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Age No Factor For Area's 97-Year-Old First Time Novelist
By Keith Hagarty
 | | --Photos Courtesy Of Ballantine Books Ocean County resident Harry Bernstein has won international acclaim for his first novel. He is 97 years old. |
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An excerpt from the April 2007 New York Times book review of Harry Bernstein's novel "The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers":
"Mr. Bernstein's heart-wrenching memoir, describes two cultures cohabiting uneasily, prey to misunderstandings that distort lives on both sides. It is a world of pain and prejudice, evoked in spare, restrained prose that brilliantly illuminates a time, a place and a family struggling valiantly to beat impossible odds …"
Such literary accolades have come in droves for 97-year-old Harry Bernstein, a resident of Brick's Greenbriar retirement community since 1973.
For his accomplishments, Bernstein has received a $40,000 Guggenheim Fellowship and was recently honored in New York City as a recipient of the 2008 Christopher Awards, bestowed upon authors who embody a spiritual journey in their work.
Having your first novel published is a monumental accomplishment for any writer. When the feat occurs when you're over 90 years old, it's even more special.
"It was an interesting story to tell, and it's gotten terrific reviews all over the lot - every part of the country and abroad," said author Harry Bernstein, who was 93 years old when he began his book, which was published last year by Ballantine Books.
Right from its debut, the novel was an immediate success, with international publications in England, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Finland, just to name a few.
Told through the eyes of Bernstein as a child, the autobiographical story takes readers back to the street where he and his family lived in Lancashire, England during World War I.
"It was an unusual kind of street," Bernstein explained. "On one side lived Christians, and on the other side lived Jews. It was like two enemy camps facing each other. You just didn't cross over from one side to the other- the only thing the two sides had in common was the poverty."
Despite their theological and cultural difference, Bernstein said there were times during the war when the two sides were drawn together.
"If a telegram came saying the husband, or brother or so of one person living there had been killed in the war, then both sides flocked over to console and sympathize, and do whatever they could for the other one," he said. "It didn't matter then if you were a Jew or a Christian."
The "invisible wall" describes the symbolic separation existing between the two sides, said Bernstein, calling it a personal story of sacrifice, poverty, violence and love.
In picking a subject matter for a novel, Bernstein reflected on his entire life and the memories which helped shaped the man he's become. "I selected one as far back in the past as could go because that was the best way to get away from the present," he said.
Following the war, Bernstein and his family moved to the United States of America in 1922, when he was 12 years old.
"The story ends with my mother's dream that someday we'd go to America, because America was the panacea for all the ailments of life," he said. "It was a country where we believed everything was wonderful, there'd be no more poverty, and there'd be no more two sides of the street, and nothing at all like that."
During their first year as residents, Bernstein and his family were dazzled by America's amenities.
"We found to be sure that there were things here that we never had before," said Bernstein. "My God, we had electric lights, a toilet inside the house, a bathtub and all the simple things people take for granted, but for her (Bernstein's mother), this was all part of the dream that seemed to be coming true."
Unfortunately, the joy didn't last long, Bernstein lamented, as the Great Depression lurked around the corner ready to pounce.
"We found that the poverty that we fled from in England had followed us to America too," he said.
Years of impoverished conditions and an abusive father took their toll, Bernstein admits, however, life soon smiled upon him at the age of 24, when he attended a dance social and met his future wife, Ruby.
"My marriage to her made a completely different life, a much happier one for me," he said.
While he was an avid writer all his life, Bernstein said he didn't even begin writing his published novel until Ruby's death from Leukemia six years ago- his most painful memory.
"We had been married for 60 or 70 years, and it was one of those very rare, happy marriages that lasted," said Bernstein. "I was pretty badly broken up over it. I went through a period of grief where there didn't seem to be any end to it, and I just had to do something, so I turned to writing."
Getting his thoughts onto the page proved to be a much needed therapeutic experience for Bernstein.
"I had written all my life, although not successfully," he said. "Whenever I did write though, I found that it absorbed me completely, and I forgot where I was and what kind of a world I was living in, so I thought perhaps I should try it again."
After dozens of literary awards and critical acclaim, Bernstein said he appreciates all of the honors, but only wished his wife were still here to share in his success.
"To this day, I still can't accept it fully. I just can't," he said of her death. "I don't believe in a here-after. Some of my neighbors have consoled me and say 'she's up there in heaven waiting for me and smiling,' but I don't think that's so. But I do know that if I die- and that should happen very shortly since I'm going to be 98 (years old) soon- I can say that at least I won't have to endure the misery of living without her."
For Bernstein, his love of Ruby will live on long after he's gone, in the memories he's presented on the page.
"Some of the readers who've written to me have mentioned her as an inspiring figure," he said proudly. "The book is dedicated to her memory."
To further expound on their lifelong love, Bernstein is now in the process of completing his third book, which has already been purchased by Random House. His upcoming title is based on their relationship and his contemplative reflection on their shared lives over the past century.
For all his success late in life, Bernstein admits it's bittersweet without the love of his life being a part of it all.
"I think she would've been so proud," he said. "She really did believe in me as a writer, which wasn't so true of most people."
It was Ruby who constantly supported Bernstein in his literary endeavors, even when nobody else did.
"I had a number of short stories published in little magazine, as they were called in those days," he said. One of Bernstein's stories had been read by the former editor of book publisher Simon & Schuster.
"He wrote to me and told me that if I ever I write a novel, he'd be glad to read it and consider it," said Bernstein. "As soon as Ruby and I got married, I settled down to write that novel, and I did write it- but it was lousy."
Despite getting rejected in his first attempt, Bernstein was offered a job as a reader of manuscripts and screenplays for the studios of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. Some of the raw scripts included those written firsthand by legendary authors John Steinbeck and Truman Capote.
"The only problem was that I had so much reading to do that there wasn't nearly enough time to write," he said. "But it did at least boost my ego a little bit, and I didn't have to depend on my wife to support me."
Bernstein will be speaking about his novel and his life at the Toms River branch headquarters of the Ocean County Library on Saturday, May 3 at 2 p.m.
For aspiring authors of all ages, Bernstein says his advice is simple.
"My advice is not to give up, not to pay too much attention to the rejection slips you get," he said. "It's how you feel yourself about your work. If you really, truly enjoy writing, you should just do it whether you submit it for publication or not."
Bernstein is positive proof that in the end, persistence pays off, but in the end, the journey is perhaps more important than anything else.
"It's the most satisfying thing in the whole world: to create characters, to bring them back to life, the people you've known, loved and seen," he said. "There's nothing as good … and if it doesn't happen that you become some great writer, it's not such a big deal, it really isn't."
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