About the Author

SAM APPLE, who grew up in Houston, is a graduate of the creative nonfiction MFA program at Columbia University. Apple’s writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Forward, and The Jerusalem Report as well as on Salon.com. He currently lives in Brooklyn and is a contributing book editor at Nerve.

Reviews

Advance praise for Schlepping Through the Alps

“This marvelously alert, one-of-a-kind book fascinates by virtue of its eccentric honesty, humor, warmth, and intelligence. Sam Apple’s writing style sparkles, and the two brilliantly achieved, richly sympathetic characterizations at the heart of the book–the singing shepherd and the author himself–make for a dazzlingly satisfying read. I absolutely loved it.”
–PHILLIP LOPATE

“At its best, Apple’s narrative voice is as grave as W.G. Sebald’s while as self-deprecating as a poetic version of Woody Allen’s. Europe in the wake of the Holocaust is risky material. I know of no other American of Apple’s generation writing non-fiction who has attempted as subtle and oblique an approach as this.”
–HONOR MOORE, author of The White Blackbird

“In this wonderful book, Sam Apple has written a brilliantly comic and very dark pastorale about shepherds, Nazis and Jews, modern-day Austria, love and fidelity, and he has done it with such subtlety–with bright colors at the center and darkness around all the edges–that the effect is quite singular. I have never read a book quite like this, and I loved it; it’s that simple.”
–CHARLES BAXTER, author of Saul and Patsy: A Novel and Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction

Wandering shepherds, anti-Semitism, sexual insecurities and a scythe-wielding Austrian all play a part in Apple's lukewarm debut, but most prominent is his own neurotic personality as he explores the life of Hans Breuer, a Yiddish folksinging shepherd in modern-day Austria. The book begins with Salon writer Apple attending one of Breuer's concerts in New York City, and continues as Apple travels to Austria to shepherd with Breuer, learn more about Breuer's Jewish background, and investigate the current political climate in Austria and what Apple finds to be its underlying anti-Semitic leanings. Apple's intentions for this work seem clear, but as he jumps from topic to topic-shepherding, Breuer's personal history, his own failed relationships and a brief affair with a woman he meets in Vienna, Austria's political past and present-the book loses any comprehensive theme. While the work's subtitle promises insight into a country that rarely attracts attention, Apple tends to diminish his cultural discoveries with such blithe comments as, "Let all the young attractive women in the country work through their guilt in bed with me." Apple is at his best recounting his childhood growing up Jewish in Texas with his grandmother, and while these reminiscences are short, they offer the most insight. Photos. (On sale Mar. 29) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Advance praise for Schlepping Through the Alps

"This marvelously alert, one-of-a-kind book fascinates by virtue of its eccentric honesty, humor, warmth, and intelligence. Sam Apple's writing style sparkles, and the two brilliantly achieved, richly sympathetic characterizations at the heart of the book-the singing shepherd and the author himself-make for a dazzlingly satisfying read. I absolutely loved it."
-PHILLIP LOPATE

"At its best, Apple's narrative voice is as grave as W.G. Sebald's while as self-deprecating as a poetic version of Woody Allen's. Europe in the wake of the Holocaust is risky material. I know of no other American of Apple's generation writing non-fiction who has attempted as subtle and oblique an approach as this."
-HONOR MOORE, author of The White Blackbird

"In this wonderful book, Sam Apple has written a brilliantly comic and very dark pastorale about shepherds, Nazis and Jews, modern-day Austria, love and fidelity, and he has done it with such subtlety-with bright colors at the center and darkness around all the edges-that the effect is quite singular. I have never read a book quite like this, and I loved it; it's that simple."
-CHARLES BAXTER, author of Saul and Patsy: A Novel and Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction