Debra
Levi Holtz
Debra
Levi Holtz
WRITING THE TRUTH - CHOICES IN ART
When Debra Levi Holtz decided to write a book about her decade-long search for her parents, she faced a choice many writers confront. When dealing with real-life events, do you novelize or write it as a memoir?
Oakland writer Holtz studied journalism at Northwestern University and worked for many years as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. With these credentials, one might expect her first book to be straight non-fiction, but she began it as a novel, only changing it to memoir after hearing critiques of her early work at writers' conferences.
Readers want a happy reunion, but Holtz's tale is more complex and less Hollywood. Helen, Holtz's biological mother, passed her baby thru a car window to Lynn and Manny Skar. Skar, a mobster, was killed only six years later and Holtz grew up knowing little of the Chinese puzzle of her parents. Her quest is stirringly related in Of Unknown Origin: A Memoir (Council Oaks Books, May 2001).
Several book reviews. Considerable biographical info in these.
A search on google.com yielded many of her articles that appeared in the Chronicle and a few book reviews.
More reviews - excerpts - other data at these booksellers' sites
Return to previous meeting index.
Return
to main page.