Interview Roundup: The Mountains Are High, The Valley Is Low

NextBook interviews Sam Apple about Schlepping Through the Alps, an account of Apple's travels with a Yiddish-singing goatherder--whose life, it seems, has transformed, much of it anyway, into one long, brilliant piece of political performance art:

"He realized [Apple says] he was in this unique position to bring Yiddish music to Austrian audiences in the countryside that wouldn't otherwise be exposed to Jewish culture. As he said to me, he wanted to introduce them to a culture their fathers and uncles helped to destroy. To draw them in, he would integrate the songs into a program about being a wandering shepherd. Now he's done this program in most of the small towns where he passes with the flock each year."

Meanwhile, Steve Elliott talks with the Chicago Tribune about the traumatic past which he's transmuted into four novels, including the widely acclaimed Happy Baby.

And Mark over at The Elegant Variation called my attention to a cover story in the Valley Advocate (which looks to be a Connecticut weekly) about author Michael Bérubé and his blog, the latter of which has just been added to my bookmarks.