The Observer

Richard Katzev’s latest collection of essays contrasts the differences between a passive and active way of life.  On the passive end of the continuum he discusses the life of an observer, a reader who befriends characters in the books he reads, and those perfect moments in a person’s life that arrive unexpectedly.  At the active end he explores what it means to engage in memorable conversations, protest injustices, and rescue another person at the risk of your own life.  Taken together they become an autobiographical account of a no-longer young man in early 21st century America.