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Teddy’s Version illuminates an unlikely, decades-long, mid-twentieth-century friendship between two political scientists, their relationship and their times, revealed by the titular character as he recalls discursive conversations between the men.
Teddy’s best friend and interlocutor, Chaim Mermelstein, is a hulking, guarded, heterosexual, a single father, Jewish, an orphan of the Second World War, his American name, Charlie Parker.
Tadeuz Teddy Falenski, a Christian from Poland by way of England, is his colleague’s opposite: slender, charming, fond of recreational drugs, a polymath with a passion for photography, and a closeted homosexual.
Teddy’s bifurcated existence is divided between a public eligible bachelor persona and his hidden gay life. For the duration of their long friendship, the topic of Teddy’s homosexuality remains undiscussed between two men, leaving open the question Chaim's awareness of Teddy's sexual proclivity.
Whether sitting on the deck of Teddy’s tumbledown floating home, The Étude, or walking the beach near Chaim’s house in Venice, CA, or cruising the freeways, or taking lunches at their regular table in The Annapurna, an Indian strip mall restaurant, conversations leap from topic to topic: their specialty, the Communist Bloc; Chaim’s unbalanced American wife; his rebellious musician daughter; Teddy's passion for photography; Chaim’s avocation as a writer of screenplays…and on occasion, an opaque character named Wolf, whom Chaim has known since they were both young men in Vilnius, who may have had a hand in the death of Chaim’s brother in the ghetto, and may be alive and residing in Los Angeles.
Teddy’s Version begins at the end, in the 1980’s, with the revelation that Teddy has contracted a mysterious, undiagnosed illness that initially presents as a sore throat and a rash.
Other characters insinuate themselves into the novel with first-person asides, adding their brushstrokes to a Cubistic portrait of Chaim, who never speaks directly to the reader.
In a manner similar to the characters’ asides, excerpts from Chaim’s screenplays are presented in screenplay format––NIGHT, INT, TAVERN––etc.
Teddy’s best friend and interlocutor, Chaim Mermelstein, is a hulking, guarded, heterosexual, a single father, Jewish, an orphan of the Second World War, his American name, Charlie Parker.
Tadeuz Teddy Falenski, a Christian from Poland by way of England, is his colleague’s opposite: slender, charming, fond of recreational drugs, a polymath with a passion for photography, and a closeted homosexual.
Teddy’s bifurcated existence is divided between a public eligible bachelor persona and his hidden gay life. For the duration of their long friendship, the topic of Teddy’s homosexuality remains undiscussed between two men, leaving open the question Chaim's awareness of Teddy's sexual proclivity.
Whether sitting on the deck of Teddy’s tumbledown floating home, The Étude, or walking the beach near Chaim’s house in Venice, CA, or cruising the freeways, or taking lunches at their regular table in The Annapurna, an Indian strip mall restaurant, conversations leap from topic to topic: their specialty, the Communist Bloc; Chaim’s unbalanced American wife; his rebellious musician daughter; Teddy's passion for photography; Chaim’s avocation as a writer of screenplays…and on occasion, an opaque character named Wolf, whom Chaim has known since they were both young men in Vilnius, who may have had a hand in the death of Chaim’s brother in the ghetto, and may be alive and residing in Los Angeles.
Teddy’s Version begins at the end, in the 1980’s, with the revelation that Teddy has contracted a mysterious, undiagnosed illness that initially presents as a sore throat and a rash.
Other characters insinuate themselves into the novel with first-person asides, adding their brushstrokes to a Cubistic portrait of Chaim, who never speaks directly to the reader.
In a manner similar to the characters’ asides, excerpts from Chaim’s screenplays are presented in screenplay format––NIGHT, INT, TAVERN––etc.