GEOMETRY, GERMAN AND THE DICTIONARY
THREE BOOKS FOR THREE BLACK WOMEN
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About the Book
Summary: Gloria Madison is a young, beautiful, pregnant black woman. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago German Department and teaches the language in the Chicago school system. She and her husband Tom a lawyer, have just returned from the funeral of her mother, to the slum rooming house in Gary, Indiana that her mother owned and managed. Now she owns it. Her obsession is to evict the last tenant, Voroschenko, move in and replace her mother.
The eviction notice has been thumbtacked to his door by Tom, not trusting his legal skills, she has gone behind his back to white lawyer in his Chicago office to “make sure.” He tries to persuade her that this is madness since they both work in Chicago and that the Federal Government has condemned the building and will tear it down to construct new housing. Against Tom’s warning and against the law she forces entry into Vorenschenko’s room. In recounting her mother’s sacrifices for her education, she is determined to replace her.
Always, anywhere, she carries one book, a book that she loves. It is the German translation of Shakespeare’s plays, reputed to be better in German than in English. In packing all of Voroschenko’s belongings, she discovers that he owns the same book… Jerry Brown, her father, is the janitor for the building. He has had an awful heart attack; his right hand hangs down and shakes, his speech sometimes falters and he drags his semi paralyzed right leg. They face of in a violent duel of guilt. Her mother ran a “Room and board with” rooming house giving sex to collect the rents and her father knowing this had to live with the shame… All for Gloria and her education. At the height of their fight she opens the book and reads from Othello in German… he joins in English.
Voroschenko appears: A huge brute, tall, blond haired dressed in the clothes of a construction worker, carries his yellow hard hat in one hand and quart bottle of vodka in the other confronts them. He has paid his rent and refuses to leave, then attacks Jerry, burns the eviction notice and holds it flaming in Gloria’s face. But because he owns the book she knows that there are two Voroschenko’s; the mask of the brute and the real man beneath the mask. She locks the door trapping him in the room and uses Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice as her only weapon.
After World War Two Nazi war criminals escaped to the United States and took on new identities. She uncovers him. Beneath the mask of Voroschenko, the brute, “I am Tarzan!” is a well educated German poet and Nazi propagandist in hiding. In acceptance of himself and in dignity he reads in German from Hamlet with the skill, beauty and power of a fine German classical actor. The audience of Tom, Jerry and Gloria are stunned… Gloria and Voroschenko realize that have fallen in love with the same book: The Von Schlegel Translation. He explains his torn life and exile. Arm entwined in understanding the three exits. He with his book and she with hers.
Summary: During World War Two African-American men were drafted and sent to army Camps in the deep south for basic training. Men from Harlem were at particular risk because they would speak out, request their rights and came from hated New York City. Their parents were in panic.
This story is about one mother obsessed with saving her only son. Her outspoken son has been severely beaten by white men to near death. She has visited him in the Army Hospital and returns to Harlem determined to save her son and demands that Billy, her husband, Anita, her daughter, and Echo, her sister obey her instructions. She has b
About the Author
Robert Lesser is…several Robert Lessers. First, a playwright of twelve plays who believes in the insertion of dramatic poetry back into drama. The great Greek and Elizabethan dramatists used it. Why not now, again in hard, pulpy street language written to make the hair on the back of you neck stand up? Second, a humorist having written three novels of political and social satire who believes that the two feet comedy stands on are invention and exaggeration. Invented, funny and the original characters you’ve never met and never will (Dickens and Waugh) exaggerate to the point of absurdity…then laughter. Third, caught and tangled up tight in the spider web of collecting: the author of two popular books on Popular Culture and numerous articles. His collections have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Life? Very fast! Teenager into the Air force into the University of Chicago B.A., M.A. worked in their Institute for Nuclear Studies into the business world, made money, out of the business world, retired, writing full time… Along the way many lovely women were very kind to him. His life motto in Latin: NILS DESPERANDUM…NEVER DESPAIR.