Book Alert / Underwater Dreams

Underwater Dreams -- A Modern Greek Tragedy by James Rouman, Peter E. Randall Publisher , LLC, $18, 152 pages, ISBN #1-931807-42-6.

Pulitzer-Prize winning author Annie Dillard believes writing is not only a noble occupation, a pleasant and sometimes productive diversion, but that it is also a duty. Part of being alive, she argues, entails chronicling our lives so that those who come after us will know what it was like to live in our times. But you're not a writer, you say? Nonsense, she'd reply, we all can write, just some better than others.

Viewed in this light, the new novel by retired anesthesiologist James Rouman is a welcome gift. Like so many first novels, it is heavily autobiographical: its protagonist, Leo Sarris, is an anesthesiologist, who shares with Rouman a Wisconsin boyhood and a proud Greek heritage. But Dr. Rouman chose to write a novel, not a memoir, he tells me, to allow himself the freedom to create characters who are composites of more than one person.

Although he lacks the brio and panache that a trained novelist might bring to the task, Rouman's prose is workmanlike and, sometimes, compelling. He traces a family of Greek immigrants from the Peloponnesus to American shores, led by Lula, who becomes the matriarch of the story, and depicts how their striving leads to success, particularly for her son Leo.

The author introduces a love interest of many years in Martha Ravitch, and much of the later part of the book centers on the relationship between Leo and Martha, her African-American housekeeper Daisy and Daisy's troubled and opportunistic son Tyrone. Rouman is at his best in the difficult task of capturing urban black dialect in dialogue between Martha and Daisy, as their friendship deepens. We'll not give away the book's denouement, only to say the book doesn't end on a high note.

Changes in publishing technology in the past decade, such as publishing-on-demand, have enabled aspiring writers like Rouman to have their works published for little or no cost. Hopefully, a lot more people like this retired doctor will find productive and fulfilling uses for their retirement years in creating  a proud family legacy like this one.