Michael Oren presents the trajectory of his new novel through the prism of the seasons – five of them. The fact that he chooses to begin with the English autumn and end with the American fall is no coincidence, for he clearly intends his readers to appreciate the pun involved.
To All Who Call in Truth indeed charts the slow disintegration of his main character’s life as he becomes an unwitting victim entangled in a web of intrigue. By the fall, Sandy Cooper – a guidance counselor and sports coach in a junior high school – has lost his wife, his home and his job, but he has at least finally understood the circumstances, including his own weaknesses, that have led to this outcome.
Cooper and his wife Esta are Jewish in a mainly white Christian neighborhood, although one girl pupil at the school – a key character – is African American in origin. She, like Cooper himself, has to cope with episodes of overt intolerance.
Cooper, although far from religious, is involved with his wife in Temple activities. Early in the story he finds himself alone in the prayer hall. He gazes at the inscriptions that cover most of the walls, memorials to deceased parents and relatives, some of whom perished in the Holocaust.
“Only one wall was empty,” Oren tells us, “except for a quote. From the Bible, Sandy figured, probably a psalm, in wooden letters painted in gold. “The Lord is Near to All Who Call on Him,” it said, “To All Who Call on Him in Truth.” He questioned whether this was true. How many people called but remained unanswered? How many called and died?”
It is a question that permeates the novel, but is not answered.
THE BASIS of Cooper’s slide into dissolution lies, perhaps, in the trauma that beset him early in life. His father, no athlete himself, entertained extravagant expectations of what his son might achieve in the sporting sphere. Cooper spent his youth striving continuously to live up to his father’s hopes. All their dreams were shattered one day on the baseball field when Cooper suffered an injury that left him with a permanent limp – and the abiding feeling that his father blamed him for the accident and, from that moment, disapproved of him.
The seeds of insecurity took root and left him vulnerable, lacking sufficient resources to resist the trap that circumstances led him into. Instead he becomes embroiled in an elaborate plot connected with a murder committed years before. When the scales finally fall from his eyes and he learns how mistaken he has been in the woman who entrapped him, Cooper learns also that his assumptions about his father, now terminally ill, had been mistaken.
“You were his happiness,” the nurse tells Cooper, when he visits the dying man. “You should’ve heard the way he went on about you. ‘My son did this, my son did that,’ as soon as you walked out that door. Cheeks glowing. He was so proud.”
By then, though, it is too late to make amends for years of a fractured relationship, or to retreat to the safe life he had originally enjoyed. His wife has thrown him out and his paramour has revealed her true motives for entrapping him. With violence breaking out all around him, Cooper succumbs to the prevailing mood and finally attacks the blatantly antisemitic colleague who had previously subjected him to a constant stream of provocation. This episode completes his downfall, and he is dismissed. The fall, indeed.
Oren gives us a final glimpse of his anti-hero, standing on the sports field, ball in hand, perhaps reliving the incident that set him on the journey that has just ended for him.
Michael Oren has an instinctive feel for what makes people tick. As a result, his characters never act without a motive. We understand why they behave as they do, although we are not necessarily invited to empathize with them on that account. In short, Oren understands what it is to be human, and this insight illuminates the novel, giving it depth and meaning.
To All Who Call in Truth, set at a time of political and racial turmoil, is an eminently believable story involving recognizable human beings. It is both a highly enjoyable and a satisfying read.