In the July 18, 1988, issue of The New Yorker, Adam Schwartz published “The Grammar of Love,” a short story based on his teaching experiences in Chicago. He followed with the publication of “This Bed” in the June 22, 1992, issue, and earlier this year, both stories were incorporated into the novel “A Stranger on the Planet,” which follows Seth Shapiro through his life. We meet Seth as a lost adolescent, and watch him become a somewhat-less-lost man. Seth and his family are, as Schwartz says, “New Jersey Jews behaving badly”—his mother is needy; his twin sister is pragmatic yet willful; and his father, who is married to the French woman that broke up his marriage to Seth’s mother, is cold and later estranged. Also estranged is Seth’s brother, Seamus, who responds to his family’s distress by becoming orthodox.
Recently, Schwartz and I exchanged e-mails about truth, divorce, and the writing life; read more at newyorker.com…