Publishers Weekly -  September 11, 2023

It was literary agent Murray Weiss who first contacted me about Rhoda’s final manuscript. (Actually, it was manuscripts plural; there were a few different versions of the novel.) He wondered if I might revise, consolidate, or basically do whatever editorial work was necessary to get her final brilliant work to market.

 I don’t normally read an author’s backlist before taking on a project, but this wasn’t a normal job and I was determined to stay true to her voice. Surely some sort of preparation was necessary. So, I did the world’s best kind of homework, savoring the exquisite pleasure of discovering a new writer, awestruck as I studied Rhoda’s remarkable body of work. Her novels featured long, brilliant sentences that surprised me again and again. (A PW review called her “the very opposite of a minimalist.”)  Each book was vastly unlike the previous one. Rhoda must have driven her publishers crazy as they struggled to market and sell such a boundlessly imaginative storyteller. Her plots were unpredictable. She had no limits. In other words, Rhoda was a genius.   

 Murray organized a phone interview for me with the Lerman family. When Bob spoke of his wife Rhoda, his love was palpable, and I sensed her strong spirit. It was clear how important it was to Bob and his two daughters to publish Rhoda’s masterwork. I gushed to them about how I adored her earlier novels—especially God’s Ear, a funny but serious book in which a real estate agent is tormented by his father’s mischievous ghost. With my enthusiasm for Rhoda’s work so evident, the gig was mine.

 There were several disparate versions of the book, some revised sections, and a number of different endings. The manuscript I began work on was 150,000 words. Among other narrative goals, I hoped to deliver a finished work of 100,000 words.

 A book editor’s job is to respect the author’s vision, but how does one make these changes and maintain an author’s integrity when one does not have the author’s ear? I had to listen very carefully to Rhoda. I had to become Rhoda’s ear.

Rhoda’s new novel Solimeos might be characterized as literary, as her prose is exquisite—or is it historical fiction, as it uniquely describes a bygone time and place? Maybe it’s satire. Also, it has elements of magical realism. Solimeos is the story of Axel von Pappendorf, a naïve boy in World War Two Germany whose father is an aristocratic Nazi linguist. After the war is lost, Axel and his family are spirited away to the Brazilian jungle to help create a new, occult-obsessed German Reich. Twisted passions, ayahuasca visions, startling historical discoveries, vengeance, and much more ensue. It’s a love story, but complicated.  

What I already knew from my study of Rhoda’s work was confirmed on the manuscript page: she eschewed modern condescension to readers, continually challenging them. The only other writer I ever worked with who crafted similarly lengthy, lyrical, wandering sentences filled with surprising clauses and illustrative digressions, but nonetheless executed with pitch-perfect aplomb, was Caleb Carr.

 In long passages, Axel and his linguist father trace the ancient roots of words like Og and I back to Osiris and Pergamon, hearkening back to the times of gods with tails—playful prose unloosed by Rhoda’s capability to make connections invisible to others. But how much of this was too much? Rhoda was a commercial and critically acclaimed writer. She might challenge her readers, but she would not want to drive them away. Some of these beautiful words had to go.

 Sometimes I’d happen upon an outrageous plot twist and would protest—this came out of nowhere! But then I realized Rhoda wanted that shock right there. The entire process had an intense synchronicity. I’d study two alternative passages, having to choose one. Rhoda would want this one, I’d think. And the ending was her chosen ending.

 Solimeos, the new novel from a literary contemporary of Saul Bellow, has just been published by Wicked Son Books, which is headed up by Adam Bellow. That’s some nice karmic resonance. But wait, there’s more.

 In her novel Animal Acts, the animal-loving Rhoda explored the consciousness of other species in a story about a woman on a cross-country trip with a gorilla. Rhoda passed this passion for animals onto her kids—something I learned from her daughter Jill. Wanting to check on her beloved Malamute Tahoe who had recently passed away, Jill consulted a pet psychic. When the animal communicator connected with the Great Beyond, someone else crashed the party. It was Rhoda! Jill later told me that her mom had interrupted the psychic session to let her know how much she loved what I had been doing with the book and how much she appreciated my passion and compassion.

Never before had I received such otherworldly praise. Hearing it was, of course, a surprise—but then, in a way, after getting to know Rhoda, was it?