|
Richard R. Karlen was born and
grew up in Newark, NJ., where he attended Weequahic HS. After
graduating from NYU Dental School, he enlisted in the Air Force
and was stationed in South Korea and Japan for three years. Upon
completion of his tour of duty, he returned to New Jersey where
he practiced dentistry in Newark for thirty-five years, until he
retired and embarked on a new career as an author. He currently
lives in Scotch Plains, NJ with his wife, daughter, son and
grandson.
Richard R.
Karlen’s tenth work of fiction, THE GOLDMAN, will be published by Ironbound Press in the
spring of
2010.
Author’s Note
“Through Thin Shirts”, was inspired by the
memoirs of Dr. Miklos Nysizli, a forensic pathologist who
chronicled his experiences in a German concentration camp. Both
Nysizli and the protagonist in “Through Thin Shirts”, are
compelled by circumstances to assist Nazi pseudo-scientist Josef
Mengele in his abominable human experimentation. Unlike Nysizli,
who returns to his native Hungary after the war, his fictional
counterpart immigrates to America. Far from war scarred Europe,
he changes his name to Chaim Potofsky and attempts to start a
new life.
Mourning his own family, who perished in the
camps, while condemning himself for his collaboration with their
murderers, Potofsky lives a penitent existence in a self-imposed
purgatory of guilt and remorse. The essence of this novel,
however, is not one of despair, but can be found in the phrase;
where there is life there is hope.
The former physician attempts to find redemption
in a grand act of atonement. He writes and sells a play
illuminating the cruelty of Mengele’s experiments, a risky
endeavor that threatens to expose his own Nazi collaboration to
the post-war world. Though the production is a surprising
success, it does not bring about the personal absolution the
protagonist seeks. The ghosts of his own murdered son and of the
murdered children who passed through his operatory can only be
put to rest by the most unlikely of saviors – a ten year old
Puerto Rican boy who alone possesses the power to free his soul.
|
Specials