|
Interview With Author
Benjamin Feldman
By Andrea Marvin
With a fascination for history and a love for telling true stories about scandal, author Benjamin Feldman is releasing his latest book, "The Dentist Sheik From The Lower Eastside."
His natural curiosity about the 1920s era in New York City led him to do deep research about the troublemakers of that time who threw out the rules to make their fortunes and dated women much, much younger than them.
The tale is the culmination of extensive research and many phone conversations Benjamin had with living relatives of the main character, Charlie Wilen, a bohemian playboy of that era. The stage is set perfectly for what that time was like and resembles the feel of “The Great Gatsby.”
Though the book takes place decades ago, the lessons are still very relevant to present day, as scandals such as Harvey Weinstein unfold. Readers will be both entertained and educated.
Benjamin is an avid researcher and an accomplished historian who has authored a number of essays and books. A conversation with him reveals his intellect and wit and gives insight into what stirred a creative quest to bring this exquisite biography to life.
Readers can expect glimmer and glam, and a touch of rebellion as the rags to riches storyline unfolds.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up, and where are you living now?
I was born in 1952 and raised in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The town I grew up in is referred to as “The Secret City” because it’s where fuel for the first two atomic bombs was created. I have lived in New York City since 1969.
Tell us about your journey as an author.
I am a born storyteller. That mixed with my love for history and addiction to inspiring content such as The Moth Podcast and BBC Radio 4's In Our Time series, impelled me to write, write, write since early adolescence.
What inspired you to start writing?
From my teenage years as a journalist to articles I wrote for local daily newspapers; writing has always been a passion for me. Daily interactions of writing in personal journals and having intense correspondence with friends and lovers during my college years fueled my passion even more. Phone calls were expensive back in the day.
As time went on, during my early career as a real estate attorney, I was called upon to do a lot of legal writing. But that was a job, not a joy. After I helped take my real estate company public in 1997, I was lucky to retire in 2000 at age 48 and do what I really enjoyed again.
I started writing biographies and essays, which I set about doing without hesitation. So far, the full-length works are all based on permanent residents of Brooklyn’s magnificent Green-Wood Cemetery. In addition, I am an avid essayist and magazine writer, as well as a natural flâneur.
Let’s talk about your new book, "The Dentist Sheik From The Lower Eastside." It sounds like you have strong roots in New York City. Is your appreciation for the city’s history part of the inspiration behind the biography, or what interested you in the topic?
Like any red-blooded soul, I love scandal. The book is a sequel to my second book about an infamous rich real estate investor named Edward West who was referred to as “Daddy” Browning.
In the 1920s, he had a proclivity for chasing, bedding, adopting, and in some cases, wedding teenage girls. With his Sir Lancelot-on-a-white horse complex, Browning married a much younger woman from the West Side from a poor family during World War I.
Adele Lowen Browning moved overnight from a hand-to-mouth existence as a young 20-something, to a life of luxury atop a two-floor penthouse across from New York City's Museum of Natural History. But she got bored of her imperious husband who was some 30-odd years older than she, and took up with the family dentist, Charles Wilen.
All hell broke loose when she caught a severe STI and ran away with Charlie. Divorce followed forthwith.
The book takes place between 1894 to 1968. With your background as a historian, what do you find fascinating about this era? Did quite a bit of research go into the book?
These decades span the growth of the American economy and that of the Côte d’Azur when incredible wealth was created not only for the captains of industry but for so many strivers and upwardly mobile ladder climbers like Charlie Wilen.
“Me too” was far in the future, and the gender politics and rapscallion freedom that men like Daddy Browning and Charlie Wilen had in their younger years fascinate me.
All my books involve intense research through internet genealogy and cemetery records. My legal skills have been invaluable.
In the case of this book, an email put me in touch with Charlie Wilen’s illegitimate son, a man in his late 80s, who lives in a trailer in Batesville, Arkansas. I was also put in touch with Charlie’s grandson, who grew up in Monte Carlo and Basel as the son of the famous jazz saxophonist Barney Qilen.
Further, I purchased a huge family archive of Charlie and his wife, Marie-Paule. Much of the research emanated from its trove of documents, photos, and handwritten letters from and to many boldface names of the epoch, like Isadora Duncan and Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry.
Other impressive names include French tennis star Suzanne Lenglen, members of the Bloomsbury Group, and Kees van Dongen, leader of the fauvist painting movement in the early part of the 20th century.
The main character, Charlie Wilen, is described as “a notorious bohemian playboy of the Roaring 20s.” How would you say his story is relatable to today’s world and the ideology of chasing success and fame?
Think Jay Gatsby, first and foremost, from the 1920s, but then fast forward to recent decades: Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and even Sammy Glick in Budd Schulberg’s biography about a garment district wannabe “What Makes Sammy Run.”
What is the main takeaway from the book?
Under every tombstone, in every random email that enters your junk mail folder, every chance encounter in a bar or at a dinner party can hold a fabulous story that can enrich and elevate both your own life and those who will listen to you tell it.
I was blessed when I met Daddy Browning. And his cuckold, Charlie Wilen, tripled those blessings.
And what’s next for you … are you writing any new material readers can look forward to?
Time to cringe. I say this as I am chuckling. I’ve just purchased a gravesite for myself in the somewhat worn-at-the-edges older section of Baron Hirsch Cemetery in Staten Island, where most of the group is. Plot gates and individual tombstones are engraved in Yiddish and Hebrew.
I am a Yiddishist, fluent in all respects in the languages of my late mother, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and just love the place. It was founded, among many others, by a famous Jewish philanthropist.
Several years ago, I wrote about a wonderful group plot there owned by the First Bagel Bakers Sick and Benevolent Society. If I get hungry at night and can’t sleep in my eternal bed, I can always get up, walk down the gravel path to that nearby plot, and get an everything bagel with a shmear of cream cheese.
For more information on Ben’s work please visit: NewYorkWanderer.com
Home |
Actors/Models |
Art |
Books |
Dining
Film & Video |
Food & Wine |
Health & Fitness
MediaWatch |
Money and Business |
Music |
Profiles
Professional Services |
Sports |
Style & Fashion
Technology |
Theatre |
Travel & Leisure
Copyright 1995 - 2024 inmag.com
inmag.com (on line) and in Magazine (in print)
are published by in! communications, Inc.
www.inmag.com
|
Advertiser Info
Subscription Form
Contact Us
|
