Schmahmann, David 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born November 16, 1953, in Durban,South Africa; immigrated to United States, 1972; son of Oscar (a doctor) and Bella (a professor) Schmahmann; married Sheila Smallwood (a creative director), September 9, 2000; children: Olivia Kate, Annabel Alice. Education: Dartmouth College, graduate, 1976;Cornell University Law School, J.D., 1979. Religion:Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—P.O. Box 1094, Brookline, MA 02446. Office—1577 Beacon St., Brookline, MA 02446. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Nutter, McClennen & Fish (law firm), Boston, MA, senior partner, 1979-2001; in private law practice, Brookline, MA, 2001—. Military service:South African infantry, rifleman, 1971.

WRITINGS:

Empire Settings (novel), White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 2001.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

The Double Life of Alfred Buber,a novel.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Schmahmann emigrated fromSouth Africa to the United States in 1972, "for many reasons," he told Boston Globe Magazine interviewer John Koch, "but they all had to do with apartheid." Schmahmann earned his law degree and practiced in the Boston area. He also wrote a number of novels, one of which finally found a publisher. His debut,Empire Settings, based on a published story, was rejected by more than one hundred agents, publishers, and editors before White Pine Press accepted it. After it was released, major publishing houses entered into a bidding war for the rights to the paperback edition, which eventually sold to Penguin Putnam's Plume for a considerable sum. Schmahmann noted that any one of the bidders could have bought the book months earlier for five hundred dollars.

"I wanted to write an engaging story that conveyed the kind of ambiguity that privileged white people were confronted with in South Africa under apartheid," Schmahmann told Koch. The novel tells of a romance between a South African white boy and the mixed-race daughter of a servant. The protagonist is Danny Divin, who at seventeen falls in love with Santi, the cook's daughter. After leaving for the United States and finding success and a relationship in Boston, he returns to find that his feelings for Santi have not changed.

Merle Rubin wrote in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that "Schmahmann's portrayal of South Africa, past and present, is as poignant—and as nuanced—as his delineation of the characters and their relationships. Focusing on one man's struggle with loyalties and identity, Empire Settings also sheds light on the larger issues confronting a country in the process of reshaping its identity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2001, Hazel Rochman, review of Empire Settings, p. 196.

Boston Globe Magazine, September 23, 2001, John Koch, interview with Schmahmann, p. 12.

Boston Herald, November 18, 2001, Chuck Leddy, review of Empire Settings, p. 56.

Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 2001, Trudy Palmer, review of Empire Settings, p. 21.

Library Journal, October 15, 2001, Josh Cohen, review of Empire Settings, p. 110.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 7, 2002, Merle Rubin, review of Empire Settings, p. E3.

Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2001, Calvin Reid, "A Great Small Press Story," p. 18; August 13, 2001, review of Empire Settings, p. 282.

Washington Post Book World, November 4, 2001, R. Hunter Garcia, review of Empire Settings, p. T6.