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Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story
Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story
Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story
Ebook270 pages4 hours

Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story

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In 2002 Flip Schaffer asked his son to join him in an intensive bread class at a fancy culinary school in New York. At, first, the idea seemed considerably less than half-baked. The two hadn't spent much time together-not since Flip left Dylan and his siblings in the care of their crazy mother thirty years before. Neither knew the first thing about making bread. And, Flip's end-stage lung cancer was expected to kill him long before the class began.
But Flip made it. The two spent seven days at the French Culinary Institute becoming artisanal bakers and seven tumultuous nights in a shabby Bowery hotel getting to know each other. And to their mutual astonishment, just in time, they came to something like terms of forgiveness.
As moving as it is irreverent, Life, Death & Bialys is about how an imperfect father said goodbye to his son and to his city and how a reluctant son discovered the essence of forgiveness.
Dylan Schaffer is the author of the award winning legal thrillers Misdemeanor Man, which won Mystery Ink Magazine's 2004 Gumshoe Award for best debut, and I Right the Wrongs, both of which were Booksense picks. In his spare time he is a criminal defense lawyer who has served as appellate counsel in hundreds of cases ranging from drunk driving to multiple murders. He lives in Oakland, California, with many animals and one wife.
Excerpt: Als drait zich arum broit un toit It all comes down to bread and death -Yiddish proverb
Flip greets me in the airport lobby. I expect to see some sign that the cancer is taking its toll. But when I find him, he seems fine. He doesn't look like he's dropped any weight. His breathing is normal.... I want to run to him and bury my face in his stomach and bawl into his shirt. I want to tell him how much I miss him and beg him not to go away again.

At the same time I am compelled to punch him in the face.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 6, 2008
ISBN9781596919013
Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story
Author

Dylan Schaffer

Dylan Schaffer is a criminal-defense lawyer who has served as appellate counsel in more than fifty murder cases, including death penalty matters. He lives in Oakland, CA.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Every self-revelatory, parent-implicating, pain-revealing story touches and perhaps even alters hordes of people who've kept their own similar experiences in the dark. I love this sort of memoir, but I wonder if for the general audience the genre gets old? After how many of these books does the reader get bored...and then resentful...and finally contemptuous?I'm not sure, but when the author's voice is as gentle and humorous as Dylan's, the story seems simply brave and addictive. I just wanted to know what old Flip would do next, and even when he was at his worst I couldn't help liking the old fart a bit, and when he was at his best I couldn't shake the disappointment of all his failings.Reader identification can be a tricky thing. Readers can find it hard to understand how the author avoided the shame and self-loathing that keeps their own story buried. At its best the reader realizes s/he is not loathesome, as feared; at worst, s/he feels suspicious of misrepresentation, fictionalizing, etc. a la frey et al.Concerning Dylan's dad Flip: it seems clear he is a product of shame himself; see the very strong passage near the end of the book about how Flip tries to run away from everyone, mostly himself. But Dylan? He does/has done so many positive, fearless things...taking on careers, women, friendships. He's strong enough that I don't want so much to take care of him as, I don't know, have him cook in my kitchen.Issues - minor:Interesting tangents into Dylan's mother's story are always yanked back; it felt like DS kept reminding himself that this was his *father's* story, that the universe outside that story must not overly intrude. But I felt that this and other things (Wendy's story, the brothers, etc.) could have been including without damaging the book as a whole.2. The baking focus seemed a bit heavy-handed to me. Could have been cut by half and I, for one, wouldn't miss it. Also the baking doesn't ever really respresent a *theme* - what does it represent to Dylan, to Flip? - seemed clear that it's a response to their control-freak-ness which is in turn a response to their own chaos.

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Life, Death & Bialys - Dylan Schaffer

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