Stories reveal people’s strengths and weaknesses

Alvin Abram

Readers of The CJN’s annual Passover Literary Supplement will be familiar with Alvin Abram’s short stories, which have been featured regularly over the years.

Abram’s characters are based on his everyday activity, interactions with people and situations observed throughout his life.

“My stories have the best impact on morals,” he said. “You will read about relatives stealing and cheating in the short story I’ll Always Love You. The reader will follow the character Helen, who was taken to the cleaners by relatives. It’s a story that has meaning for me. It has a true ending – to a point,” said Abram.

Abram has had more than 32 short stories published since 1998 and eight self-published books, including two novels, two memoirs, two autobiographies and two biographies.

He recently launched his newest book, More Stories I Wrote: An Anthology of Stories.

“These stories are about incidents that reveal the strength and weaknesses of people. They are stories that I hope make the reader think,” Abram said.

The book contains five short stories divided by three non-fiction biographies and five mysteries, concluding with stories about community, friendships and laughter in interviews with Gerald Schwartz, Al Waxman and Larry Daiter.

In the short story The Empty Net, the reader follows a freelance writer’s quest to uncover the secret of why a young boy took his life. Abram weaves a complex tapestry of the boy’s struggle.

“I take the view of the victim. I don’t care about the perpetrator. I want the readers to understand what it’s like to be a victim,” Abram explained.

He said he enjoys creating a story and “knowing somebody read my book and found the story meaningful.”

Born and raised in Toronto, Abram has been involved in the Jewish community for many years, and served as the vice-president of JNF Toronto and director of Canadian Friends of Boys Town Jerusalem. He recently celebrated his 80th birthday with a burning question.

“I wonder why I am still around. I was supposed to have died in 1994.”

After a massive heart attack, Abram was told to “put his house in order.” His wife, Marilyn, asked him if he had any regrets.

“There are stories in my head and I don’t know how to put them on paper. I wish I had gone back to school and learned to write,” he said.

With that mindset, Abram did just that. At 59, he enrolled in York University’s creative writing course as a day student and he had 30 days to write 30 pages of a story.

“I wrote a story about the Holocaust. It was a love story. When it came time to find out if I passed, [the instructor] called me over to his desk and handed me my papers and said, ‘That’s got novel written all over it,’” Abram said.

Some 11 years later, Abram turned that story into a novel, An Eye For An Eye, which was submitted to an international contest called the BookAdz Award and won first prize.

“My beloved late mother, Annie Abram, told me I should put my dreams on paper. That was her way of saying I should write,” Abram reflected.

His other books include The Light After The Dark, a series that explores 12 true stories about children during the Holocaust. He donated proceeds from these books to Jewish charities.

Why Zaida? tells the story of a nine-year-old boy who asks his grandfather why the old man has no father or mother. The grandfather uses metaphors to answer the boy’s question.

The Unlikely Victims follows a Jewish homicide detective in Toronto, Gabe Garshowitz, and was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award by Crime Writers of Canada as one of the five Best First Novels for 2002.

Stories I Wrote is a collection of 18 stories from the more than 31 stories that have appeared in print since 1997.

In addition, An Eye For An Eye and The Minyan are the first two books of a trilogy, and The Dead Don’t Weep is another detective Gabe Garshowitz novel.

Abram is currently writing In Search of Justice about espionage – the third book of his trilogy.

“The story will end in Tel Aviv and it’s almost finished! It will be my last book,” he said.

Find out more at alvinabram.ca.