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A bespectacled, Jewish hypochondriac with literary pretensions and a creepy fascination with his stepson’s girlfriend — Guess who?
What’s with Baum?
By Woody Allen
Post Hill Press, 192 pages, $29
The last Woody Allen film I saw was Blue Jasmine, which won three Academy Awards including Best Actress for Cate Blanchett and Best Screenplay for Allen. The film was released in 2013, six months before Allen’s then 28-year-old daughter, Dylan Farrow, came forward with allegations in an open letter in The New York Times, that Allen had sexually assaulted her when she was a child. This was her first time speaking publicly about a claim that her mother, Mia Farrow, had been making since 1992, after she discovered Allen had been in a sexual relationship with her daughter, Soon Yi. It was in 1992, when Allen’s 21st film, Husbands and Wives, was released in theaters that we, the public, were given a choice: Choose art and go see the film or choose morality and stop watching Woody Allen.
I, still in college, chose art. So did the public; that film sold more tickets than any of his previous films. I’m not going to beat myself up about it now, as I had been groomed by the corrosive 90s culture to pay little attention to the way women were treated by men. A few cultural gems to put you back in the moment: American Pie; Monica Lewinsky; O.J. Simpson; Girls Gone Wild; Britney Spears; Anita Hill.
I congratulated myself at the time, happy I had chosen art, because Husbands and Wives is a masterpiece of storytelling — so what if Farrow is spectacularly humiliated, as she, innocently playing Judy, the wife of the writer, Gabe Roth (played by Allen), has no idea what in reality he has done? Juliette Lewis, or Rain, is a dark-eyed, hair-twisting ingénue in Gabe’s writing class at Columbia. We learn about his feelings for her, and his wife, when he speaks to the audience in a faux-doc style that allows the central characters to share feelings and perspectives on their lives.
By 2014, when Dylan Farrow pled with the public to believe her, eight years after Allen married his wife’s daughter, whom he had helped to raise, I was long done with all that. I chose morality and I chose to believe the victim. I was done with Allen and I was done being groomed by him from the now ubiquitous presence of Mariel Hemingway, or Tracy, as Allen’s 17-year-old onscreen girlfriend in Manhattan, to Rain, with whom Gabe takes great pains to show that the more than three decades between them is normal, as she had many relationships with the “middle aged set.” But in 2014 my decision was an easy choice, right? Woody Allen hasn’t made a movie that I cared to see since that time. (The latest is 2023’s Coup de Chance, a French language film because, bien sur, the French still love him.)
Enter Woody Allen’s debut novel, What’s with Baum?, which one has to read the same way one might now watch a semi-autobiographical Allen feature film: with skepticism, curiosity about the artist’s intent, and a constant longing for subtext. It’s significant to note that this novel by one of America’s most famous directors was not acquired by a mainstream trade publisher but by Post Hill Press. Allen’s 2020 memoir, A Propos of Nothing, was also published out of the mainstream. After workers at Hachette walked out in protest of its impending publication and when Ronan Farrow, Allen’s estranged biological son and bestselling author and journalist, left the publisher in response, the small press, Skyhorse, published it. This acquisition placed Allen alongside such literary luminaries as Melania Trump, RFK Jr., and Blake Bailey, whose biography of Philip Roth was cancelled by W.W. Norton following sexual assault allegations against its author.
Here’s the novel: Asher Baum is a writer in his 50s and he looks familiar: He’s a hypochondriac with a “Semitic” nose; his “Foster Grant black-rimmed glasses [give] him a scholarly air.” “If he were a movie actor,” Allen writes, “he would have played shrinks, teachers, scientists or writers.” He lives in the country with his wife, Connie, even though he hates the country (where to walk after dinner?) and loves Barney Greengrass, which does not exist in the country.
The novel opens with the conceit that Baum has begun to talk to himself, perhaps due to early onset dementia, a device reminiscent of the documentary style that allowed Allen to showcase his inner anxieties and break down the division between public and private in his characters. Technically, it’s also convenient to concretize feelings with words in a screenplay, as everything the viewer needs to know must be said out loud or shown visually. One of the only things that a novel as a genre has got over film is the characters’ interiority, and Allen has made the distinct choice not to use this. So why a novel? I asked myself this often while reading this pleasant debut that, had I not known who the author was, I would have found terribly derivative of Woody Allen. Which is to say, it’s been done before and so much better.
The novel putts along with Asher Baum talking to himself and we learn he has never met his potential as a writer. His wife, his third, whose son Thane has just published a novel to tremendous (if completely unrealistic) acclaim, has cooled to him. Asher believes this might be because of his failure to find success, though it also might be because of the way Baum lusts after other women, with a side of longing for his true love, his first wife, the blonde shiksa, Taylor, who returns to him in the form of Thane’s girlfriend, Sam. Whatever the case, Connie loves Thane and cares for him more than she loves and cares for Baum and while that has always been annoying to Baum, it is now unsustainable, particularly when Thane has gotten all these accolades that should be Baum’s. When Sam takes a ride with Asher into the city, the plot unravels episodically with added moments of predation, racism and misogyny, meant to be skewered or celebrated, one cannot tell. In other words, it’s creepy as hell. But it’s Woody Allen, so we’re used to it. We even, dare I say, long for it.
The thing is, this guy Baum, who references Buster Keaton, Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift, declares his love for Cole Porter and Gershwin, writes on Olivetti typewriters and hovers over phonographs is supposed to be in his 50s. And these are all the well-known obsessions of Woody Allen, who is 89. Allen might see himself as forever in his 50s, (hey, I am forever 13) but Baum is not. And so, the novel begins to lose its authority.
When the plot thickens (ever so slightly, with lumps) the novelistic devices get messier. There’s a slippery perspective that starts close on Baum then pans out, and there’s an amateurish repetition of exposition in dialogue, another screenwriting tic. The perspective on one occasion defies logic, shifting momentarily to Connie describing her own feelings, which Baum has never tried to understand. And then there are purportedly huge moments — such as when Baum runs into that spectacular ex, Taylor, while he’s with Sam, her doppelganger — which barely leaves a mark on his consciousness or the prose.
What’s with Baum? We don’t know him because Allen has placed him at such a distance. But he wants to be known! And appreciated. He wants to feel up the “Asian” (Japanese or Chinese, her ethnicity flips at random) journalist. But with novels, the reader needs a reason to turn the page, to know what you’re reading to discover, and Baum as he exists in the woods with Connie, fearing ticks, and all his other Allenesque preoccupations isn’t reason enough. Aside from his two ex-wives and his handsome rich brother, we are also told Baum wrote a play in his youth, “A domestic drama…conflicts, psychological vulnerabilities, foibles and failures abounded alongside the lustful desires and adulterous confidences all up there on the stage for everyone to see.” Sound familiar? And yet this is the most novelistic Allen gets — we as readers are forced to do the analysis; we don’t get anything more. And here’s the other thing we don’t get: laughs. There is nothing funny about a warmed-over Woody Allen schtick, not on the page anyway.
So why a novel? Why did Woody Allen write this in this form? The notions are cinematic. Just after the climax (suffice it to say that Allen’s love of Chekhov is in evidence as the Act I gun does of course go off), Allen writes, “In a film this would be a fade-out…Go to black and then fade up weeks later.” What’s with Baum? ends like this. We never get back to what it would be if this were a novel, which, hello? it is.
The ending, which brings the reader out of the story, reminded me again of Husbands and Wives. Mia Farrow’s Judy is meek and mousy and yet through her passive aggression manages to get everything she wants. Fine. Sidney Pollack’s Jack drags his hot aerobics instructor girlfriend, also named Sam, out of a party by her hair and we are on his side. Fine. And Gabe Roth has succeeded in normalizing a relationship with Rain. Fine. For her birthday, at a party at her parents’ well-appointed Upper East Side apartment, Gabe has brought her a delicate jewelry box that, when it’s opened and the ballerina spins, plays Kurt Weill’s “It Never Was You.” (Judy Garland sang this in her final film. If you want to hear her sing it, go ahead — it will undo you.)
The song’s title foretells the film’s finale: A thunderstorm, an open window, a kiss. And then, the hook! Gabe tells Rain they can’t be in a relationship, what with her, a student, and so young! Rain is of course disappointed, but she understands. It never was you, you see. And we believe Gabe, we do, because we have always believed Woody Allen, even if we can see it now so clearly for what it is. But then, in the denouement, breaking that fourth wall, Allen tells the camera that he’s working on a new novel, which he explains is less confessional, more political. And then, astonishingly, Allen turns to the camera, looks the viewer in the eye and says, “Can I go? Is this over?”
And, with that, it was.
When I went to purchase What’s With Baum?, the bookseller wouldn’t look at me. “I’m reviewing this,” I said, by way of explanation, and she breathed out, relieved. It’s a political act to read this novel. It is not the 90s. I am no longer a college girl sitting around a seminar table hoping to one day be a writer, my professor also trying to kiss me (no stormy night, no music box, but I still have a pile of signed books, all his). Is it fair to bring up the movies? I think so — those films were brilliant and complicated and funny and they captured a time, long-gone now. A novel can also do all of those things. This one, Woody Allen’s debut, relies on what we’ve already read and seen and witnessed. But you won’t learn anything you don’t already know.
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Shots fired in Jewish neighborhood of Montreal
(JTA) — Montreal police said an alleged shooter in a neighborhood known for its large Jewish population had been “neutralized” after killing one police officer and wounding another officer and a civilian Monday.
“A suspect has been neutralized,” the official police account posted on X after advising residents Côte-des-Neiges to stay indoors. “Two police officers and one citizen have been injured. The police operation is still underway. Continue to avoid the area. Further details to follow.”
The Montreal Gazette later reported that the suspect and the civilian also were dead.
It was not clear if the intended targets were Jewish, but a Chabad emissary in the neighborhood told Ynet, an Israeli news site, that a nearby building was targeted and that he was sheltering about 100 people.
The Yeshiva World News news site posted a video of a SWAT team swarming around a home belonging to a family affiliated with Chabad, the Orthodox Jewish movement.
Côte-des-Neiges was the scene of postwar Jewish settlement as Jewish families ascending from the working to the middle class moved west from the area of St. Laurent Boulevard. The area, with treelined streets studded with duplexes and low-rise apartment buildings, had a friendly neighborhood ambience and lacked the anti-Jewish restrictions some of the wealthier enclaves maintained at the time.
There are a number of Jewish schools and synagogues in the area, including the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the oldest congregation in the country, established in 1768 and which moved to the neighborhood in 1947. The neighborhood is now the site of a large Chabad community and a number of Jewish restaurants and delis.
This is a developing story.
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Everyone was a fan of Clive Davis — even if they didn’t know it
Last September I spent about 30 seconds with Clive Davis in a crowded elevator.
I was in the Sony Building, having just seen a press screening of Richard Linklatter’s Blue Moon. The elevator was full of mostly young people — probably Sony employees — and some press. The doors pinged open and in stepped a man with two handlers and an adorable spaniel. I turned to a fellow journalist and whispered “That’s Clive Davis.”
Someone who knew Clive — enough to call him “Clive” — told him we’d just seen a movie about the creative breakup between lyricist Lorenz Hart and musical composer Richard Rodgers.
“Didn’t you play Janis Joplin for Richard Rodgers,” he asked Davis.
Davis replied with perfect comic timing: “Yes. He hated it.”
That anecdote tells us just how much Davis, the legendary music executive and producer who died Monday June 22 at the age of 94, changed the musical landscape.
Davis had been in the music business long enough to serve as a bridge figure between the Great American Songbook and the popular music of the latter half of the 20th Century. The artists he signed at CBS, and later Arista (he was ousted from the CBS/Columbia for allegedly using company money to finance his son’s bar mitzvah), are enduring icons even, in the case of Ms. Joplin, decades after their deaths.
But what hit me in the elevator was the feeling that not everyone there knew who he was. They did, of course, know the music: Pink Floyd, P!nk, Whitney Houston, Sly and the Family Stone, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith, the very authors of “Love in an Elevator.”
It’s not overstating it to say that Davis’ influence across genres and his golden ear provided the soundtrack to American life. His own life was productive until the end.
He was in the Sony building because he was Chief Creative Officer at the company. A week before his death, the streets were thumping with a New York anthem from one of his late career discoveries: Alicia Keys.
Davis’ rise could be taught in Jewish Studies courses. Born in working-class Crown Heights, he — like Barba Streisand — was a graduate of Erasmus Hall High. He made good at NYU and got his law degree at Harvard.
He rose from the legal department at Columbia to become the company’s top tastemaker. Somewhere along the way he discovered Joplin — of a polar opposite disposition and background — and went from strength to strength.
Davis’ true triumph might have been just how adept he was at navigating everything the U.S. had to offer. The musicians he promoted had little in common save for his imprimatur.
In that elevator, which delivered us without much fuss to the lobby, there may have been people whose musical tastes gravitated to rock, R&B, jam bands, easy listening, guitar instrumentals and jazz.
Whether they knew it or not, Davis shepherded something they liked into existence. His genius was in recognizing genius.
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U.S. and Iran announce direct Lebanon track without Israel
(JTA) — Following tense high-level negotiations over the weekend, mediators in Switzerland announced Monday morning that Washington and Tehran have agreed on a 60-day roadmap toward ending the war.
The joint statement released by mediating countries Qatar and Pakistan also unveiled the creation of a Lebanon deconfliction mechanism. According to the mediators, this entails a direct U.S.-Iranian track to terminate military operations in Lebanon and includes the Lebanese government but not Israel. The mediators did not explain how that would operate or resolve the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Throughout the weekend Jerusalem, which watched the talks and the announcement from the sidelines with concern, doubled down on its hardline stance against Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah.
Speaking to reporters in Switzerland Monday before returning to Washington, U.S. Vice President JD Vance clarified that Israel had the right to self-defense, but that “every other nation in the region has the right of self-defense” as well. The mechanism was to resolve direct violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Vance explained, indicating that it augmented the ongoing diplomatic work.
“We also want to make sure that, you know, when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation,” he said, adding that “there really hasn’t been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically around 4 p.m. yesterday.” He said that the U.S. had been in constant contact with Israel on Sunday.
Prior to Vance’s statement, the Israeli government delivered its first overt criticism of the diplomatic efforts taking place at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland.
Addressing the Jerusalem News Syndicate Conference in Jerusalem Monday, Israeli President Issac Herzog said any negotiations to end the Israel-Lebanon conflict should be done by the two countries themselves and not “by Iranian extortion.”
He added, “Tying Iran to Lebanon not only leaves Israel exposed to constant threat; it leaves the Lebanese weak and powerless, and will prevent their president and government from moving forward.”
Herzog also noted that direct talks were already taking place between Lebanon and Israel in Washington under the auspices of the State Department. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for Tuesday, which Herzog said is designed to empower the Lebanese army to be the sole military force in its country. Hezbollah and Iran are not a party to those talks.
“The disarmament of Hezbollah must be inherent to any solution in Lebanon, and Iran cannot dictate the future of Lebanon – on these fundamental points there is full agreement between Israel and Lebanon,” Herzog stated.
He also thanked President Donald Trump for his efforts on Israel’s behalf, calling him “our closest friend and ally and leader of the free world.”
The Lebanese Presidency said Monday that President Joseph Aoun had received a phone call from US Vance, senior adviser Jared Kushner and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, but did not clarify when that call occurred.
According to the Lebanese statement, the discussion focused on “consolidating the ceasefire in Lebanon, halting the Israeli military escalation, and the steps that must be taken in this regard, including the possibility of forming a cell for this purpose.”
The ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and the IDF’s presence in southern Lebanon has been a point of tension throughout the ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran. The shaky ceasefire has been in place since April 8 after Israel and the U.S. started the war on Iran at the end of February.
In early March, Iranian proxy Hezbollah joined in by attacking northern Israel. Jerusalem has maintained that the Lebanese front needs to stay separate and has continued to take aggressive retaliatory action against Hezbollah despite the U.S. imposing a separate ceasefire in Lebanon as well.
Meanwhile, Qatar and Pakistan said the U.S.-Iran memorandum included the establishment of a “High Level Committee” to oversee negotiations aimed at a roadmap “towards reaching a final deal within 60 days, laying the foundation for the immediate commencement of further technical talks” on Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions and dispute resolution. These were the first formal discussions as part of the new U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, with Vance representing Washington.
The vice president told reporters Monday that Sunday “was a very, very good day. We made a lot of good progress; we did exactly what we wanted to do,” including securing an agreement from Iran that inspectors from the International Atomic Inspection Agency be allowed back into Iran.
Negotiators also created a mechanism to ensure that the Straits of Hormuz remain open, Vance said, downplaying reports of disputes between the American and Iranian teams.
However, Iranian media reported that members of Tehran’s delegation briefly left the room during Vance’s remarks after learning that Trump was issuing threats against Iran following Iran’s announcement on Saturday that it planned to once again close the Strait of Hormuz.
Vance said it was true the Iranians had threatened to walk out, but in the end they stayed and negotiated until the early hours of the morning.
Trump told Fox News in a phone call on Sunday morning that he had spoken with Iran overnight and said that if the country closed the Strait, he would “blow the s— out of them.” Fox News also reported that Trump had said, “You won’t even make it back to your f—— country.”
Trump also posted on his Truth Social account on Sunday that unless Iran stops supporting Hezbollah, “We’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Iranian officials reportedly responded to what they termed U.S. “verbal threats,” saying that “any form of threat is considered a serious violation of the agreement.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday the talks had delivered “major progress to end [the] Lebanon War,” and added that discussions included oil exports, sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets and reconstruction plans.
On Sunday, however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as it takes in order to protect the residents of the North.”
Vance on Monday said that Israel would have to withdraw, but only when it can do so safely. The Trump administration, he explained, hoped to reach a situation where both Lebanon’s territorial integrity and Israel’s security were protected, noting that Israel itself has said it doesn’t have permanent “territorial intentions” with regard to southern Lebanon.
In separate remarks at Sunday’s JNS International Policy Summit, Netanyahu said, “We have prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us. We removed an existential danger.” He added, “We changed Israel’s security doctrine. We initiate. We attack. We surprise.”
Directly addressing the U.S.-Iran negotiations, he added, “No matter what happens in the talks, with an agreement, without an agreement, I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I am prime minister, will never have a nuclear weapon. Never.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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