12/13/07:Save Me, Julie Kogan- Allen Ruff

I bought local historian/bookseller/cab driver Allen Ruff's "Save Me, Julie Kogon" (Trafford Publishing, 266 pages, $19.95) not expecting a lot. Ruff, a well-known local political activist, co-wrote a solid history of Dane County, but I think I was expecting thinly fictionalized agitprop in a first novel.

Well, who knew? This is a great read. It's a fully mature novel, witty and full of laugh-out-loud scenes, streetwise Yiddish-flavored dialogue, suspense, family secrets, and people getting into impossible jams. The sins of two generations of Rabin fathers in New Haven, Conn., are told as the third-generation sons (plus their families and selected ghosts) gather for the old man's funeral.

When "Save Me" appeared in May there were lots of local stories about Ruff but few reviews. May it soon catch fire.

Ron McCrea
senior news editor