless; novels make them come alive.”
The greatest strength of “Wherever There Is Light” is its ability to compare the atrocities of Jim Crow and lynchings with those of the Nazis during the Holocaust, without diminishing the impact and evil of either.
“The African-American press at the time was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and they saw the connection between Nazism and violence,” Golden said. “The African-American press saw that the problem was the Nazis’ ideology, because they couldn’t get anti-lynching laws passed into federal law.
“It was same ideology that was stringing them up in trees.”
But by examining the thriving arts scene in postwar Paris, Golden was able to use “beauty as an antidote to tragedy.”
While he enjoys writing, Golden said the research for the novel was his favorite part. With an on-the-ground approach, Golden visited all the places about which he wrote. He walked through Paris, taking “notebook upon notebook of notes.”
“Doing the research was so odd, like walking in a time machine,” Golden said, noting that his walking research was the easiest in Paris because it is such an old city — one that has many World War II monuments. “You’re closer to it. You can see the bullet holes.”
As for his South Orange and Maplewood research, some of it was supplemented by his memories of growing up in the two towns.
“I’ve been looking up weird South Orange-Maplewood facts for ages,” Golden joked, saying that he even found reports of an illegal gambling operation being run out of South Orange in the 1950s.
As for getting a feel for the diversity in the two towns, Golden reached out to a former South Orange Junior High classmate, Karen Robinson, to discuss the challenges black students faced in the 1960s.
“African-Americans have been in South Orange for a very, very long time,” Golden said, stressing that the two towns have had black residents at every economic level since the early 1900s. “Given my age and Karen’s age, by the time we were in school, race was something on the front page of the newspaper every day.”
Golden feels that racism and anti-Semitism are used as excuses, as reasons to hate in order to cover up other problems.
“They’re the curtains that people hide behind when they have other issues,” Golden said, echoing the sentiments of author James Baldwin. Golden gives the example that anti-Semitism in wartime Germany was an extension of a fear of industrialism; Nazism focused on the beauty of nature as opposed to factories, and Jews were seen as businessmen and city folk.
“Unfortunately, these issues are always going to be with us,” Golden said. “If we’re still talking about race in 2015, it’s always going to be with us, just in different forms.
“People love and they hate and these are the cultural stereotypes we are given. Race and religion are easy reasons to hate someone,” Golden said, pointing out that racism and anti-Semitism are reacted to so strongly because of the dark history associated with them. “No one cares if you hate redheads.”
While Golden believes things are certainly better today than they were in the 1930s, he thinks society has a systemic problem in that advocacy groups use issues to raise money and therefore work to combat issues, not eradicate them.
“Our society has more investment in the problem than in the solution,” Golden said. “It’s all maneuvering for advantage today.”
Keep an eye out for Golden’s third novel, which will be set in South Orange and Maplewood during the beginnings of the Cold War.