11/11/99
The
trainman
who
could
Dov
Silverman
was
a
Brooklyn
slum
bum,
a
dumb
kid
in
school,
a
brawlin'
street
fighter,
and
at
the
age
of
17,
a
Marine.
Not
much
of
a
future
for
this
guy,
so
when
he
got
a
job
as
a
Long
Island
Railway
conductor,
he
seemed
to
top
out.
The
best
you
could
say
about
him
is
that
he
stayed
out
of
jail.
For
18
years
he
chugged
back
and
forth
along
the
track.
One
night,
all
of
a
sudden,
he
derailed.
(Dov,
not
the
train.)
"Yeah.
I
met
God."
He
says
so
apologetically,
because
it's
a
red
herring
that
kind
of
spoils
a
good
story.
"Sorry
about
that,"
he
chuckles
softly,
"I
know,
it's
so
un-me.
"What
happened
was,
I
came
home
at
one
or
two
in
the
morning.
I
had
my
canteen,
and
my
railroad
lantern;
I
hadn't
been
drinking.
And
I,
y'know
--"
he
pauses,
and
shrugs,
"--
met
God."
DOV'S
LIFE
is
a
bundle
of
contradictions.
Nothing,
absolutely
nothing
in
his
personal
time-line
leads
to
a
logical
conclusion.
Like
a
battery
that
inexplicably
works
better
when
you
reverse
the
+
and
the
-,
his
is
a
story
of
diametric
polarities.
The
tip-off
is
when
he
recites
Shakespeare
in
a
dull-witted
Brooklyn
accent,
a
thick-tongued,
gravelly-voiced
burble
of
poetic
words
emanating
from
a
battler's
battered
face.
The
confirmation
is
his
encounter
with
God.
The
clincher
is
the
shelfful
of
Japanese
literature
in
his
home,
because
--
and
this
is
where
it
gets
really
weird
--
they
all
bear
the
byline
"Dov
Silverman."
The
tough
ex-Marine
and
ex-railroader
--
who
could
easily
have
turned
out
to
be
an
ex-convict
--
became
an
extraordinary
writer.
None
of
it
makes
sense.
God
chooses
to
reveal
Himself
to
a
thoroughly
Jewishless
trainman.
This
fellow
then
decides
to
follow
a
path
of
intense
study
--
of
Japan.
He
quits
the
railroad
to
become
a
writer.
He
moves
to
Safed
--
which
does
make
sense,
because
it
is
a
magnet
for
mystics
and
messianics
--
but
he
becomes
one
of
the
few
of
God's
Chosen
to
spurn
religion
and
maintain
a
secular
lifestyle.
Not
the
usual
pattern.
Then,
from
his
new
home
on
a
Galilee
mountaintop,
he
thinks
maybe
he
can
write
a
richly
evocative
adventure
epic
about
a
19th
century
shogun.
No
publisher
in
his
right
mind
would
even
answer
Dov's
letters,
right?
Anyway,
it
turns
out
the
publishers
go
gaga,
he
writes,
they
publish,
the
book
sells,
a
sequel
comes
out
and
another
and
ANOTHER,
and
Dov
Silverman
doesn't
care
anymore
that
some
guy
got
his
job
on
the
Long
Island
Railroad.
A
guy
whose
curriculum
vitae
includes
"flamethrower,
machinegunner
and
tankman"
from
his
combat
days
in
Korea,
and
"diesel-engine
repairman
and
railway
conductor"
simply
does
not
go
on
to
become
a
best-selling,
prize-winning,
Safed-based
writer
about
historical
Japan
who
dropped
out
of
school
and
couldn't
even
type!
DOV'S
LITERARY
adventure
began
with
a
slim
novel,
“Legends
of
Safed.”
He
would
soon
become
one
himself.
Having
resumed
his
education
--
clinching
a
high
school
diploma
and
going
all
the
way
to
graduating
cum
laude
from
Stoney
Brook
University
--
he
took
a
writing
course,
and
he
was
off.
His
maiden
novel,
“The
Fall
of
the
Shogun,”
so
impressed
his
British
publisher
that
Dov
was
awarded
a
five-book
contract.
The
historical-fiction
series
has
sold
100,000
copies,
the
first
three
appearing
for
several
weeks
at
about
20th
place
on
the
London
Times
bestseller
list.
They
have
been
translated
into
Hebrew,
Japanese,
Polish
and
German.
The
shogun
novels
are
critically
acclaimed
in
Japan,
Dov
says.
"The
former
Japanese
ambassador
and
his
wife
read
the
books,
and
recommended
them
to
all
the
embassies
as
a
way
to
understand
Japan.
Well,
until
the
last
one.
I
had
a
bad
guy
named
Hideoshi,
but
[the
real]
Hideoshi
was
like
the
George
Washington
of
Japan.
And
the
ambassador's
wife
was
upset
about
this."
In
the
midst
of
it
all,
responding
to
criticism,
he
wrote
another
book.
“Revenge
of
the
Good
Shepherds”
was
about
the
US,
Ireland
and
Israel,
and
it
won
a
prize
--
ironically,
in
Japan.
"I
don't
read
'doity
books',"
he
giggles,
"and
reviewers
seemed
to
be
consistent
in
their
criticism:
I
didn't
know
how
to
write
about
sex
and
violence.
Now,
I'm
an
ex-Marine,
and
I'm
married,
and
y'know,
my
manhood
was
threatened!
So
I
sat
down
and
worked
on
it,
got