In a search for answers, 25-year-old finds success

NEW YORK -- The walls of Jonathan Safran Foer's apartment are covered with everything from a framed piece of blank paper from Susan Sontag to random sketches made by his friends. There is even an enormous canvas of a huge hand that the author himself painted. \n"Pretty much everything up there is an accident -- things I've picked up along long the way,'' he said. \nSo goes the story of Foer's life: Things just sort of ... happen. \nA native of Washington, D.C., he found himself at Princeton University, where he majored in philosophy, and took some writing classes "for fun." He wound up winning the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior Creative Writing awards. \nOne summer, Foer hopped on a plane and headed out to the Ukraine for four days, in search of the woman who hid his grandmother from the Nazis during World War II. He did little research before his trip and never found the woman. So, he made up a lot of things and wrote a novel, "Everything Is Illuminated." The book just happened to make the 25-year-old Foer the hottest young writer in publishing. \nHoughton Mifflin paid nearly $500,000 to acquire the manuscript and HarperCollins purchased the paperback for $925,000. Actor Leiv Schreiber is hoping to direct a film version of "Everything Is Illuminated," which quickly made The New York Times' best seller list in May. \nHowever, Foer (pronounced FOH-er) finds the attention somewhat disconcerting. \n"It becomes very frustrating when other people think that you are successful or happy," he said. "It's almost as if they don't take me seriously. Because, if you really took me seriously you would know that the things that are important to me are a lot bigger than money or getting good reviews."\n"Everything Is Illuminated" is a three-pronged novel. \nIt begins with correspondence between Alex, a Ukrainian, and the main character, coincidentally named Jonathan Safran Foer. Alex is to be Foer's guide as they search for his grandmother's old shtetl. \nThen there's the story of Alex and Jonathan as they travel through the Ukraine with Alex's nearly blind grandfather and Alex's dog, Sammy Davis Junior Junior. \nFoer then weaves in a historical narrative of life in the shtetl from 1791 until 1942. \nHe is a slight man with a mop of dark, curly hair and soft black eyes. He speaks quietly but eloquently, choosing his words carefully as if savoring delicate morsels of food. \n"I can be very hard on myself," he said. "I convince myself that I'm fooling people. Or, I convince myself that people like the book for the wrong reasons.'' \nOthers are eager to praise him. Houghton Mifflin editor Eric Chinski said the book had an "amazing blend of energy and wisdom." \n"It was that rare combination of being stylistically risky but the acrobatics served a purpose," Chinski said. \nThe structure and the voice were solid, and Chinski and Foer just worked on making the connections between the three story lines in the book. \nChinski said Foer is fascinating to watch because he thinks the author has many great books in him and Foer just seems grateful for the opportunity to churn them out. \n"His imagination can be a bit too wild at times, but his instincts are right on,'' Chinski said. \nHis reviewers feel the same way. Francine Prose said of Foer's novel in the New York Times Book Review, "Not Since Anthony Burgess' novel 'A Clockwork Orange' has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio." \nAnother reviewer from Jane magazine gushed about the novel in a short blurb and said,"The only thing sexier than a 25-year-old wordsmith is a dorky Jewish guy in glasses." \nFoer said while the book tours and interviews are great, he would much rather stay in one place for a while -- like the Jackson Heights section of Queens, a quiet neighborhood that has treated him well. \nHe said when he is on the road he misses his sunny, spacious apartment with its slow, old fashioned elevator that creaks up five flights before reaching Foer's floor. \nHis living room is lined with everything from the Encyclopedia Judaica to stacks of thick art books. He's not just a writer, but a fan of other writers -- Sontag sent him the paper after he contacted her and asked her for the next sheet of paper she was going to use. \nIn his own way, Foer just wants to keep things simple: write the books and maintain good relationships with people. \n"I like domestic life,'' he said. "It's hard to make anything like a book or a good friendship when you move around a lot." \nHis friends say relationships are important to him and may actually aid in his writing. One friend, Alex Laskey, said Foer called him one night so they could brainstorm filthy limericks that an 11-year-old boy might know -- all for the sake of art, naturally. \n"Jonathan knows how to make people feel like children with infinite possibilities and infinite potential,'' Laskey said.