For the sixteen year olds attending Camp Kanuga in the summer of 1975, it is supposed to the best summer of their young lives. They are finally upper seniors at the camp, and they are going to make the best of it. But without warning, tragedy strikes, and its effects will haunt five campers for the rest of their lives. There is Gavin Stewart, a twin who lives in his brother's shadow. There's Andrew "Apple" Brookman, the jokester whose life is changed by loss. There's Henry Sturtz, the rich boy whose words can be deadly. There's Leonard "Pulitzer" Dorff, the poor boy sent to spend a summer in a world he can only dream about. And there's Nicki Polis, the girlfriend of the golden boy who is privy to a secret that will change all of them. Gone the Sun traces the lives of these individuals over the course of thirty-five years, finally bringing them together again in a meeting where truth and illusion must be separated and secrets and lies exposed. It's a story about a bunch of kids who thought they knew it all at sixteen; it turns out they knew nothing.

GONE THE SUN

A NOVELBy JEFF LAFFEL MICHAEL KLEPPER

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Jeff Laffel and Michael Klepper
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7166-0

Chapter One

POV: Lennie Dorff:

I grew up in hand-me-downs.

When we had to buy new, which was seldom, we headed for Woolworths. Jeans for instance. Woolworths. Woolworths' brand, never Levis or Lees or even Wrangler! Woolworths. The kind of jeans that had red flannel on the inside pant leg so that when you rolled them up ... well, you remember. But that was when we bought new. Most of my stuff, almost everything I owned, came from things that people outgrew or no longer wanted. My father was an expert schnurer, always getting something for nothing, somehow always there when someone was cleaning out a closet, moving or simply throwing out the old and bringing in the new. Because of this, and added to the fact that my father never knew how to make enough money to support his family, bits and pieces of other people's lives were given to me. That in itself may not be earth shaking to you, but then you didn't live my life, and, most of all, you didn't go to Kanuga.

How can I describe the Jews that went to that camp without sounding at once awe struck and at the same time anti-Semitic? It isn't easy. My father used to say that there was nothing worse than a self- loathing Jew. I can think of lots of things, the first being my father.

But, I get ahead of myself. To understand me, and I would like to believe that you would, you first have to understand the Dorff lineage.

My paternal grandfather Isaaz came from Tallinn, in Estonia. His real name was Isaac, but the man at Ellis Island inadvertently changed the 'c' to a 'z' on his entrance papers. Sadly, my grandpa was easily convinced by some landsmen "Yankees" who were already old timers for having having been in America for a few months, that if he changed the incorrect letter he would be instantly deported. He was Isaaz ever after. When he would introduce himself, people always thought he was Iranian. He lived, and finally died, tending his pushcart on Rivington Street, being spoken to in two tongues, Farsi and English, neither of which he understood.

My father's name was, Schmoil.

He called himself Larry.

Schmoil quickly realized that in order to succeed in America one had to become assimilated, hence the Larry. He read books on entrepreneurship and soon, thereafter, with great fanfare in the family, bought a second and larger pushcart. Since my Old World Grandfather sold strictly Jewish items like talisman and tiffilin and came home with next to nothing, my Yankee Doodle father, using what he had gleaned from his books and with a surety of his brilliance that could not be swayed, sold crockery with pictures of Jesus and the Holy Family on them. He was soon forced into bankruptcy, never figuring out that the Jews who shopped on Rivington Street were not much interested in the face of Jesus on plates, even if His eyes did follow you when you moved. He had always been a bitter man, my father, but this setback made him absolutely acrid. He ended up waiting on tables at Ratner's, and, when they closed, at an assortment of Jewish Restaurants around the city. So much for my father's side!

My mother's side of the family, the Mendelsohns came from Minsk. They loved their homeland, but the climate for Jews in Russia in the early 1900's had become extremely "pogramatic" and they were forced to pack up and head for New York.

Mother's father, Leonard, was a Cantor who sang flat. He sang with such passion, however, that no one in his congregation on the Lower East Side of New York had the heart to tell him, much less fire him. Even if they would have wanted to, they were too poor a congregation to hire anyone better, so there Leonard remained until he dropped dead during services one Saturday morning after going for a rather ill advised high C, which to everyone's amazement, I am told, was crystal clear and dead on key.

Leonard, and Sadie his wife, had three children, one of whom, Ruthie, died in childbirth. The other two, Howard and Dora, the latter being my mother, thrived.

My mother was, and is, a gentle soul with a heart far larger than her brain. Not that she is stupid. Far from it! But mother's intelligence is innate. Though she never got past tenth grade she soon became the one to whom people came with their problems. Had she been smart enough to hang up a shingle, we would have been loaded. Instead, she dispensed her comfort and advice for free, enriching all who came to her, while she did her shopping at, well, Woolworths. As mother would say, "Nobody ever said life was easy." That line might well have been a self- fulfilling prophecy, for soon after she met Schmoil at a Henry Street Settlement House social, she married him. It was not too long after that, I am led to understand, that she developed the soft pitying sigh that endeared her to all who came to her for comfort and made my father grind his teeth, even in his sleep.

But it was Howard who was the great success in the family.

Uncle Howard was a high school science teacher. That meant that along with the respect the title brought, he was bringing home a steady salary at a time when money for many others was tight.

Howard may have been a success in our family, but not, alas, in his. One day when he came home from teaching, he found a letter of farewell from his wife, Hannah, who had taken off with her fox trot instructor, along with anything of value they owned.

Howard grieved for the loss of his Hannah. My mother consoled her beloved and successful brother. My father snickered behind Howard's back that, "Mr. Bigshot" finally had been brought down a peg or two.

At any rate, after Hannah left, Uncle Howard became a fixture at my home. At one point my mother had actually convinced him to move in with us, but my father nixed that in a hurry. There was a major fight, complete with soft pitying sighs and grinding teeth, but this time, my father prevailed. Howard, hurt and resentful, stopped coming by, except for shabbos dinners at which he would whisper to my mother who sighed, wrung her hands, clucked her tongue, shook her head and ignored my father.

Shabbos dinners at our house were, forever after, even years later when I came along, something to be avoided at all costs.

But Uncle Howard was made of strong stuff. He soon met and married a blonde, blue-eyed woman called Phyllis whom he had met through friends. The fact that Aunt Phyllis was a gentile shocked my mother and delighted my father. That she was a rather masculine girl's Phys Ed teacher delighted my father even more, and to all who would listen he would always speak of his new sister-in-law as 'Gorgeous George.' Soon afterward, Howard went into partnership with Moe Feingold, a Math teacher who taught with him, and bought CAMP KANUGA.

And that's when Uncle Howard really hit pay dirt.

To understand this, I offer a short history lesson.

In 1948 when Howard and Moe became partners, the country was experiencing a post war boom. Things that had been rationed were now easily accessible and every American wanted the best for himself and his family.

The Jewish population of America was even more determined than their Christian counterparts to find ways to be living the good life. Indeed, after the shock of seeing just how tenuous life was through the deaths of so many of their family members in Europe, American Jews decided to live, and live well. So while the gentiles...