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The Protagonist Speaks

Interviews with the characters of your favourite books

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December 2024

Prof Benjamin Dinerstein (of The Ibbur’s Tale, by Lenny Abelson)

Dear readers, tonight we’re chatting with an English literature professor who encountered a most unusual ghost. Straight out of Eastern European Judaic mythology, it has led him on a journey of discovery and mysteries.

TPS: We were pleased to have the opportunity to speak with Professor Emeritus Benjamin Dinerstein about his experiences with an ibbur and the remarkable history the two of them uncovered. Professor, welcome!

BD: Thank you very much, and please call me Ben. It is a pleasure to meet you.

TPS: Likewise. Well, Ben, it is now more than twenty-two years since your encounter with the ibbur. Have you had any further contact either with her or Zephaniah, the mysterious old woman who played such a prominent role in the narrative?

BD: Sadly, I have not.

TPS: But you are quite certain that you actually encountered an ibbur, in this case, the ghost of your former student, Miriam?

BD: Excuse me. I hate to wax pedantic, but I must make a quick correction. An ibbur is not to be confused with a ghost. It is a very specific type of possessive spirit. Miriam came to me seeking my assistance. She had one last mitzvah, a good deed, to perform, and that was to finish her uncle’s quest. In fairness, she would surely have completed the task herself had she not been killed in the automobile accident. That said, I am absolutely certain that the entity I encountered was indeed Miriam.

TPS: I understand. In fact, I found the story quite convincing myself. Why, there’s so much history — not only her family’s saga, but European history, from before World War One through World War Two…

BD: … and, as you probably realized as quickly as I did, it all “fits.” As implausible as it might seem, these events took place almost exactly as Susanna, whom Miriam had planned to contact, described them.

TPS: I found Susanna absolutely fascinating. What remarkable strength she must have had!

BD: I got to know her quite well over the years, and she was a wonderful woman. She died just a few months ago, though not before she had seen five great-grandchildren.

TPS: But Naomi was her only child?

BD: Yes. It seems that irony ran rampant in that family. Michael Goldberg, Susanna’s husband, had had a bad case of mumps and was apparently unable to have children of his own. Similarly, Zephaniah told me that the man Yosef Müller believed was his father had also been rendered sterile by that disease. However, it seems as though everything fell into place nevertheless, didn’t it?

TPS: Indeed. Now, I must ask you something a little more personal. You have long described yourself as a skeptic, yet you seem so willing to accept an encounter with a purported ibbur without any reservations. Did you step out of character? Did you make an exception because of your feelings toward Miriam, your former student?

BD: Not at all! Like the ancient Greek skeptics, I tend to withhold assent, at least initially. Thereafter, I reserve judgment until I have gathered sufficient information. The image of Miriam convinced me that she was indeed my brilliant student, and the strange family saga that we unfolded was considerably more believable than the appearance of an ibbur. Everything made sense, except —

Continue reading “Prof Benjamin Dinerstein (of The Ibbur’s Tale, by Lenny Abelson)” →
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Philip Pirrup, aka Pip (of Twisted Expectations, by Brent A. Harris)

Dear readers, tonight with us is one of everyone’s favourite Dickens’ characters – talking about 19th century London, steam engines, time travel, and dinosaurs.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

I grew up poor out on the Moors of Kent with my sister and her husband Joe Gargary, the local blacksmith and to whom I apprenticed under. I was raised by hand by my sister, and I do mean a mean one. Luckily, a generous benefactor intervened and sent me off to London to become a gentleman.

Did you have any favourite toys as a child? Any cherished memories?

I played at knaves with Uncle Joe, and we’d often race to see who could eat our buttered bread first each morning, and the times we’d work together at his forge, but I gave all that up when I was offered a chance to become a gentleman in London, a choice that I sometimes think back upon in regret.

What do you do now?

I am a gentleman of the city, you see. My duties are to my wealth and to my name. I’m seeking a parliamentary seat, and for that, I’ve called upon the London’s own vigilante, The Orphan, for his assistance. I wish to ally myself with him.

What can you tell us about your latest adventure?

Well, I should have known, chaps, that involving myself with Mr. Twist would inevitably wrap me up in one of his mad schemes to save the city when creatures – extinct creatures, mind you – arrive without invitation or provocation.

Continue reading “Philip Pirrup, aka Pip (of Twisted Expectations, by Brent A. Harris)” →
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Vivian Carter (of Hot Moon, by Alan Smale)

Dear readers, tonight with us is a naval aviator and astronaut, chosen to command the Apollo 32 mission, and then later carrying out a lunar geological survey and visiting both lunar poles for the first time.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

Hi! Thanks for having me on. I’m Vivian Carter, US Navy and NASA, and I was a military brat. I grew up on bases and stations across America, and some overseas, and we were never in one place for more than a year or two at a time. I’d like to say that was refreshing and awesome, but actually … it sucked. Kept having to prove myself every other year to a whole new bunch of kids in a whole new place. I mean, it was okay, I made it through. My parents pretty much left me to myself, like all parents did in the 1950s and 60s. Sink or swim, right? And once I became a naval aviator, the same thing: always moving around. So I never really put down roots anywhere until I joined the astronaut corps and moved to Houston

If I’m honest, I wouldn’t say we were a close family. Aside from my gran. She’s terrific. Don’t ever mess with my gran.

Did you have any favourite toys as a child? Any cherished memories?

Toys?

Sure. You know, toys.

Well, okay, then: Airplanes. My dad made those plasticky Revell model kits, which totally makes sense, right? Fly military planes all day, and make them out of teeny tiny components and glue in the evenings. Revell, and some Airfix kits from England, I think. A lot of them were really quite nice. You’d glue them all together and then maybe paint them or just stick the decals on. Or my dad did. And then he’d hang them from the ceiling in my bedroom with string. I’d unhitch them and play with them, and then hang them back up again. I did love those planes. Never made them myself, I was out with my friends, raising Cain. I mean …  fishing. I get to edit this afterwards, right? I’m a bit punchy right now, just came off a training exercise in Panama and I’m working on very little sleep.

We can do that. Let’s jump ahead. What’s it like being a woman in the astronaut corps?

Tell you what, if we’re jumping ahead and all, why don’t I just skip the woman part and talk about being an astronaut? Which is hard work for everyone. And how goddamned proud I was to command Apollo 32, on its mission to the Marius Hills a couple of years ago. It was exploratory, walking on regolith no one had ever visited before. We did ten excursions in ten days, on foot and in the Lunar Rover. Those days were was long and hard, but exhilarating. It was the best experience of my life.

I’m sure. And what can you tell us about your next mission, your coming adventure?

As you obviously know, I’m commanding Lunar Geological Survey One when it launches next month. Which is a complete circumnavigation of the Moon, visiting both poles for the first time. We have a MOLAB – mobile laboratory, big silver pressurized truck – plus a lunar rover and a dirt bike. We’ll head north out of Zvezda-US Copernicus base to the North Pole, then down the far side of the Moon to Daedalus Base. We’ll take a two-week break there during lunar night, then off we go again: down to the South Pole, and up the nearside back to Zvezda. We’ll be taking rock samples every step of the way, visiting a whole bunch of really cool lunar sites, and doing a lot of other science as well. I was one of the designers of the original mission concept. We’re calling it “Around the Moon in Eighty Days.”

Catchy. And it sounds a lot calmer than … well. It’s safe to say that you’ve seen the Cold War up close and personal, by now.

It did get a bit hotter a couple years back, yeah. As we all know. Hopefully that’s behind us now.

Of course, but … let’s cut to the chase here. What went through your mind when you first found yourself under attack by the Soviets, in space?

I’m not really supposed to talk about that.

Whatever you feel like sharing. But … well, a lot of that was in the news, anyway. Eventually.

I guess.

Well.

When I became an astronaut – I mean, ‘became’ sounds like some fairy shook her magic wand over me – when I earned my slot on Apollo, and even more so when I flew: I honestly thought I’d left the Cold War behind, back on Earth. We all did. I mean, the Space Race was – is – still very much a thing, right? And I’m all for constructive competition, especially if it gets Congress to keep funding the Apollo Program. Wait. You’ll edit that out, right? Maybe give me a copy of the article prior to publication, so’s I can check for anything that might get me in trouble?

Of course we will.

Okay, that’s a relief. I don’t have to second-guess what I’m saying in real time, then.

Continue reading “Vivian Carter (of Hot Moon, by Alan Smale)” →
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