Noah Gordon, 95, Died; American Novelist with an Audience Abroad


American author Noah Gordon, virtually unknown in his country but whose novels about history, medicine, and Jewish identity have made him a literary intellectual abroad, died Monday at his home in Dedham, Mass. He was 95 years old.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Lorraine Gordon.

Mr Gordon’s first novel, “Rabbi” Dealing with the protagonist’s marriage to a minister’s daughter (1965), it remained on The New York Times bestseller list for 26 weeks. But most of his next eight books were less successful when released domestically, although they have since proliferated as e-books.

“When I started, my market was America: You either did it in America or you didn’t,” he said. Times in 1996. “Well, now your market is the world.”

His son and literary representative, Michael Gordon, said in an email that Mr. Gordon’s books have sold around 25 million copies in 34 languages.

Mr. Gordon’s “The Physician” (1986) – The first book in a dynastic trilogy that begins in 11th century Iran, continues with “Shaman” (1992) during the American Civil War, and ends with a modern female doctor concerned with morality, “Matters of The first edition of abortion in Choice (1996) was only 10,000 copies in the United States.

But in the end, it sold nearly 10 million copies, including more than six million in Germany, where six of Mr. Gordon’s novels were simultaneously bestsellers in the 1990s.

In 2013, “The Physician” was adapted into German. film, English, starring Tom Payne, Stellan Skarsgard and Ben Kingsley. An award-winning musical based on the book is about to tour Spain.

Based on meticulous research, the novel follows the adventure of 11th-century Scottish hero Robert Jeremy Cole, who aspires to study medicine in the Middle East, where medical schools are said to be more developed than those in Western Europe. Because Christians are banned from Islamic schools, Cole disguises himself as a Jew.

The success of the book was a fluke, even abroad. Just before the publication date, Mr. Gordon’s editor at Simon & Schuster left and his manager retired. But Karl H. Blessing, who worked for him, droemer knaur, a German publisher, was fascinated by the book and invested heavily in promoting it.

“While Gordon has aired in 38 countries, Spain and Germany, where it is most popular, are two countries that grapple with the history of anti-Semitism,” Andrew Silverstein said. next this year. “While not all of Gordon’s eight books have a Jewish theme, many do and his Judaism is well known, which may play a role in his popularity in these two countries.”

Mr Gordon has won Spain’s Silver Basque Award twice for the best-selling book in 1992 and 1995. His novels were also popular in Italy and Brazil.

His latest novel, “The Winemaker,” was published in 2012, telling the story of factions dueling for the Spanish throne at the end of the 19th century.

Mr. Gordon’s “Shaman” won the James Fenimore Cooper Award from the American Society of Historians as best historical novel of 1991 and 1992. New York Times Book ReviewGordon writes that he “threw out all the twists and turns readers would expect in a historical drama, but took corners with a measured sense of speed and irony.” However, it only became the best seller in Europe.

Noah Gordon was born on November 11, 1926, in Worcester, Mass., the child of Robert Gordon, a loan shark who had immigrated from Russia, and Rose (Melnikoff) Gordon, a sales representative.

He served in the Army during World War II, but the war ended before he was scheduled to be sent to the Pacific. He enrolled at Boston University on the GI Bill, his parents hoping he would train to be a doctor. However, he took a one-semester pre-med course before switching his major to journalism.

“From childhood I have fed two of my ambitions,” wrote Mr Gordon. Web site. “I wanted to be a journalist, and I wanted to write the kind of novels that would make me love books.”

He earned a BA in journalism in 1950, then stayed at university the next year to pursue a master’s in English and creative writing.

He moved to New York and worked as an editor at Avon Publishing and then at an image magazine called Focus.

He was married to Lorraine Seay, who was a student at Clark University when they met in Boston. Additionally, his daughters Lise Gordon (who had worked together on the script of “The Physician”) and Mary Beth Gordon; their son Michael; and four grandchildren. A sister and brother died before him.

A few years later the couple returned to Massachusetts, where Mr. Gordon worked for The Worcester Telegram. He was later named science editor of The Boston Herald after writing articles about medical discoveries on his own initiative. He began working on “The Rabbi” in his spare time while editing a medical journal, when his manager told him that a publisher had accepted a modest advance for “The Rabbi.”

He edited another publication, The Journal of Human Stress, while writing his second novel, “Death Committee,” about three young doctors in a Boston hospital. (“Death Committee” was a Times bestseller, albeit for a short time.) He quit editorship in 1975 and began his third novel, “The Jerusalem Apple.”

He wrote for years from a farmhouse in Ashfield, Berkshires, Mass., until he returned to Boston in 1995.

“Every morning I go to my computer waiting for emails I receive from readers in many countries,” Mr. Gordon wrote on his website. “I am grateful to every reader for allowing me to spend my life as a storyteller.”



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