Nashotah Peak

In this novel the author draws on his interest in the Jewish Faith and also his experience in the field of advertising.

He introduces the reader to Bennie Traumann whose Jewish parents had escaped from persecution in Nazi Germany to find refuge in Chicago where his family had established a business manufacturing optical goods.

The parents were both disturbed as a result of their traumatic experience leading his mother to experience a post natal depression and his father to ‘switch off’.

Bennie is brought up by a Jewish carer and eventually he enrols in a school of art and then as a graphic designer with an advertising agency.

The book continues, in Bennie’s own words, to describe his growth into maturity shaped by Jewish Faith.

The author began his working life in advertising becoming an account executive. He draws on his experience in this field in the plot of this novel. He went on to become a minister of the Church of England taking a close interest in Judaism. Again he brings this element into the book demonstrating how Benjamin Traumann grows in maturity through the Jewish religion.