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March 2001 Issue
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The Golem's
Mighty Swing
By James Sturm
An Author Intro
The Golem's Mighty Swing is a graphic novel about a barnstorming Jewish baseball team in the 1920s. I have published two other stories that take place in our country's past.
The first was The Revival. It takes place at a religious revival in Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801. It is about the power of faith. The protagonists look towards heaven for deliverance and hope.
The second story, Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight, is about an Idaho mining town in the 1870s. This book was the opposite of The Revival. The characters, instead of looking towards God for salvation, dug and blasted downward in the pursuit of material wealth.
The Golem's Mighty Swing is the final story in this American trilogy. When The Revival was published I could hear my Jewish mother's voice inside my head: "so you can do a comic about Christians, but not about your own people?" The truth of the matter is that at 32-years-old I knew more about Christianity then I did about Judaism.
I think many of us have a pecking order to our identity: American first, Chistian/Jew/Muslim second, profession third. Compared to being Jewish, being American is a very recent phenomenon. Lots of Jews, a lot of immigrants, were so eager to be accepted by their new country that they discarded the traditions that guided them in their old countries.
The two brothers who play ball in my book represent the two divergent paths in the immigrant's quest for identity. One sees being a Jew and an American as being mutually exclusive and sees Judaism as little more than a uniform to wear, a way to attract the curious to a ballgame. The other brother eventually returns to the traditions of his father forsaking the promise that is his brother's America.
Identity only exists in context and that context seems to be in constant flux. In this country, with so many cultures colliding and with technology creating new communities, it makes it difficult to create a stable identity for oneself.
About The Golem's Mighty Swing
James Sturm delivers this compelling picture novella about a barnstorming Jewish baseball team. Set in the 1920s, the story opens as The Stars of David travel from town to town earning a living by playing local squads. They all sport beards, a gimmick to attract patrons. When financial difficulties threaten to end their season they cast their lot with a Chicago promoter, Victor Paige. Paige, after seeing the German film Der Golem (a huge silent film success), procures the costume worn in the film and has one of the Stars of David don the costume.
Using newspaper articles and broadsides, Paige aggressively trumpets the coming of the Golem and proceeds to transform a baseball game into a mythical pageant. He fills the stadium but also stokes the flames of anti-Semitism. Winning the game for the Stars of David becomes less important then surviving it.
At the heart of baseball is the goal of getting home. Jewish history reflects this goal as well. The Golem's Mighty Swing examines what it means to belong to both your new country and your old traditions. It is a classic baseball story about what it means to be an American.
The
Golem's Mighty Swing will be available this July from Drawn and Quarterly
Books. For more information about the book and its author, go to http://www.drawnandquarterly.com
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