The acclaimed author Jim Shepard discusses his new novel, The Book of Aron (McClelland & Stewart, 2015), the Holocaust, writing, and more, with Joseph Planta.

The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard (McClelland & Stewart, 2015). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Book of Aron

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

The Book of Aron is the new book from the author Jim Shepard. One review of the book has hailed the book a ‘masterpiece.’ He joins me now to talk about the book. The story is told by Aron, who is eight years old when we first meet him. He is an interesting boy, whose family is uprooted from the countryside and thrown into the Warsaw Ghetto in the midst of the Second World War. The book looks at the destruction at the hands of the Nazis, and the general threat they place on people like Aron, children his age, and their families around them who are gradually disappearing. Aron then encounters Dr. Janusz Korczak, a Jewish-Polish doctor who cared for orphans, and who accompanied them on the train to Treblinka, the Nazi extermination camp. Jim Shepard joins me now. He is the author of six previous novels and four collections of short stories. He teaches at Williams College in Massachusetts. And his writing has been published in sundry publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, Vice, and Playboy, among many others. The book is published here in Canada by McClelland & Stewart. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, in Toronto today, Jim Shepard; Mr. Shepard, good morning.

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