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Down Under
DOWN UNDER is a serio-comic faux biography of a famous actor, Colm Eriksen, who declines from virile international screen star to aging, paranoid wreck. The novel creates a backstory in which the iconic hero, born as Collum Whitsun, grows up poor and battered in upstate New York, the only light in his life a fellow high school sophomore-the bourgeois, Jewish Judy Pincus. Judy and Collum fall passionately into young love, but she abandons him when his father decides to whisk the family off to Australia. Decades later, Collum, a fallen angel with nothing to lose, returns to settle scores with or renew his lost romance. The love of his youth, now a woman in middle-aged, married torpor, meets him more than halfway.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 11, 2014
19 people want to read
About the author
Sonia Taitz
5 books30 followersSonia Taitz is a playwright, essayist, and author of THE WATCHMAKER’S DAUGHTER, a memoir described by PEOPLE magazine as “funny and heartwrenching.”
The book has been recommended by VANITY FAIR, KIRKUS, The American Library Association (which nominated it for the Sophie Brody Medal), and READER’S DIGEST, which put it on its “Can’t-Miss” List. Author/critic James Wolcott described the book as having “the beauty of a psalm,” adding that it should be immortalized on film by Steven Spielberg; CNN’s Mark Whitaker said that “Sonia Taitz writes with an artist’s eye and a poet’s voice,” and Academy Award, Tony, and Pulitzer Prize-winner John Patrick Shanley (DOUBT, MOONSTRUCK) proclaimed: “Sonia Taitz has a good heart and an unmortgaged soul. Follow where she leads. You want to go there.”
Sonia’s previous work, a novel called IN THE KING’S ARMS, was praised and recommended by, among others, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW and ForeWord Magazine, which placed her “among the best poets, playwrights, and novelists.” NEW YORKER writer and critic Jesse Kornbluth compared Sonia Taitz to Martin Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and Philip Roth (but with more heart), and JEWISH BOOK WORLD (the JBC Magazine) featured IN THE KING’S ARMS alongside Alice Hoffman’s novel THE DOVEKEEPERS as an absolute must-read.
Sonia Taitz is also author of MOTHERING HEIGHTS, featured in PEOPLE Magazine and covered repeatedly on NPR, CNN, CBS, as well as in a PBS special on “The Mystery of Love.” O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE quoted MOTHERING HEIGHTS as being “one of the best things ever said about motherhood,” and many of its key phrases have been anthologized, for instance by THE COLUMBIA BOOK OF QUOTATIONS.
In addition, Sonia Taitz has written extensively for THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE NEW YORK OBSERVER; she is now a featured columnist at THE HUFFINGTON POST and PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.
www.sonia taitz.com
Twitter follow @soniataitz
The book has been recommended by VANITY FAIR, KIRKUS, The American Library Association (which nominated it for the Sophie Brody Medal), and READER’S DIGEST, which put it on its “Can’t-Miss” List. Author/critic James Wolcott described the book as having “the beauty of a psalm,” adding that it should be immortalized on film by Steven Spielberg; CNN’s Mark Whitaker said that “Sonia Taitz writes with an artist’s eye and a poet’s voice,” and Academy Award, Tony, and Pulitzer Prize-winner John Patrick Shanley (DOUBT, MOONSTRUCK) proclaimed: “Sonia Taitz has a good heart and an unmortgaged soul. Follow where she leads. You want to go there.”
Sonia’s previous work, a novel called IN THE KING’S ARMS, was praised and recommended by, among others, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW and ForeWord Magazine, which placed her “among the best poets, playwrights, and novelists.” NEW YORKER writer and critic Jesse Kornbluth compared Sonia Taitz to Martin Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and Philip Roth (but with more heart), and JEWISH BOOK WORLD (the JBC Magazine) featured IN THE KING’S ARMS alongside Alice Hoffman’s novel THE DOVEKEEPERS as an absolute must-read.
Sonia Taitz is also author of MOTHERING HEIGHTS, featured in PEOPLE Magazine and covered repeatedly on NPR, CNN, CBS, as well as in a PBS special on “The Mystery of Love.” O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE quoted MOTHERING HEIGHTS as being “one of the best things ever said about motherhood,” and many of its key phrases have been anthologized, for instance by THE COLUMBIA BOOK OF QUOTATIONS.
In addition, Sonia Taitz has written extensively for THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE NEW YORK OBSERVER; she is now a featured columnist at THE HUFFINGTON POST and PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.
www.sonia taitz.com
Twitter follow @soniataitz
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 18, 2023
An interesting idea, I think, hidden in a narrative structure that needed some work.
Collum and Jude were high school sweethearts whose love affair was cut short. Some decades later, Collum is a famous movie star living in Australia. Jude is in the U.S., and facing ennui as a middle-aged mother in a stagnant marriage. Collum decides to abandon his marriage and try to win Jude back, but things don’t go quite as planned.
There’s a degree of fabulism in the story as the actor, Collum, takes on a couple of surprises. Working as a southern cowboy at a horse farm perhaps isn’t too far-fetched, but then he takes on the role of a Hasidic rabbi, who randomly starts calling on Jude, and Jude seems to buy it for awhile. It’s like the plot of a folk tale.
When Collum reveals himself, there’s a honeymoon period for awhile before things start to go south. Their parting decades past hinged on a huge misunderstanding, and then Collum himself was victim of a violent, racist and antisemitic father. Having not dealt with any of these issues, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Collum is resentful and abusive.
Maybe this could have been interesting commentary on why people stay in toxic relationships. I’m looking forward to reading Hannah Halperin’s latest novel on that subject, in fact. But I found myself mostly frustrated with Jude. She had the inklings of a far more interesting story, particularly in regards to her popular, sort of jerky, vs “effeminate” and loner son. In flashbacks we see how head over heels she was over Collum, but that was obviously teenage drama, where everything feels heightened and uber-important. Then there was her father’s paranoia with regards to being surrounded by violent antisemitism, which largely seemed to play out when Collum’s father came into the future. Jude’s relationship to Judaism seemed half baked, where in some areas she was knowledgeable and seemed interested, and in others not at all. A dive into her complex religious life as an adult would have also been more appealing than watching her be abused by an antisemite, and come to the realization at long last that youthful fantasies about love don’t always stand up well.
Then there’s some stuff where Collum takes off with Jude’s seemingly perfect best friend, after he spends a drunken and misogynistic bender with someone else in town, and the whole thing felt rather convenient.
On a structural level, we went back and forward in time, almost following the narrative in a stream of consciousness sort of way. (At least, chapters would flit back to the past whenever someone was thinking of something related in the present.) But the story started out on a drab note, filled with exposition about characters we didn’t know or care about yet. And again, I wish there was more nuance or care given to some of them, but the potential was certainly there by the end. And maybe I’m biased because she focused mostly on Jude and Collum, and I’d had enough of them quite quickly. I never really found them to be too compelling together, but maybe that’s just me.
So I’ll give this a three stars, cos there’s interesting ideas peppered in, including with the next generation that I haven’t talked about at all. And meh. :P I’m an easy grader. So there we go.
Collum and Jude were high school sweethearts whose love affair was cut short. Some decades later, Collum is a famous movie star living in Australia. Jude is in the U.S., and facing ennui as a middle-aged mother in a stagnant marriage. Collum decides to abandon his marriage and try to win Jude back, but things don’t go quite as planned.
There’s a degree of fabulism in the story as the actor, Collum, takes on a couple of surprises. Working as a southern cowboy at a horse farm perhaps isn’t too far-fetched, but then he takes on the role of a Hasidic rabbi, who randomly starts calling on Jude, and Jude seems to buy it for awhile. It’s like the plot of a folk tale.
When Collum reveals himself, there’s a honeymoon period for awhile before things start to go south. Their parting decades past hinged on a huge misunderstanding, and then Collum himself was victim of a violent, racist and antisemitic father. Having not dealt with any of these issues, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Collum is resentful and abusive.
Maybe this could have been interesting commentary on why people stay in toxic relationships. I’m looking forward to reading Hannah Halperin’s latest novel on that subject, in fact. But I found myself mostly frustrated with Jude. She had the inklings of a far more interesting story, particularly in regards to her popular, sort of jerky, vs “effeminate” and loner son. In flashbacks we see how head over heels she was over Collum, but that was obviously teenage drama, where everything feels heightened and uber-important. Then there was her father’s paranoia with regards to being surrounded by violent antisemitism, which largely seemed to play out when Collum’s father came into the future. Jude’s relationship to Judaism seemed half baked, where in some areas she was knowledgeable and seemed interested, and in others not at all. A dive into her complex religious life as an adult would have also been more appealing than watching her be abused by an antisemite, and come to the realization at long last that youthful fantasies about love don’t always stand up well.
Then there’s some stuff where Collum takes off with Jude’s seemingly perfect best friend, after he spends a drunken and misogynistic bender with someone else in town, and the whole thing felt rather convenient.
On a structural level, we went back and forward in time, almost following the narrative in a stream of consciousness sort of way. (At least, chapters would flit back to the past whenever someone was thinking of something related in the present.) But the story started out on a drab note, filled with exposition about characters we didn’t know or care about yet. And again, I wish there was more nuance or care given to some of them, but the potential was certainly there by the end. And maybe I’m biased because she focused mostly on Jude and Collum, and I’d had enough of them quite quickly. I never really found them to be too compelling together, but maybe that’s just me.
So I’ll give this a three stars, cos there’s interesting ideas peppered in, including with the next generation that I haven’t talked about at all. And meh. :P I’m an easy grader. So there we go.
November 6, 2014
I just loved Sonia Taitz’s new novel, DOWN UNDER. Taitz is a wry, sly, and at times madcap writer with enough clever tricks up her sleeve to make you laugh out loud. But she also displays great tenderness and empathy for her mismatched characters: a middle-aged mom with a marriage that’s slightly off kilter, a famous movie star who carries a torch for a long-lost love, a couple of kooky teens, and a sanctimonious best friend with a surprising agenda. Taitz weaves their interconnected stories into a delicious blend of love, lust and second chances. Read her once for her well-honed sense of humor but read her again for her wise and deep heart.
November 11, 2014
I’ve been a fan of this author since 'In the King’s Arms' her book about an American girl's love affair at Oxford. Sonia Taitz is a great romantic in the biggest sense of the word. She understands what lies beneath our deepest longings. In this novel, a teen romance between a battered Irish boy and a bourgeois Jewish girl creates a deep bond that lasts more than thirty years. Do we change over time, or are do our hearts stay innocent? These are questions the author addresses with her characteristic wisdom, warmth, and wit.
November 11, 2014
“Down Under” is hugely entertaining, a romantic page-turner and a social satire all in one. A middle-aged housewife sends out feelers to an old boyfriend, who happens to now be an internationally famous movie star. The fact that he is just as interested as she is makes for fascinating (and sometimes racy) reading. Clever subplots round out the story, echoing themes of longing, disappointment, and the enduring comedy of human desire.”
March 7, 2015
Cute story. I read it because the author will be in town. Good ideas but kind of jumps around. Characters need help.
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November 24, 2015Review by Renita Last for the Jewish Book Council.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews