While He Was Away by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

Jesus drew the clearest line in the sand, and that line begs the question: Who are we to demonize, ghettoize, or judge? If characters (or human beings, for that matter) like Theo and Rose authentically experience the kingdom of heaven on Saturday night in a nightclub, and on Sunday morning in church, well, I choose to believe it's a blessing, a gift, an experience of the omnipresence of God. It is simply to say that I believe God is bigger than any fences or walls we people erect, and that certain experiences of faith, prayer, and church are bigger, too. This is not to say that there isn't good and evil, moral and immoral. Part of my journey as a Christian, a woman, and a writer has been to move from the place of fear that I believe inspires such divisions, to the more open and inclusive experience of life that I see best exemplified by the person of Jesus. Like my parents before me, I was raised in a subculture that promoted a strong and absolute division between 'the sacred and the secular' (aka 'the profane'). How do their experiences on Saturday night in the club and on Sunday morning in church connect to one another? One of the currents that runs through this book is the tension between the church and 'the world.' The two main characters are both Christians and also both singers in a Chicago nightclub. There are other shifts, as well-including the integration of an interracial relationship and the world of jazz-that have to do with my evolving understanding of human nature, my own experiences in life, and where my imagination took me. Sing For Me is set in the Depression, right in the thick of that experience, and Rose, the central point of view, is 21. 'The Slaughterhouse' was told from the perspective of an elderly woman, reflecting back on her early years. Inspired by long conversations on his sun-filled porch, I wrote 'The Slaughterhouse,' the story upon which Sing For Me is based. When I visited him, I was ever more frequently asking him to tell those old stories again-and others as well.

He'd just retired to Florida, and my times with him were rare. I read novels, stories, poetry, and literary criticism drawing from 'Literature of the Immigrant Experience,' and I remembered my dad's after-dinner ritual of storytelling. Jump to 1995, and me in my early thirties, in the middle of my doctoral program in English and Creative Writing.

He came of age during the 1920s and '30s, and besides the influence of that time period, his stories also held many references to his Danish immigrant heritage. He was a good storyteller with a great voice (like Rose, the main character of Sing For Me, my dad was a singer), and many nights after dinner, he used his gift to regale me-an only child-with tales of his boyhood in Oak Park, Chicago, and Wisconsin.

When I was a child, my father told me stories.

While He Was Away by Karen Halvorsen Schreck