Author Interview

Barbara Brotman

The Parting: One Man's Final Journey

Chicago Tribune

Author Comments on "The Parting"

When I began working on this story, I was worried about how to write about someone's religious beliefs without sounding cliched. God-talk can get awfully syrupy. Without observable or provable facts to hang those parts of the story on, you can be left with vague and uninteresting professions of faith.

But because I was able to rely on his conversations with a hospice chaplain, I was able to get away from writing a story in which he simply talked about his faith. Because I followed him through both his illness and his doubts, there was a sense of movement. Because he was honest to the point of pain with the chaplain, the conversations were more compelling than an interview might have been.

And though I kept my own thoughts and background to myself, the fact that I was raised with little religion gave me that ideal position of a curious outsider. If the story had a sense of detached curiosity, it's because that reflected my actual feelings.

The biggest challenge in writing the story was getting out of the realm of the mind and into the physical world of the nursing home. For five months, there was no change of scenery. Mr. Clifton was lying in bed or sitting up in bed. I struggled to find details to make those conversations more vivid.

The intimacy of those scenes was a matter of luck, trust and Art Clifton's openness. He had become comfortable with my presence. He was introspective enough to feel doubt, and courageous enough to express it.

I tried to write about his faith struggle as matter-of-factly as I would about any emotional conflict, and yet also write with enough elegance to do justice to the profound stakes. But mostly, both in finding a character with a matter-of-fact approach to religion and in being present at crucial moments, I was very lucky.

Barbara Brotman has been a reporter for the Chicago Tribune since February 1978 and is currently a writer for the metropolitan news section's special projects team.

Brotman was a columnist and staff writer for the weekly Woman News section from February 1994 to August 2003. From September 2003 to June 2004, she held a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.

She wrote the "About the Town" column for the Tribune from January 1984 until August 1989, and then covered the abortion issue from both a local and national perspective. She joined the Tempo section's staff in April 1990, where she was a feature writer. She had previously written for the features department and Tempo section before becoming a general assignment reporter in 1982.

Her work as a columnist has earned her numerous awards. Most recently she received honorable mention in 2002 from the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors. She's also a past recipient of the Chicago Tribune's award for Outstanding Professional Performance, for her evocative writing style and ability to capture the mood and feel of Chicago life and people. Brotman also shared in the Chicago Tribune's 1984 First Place Award in the Public Service Reporting Category in the Illinois AP Editors' Association Annual News Excellence Competition. That same year she won a UPI International Award for Illinois Newspapers for Column Writing and a Peter Lisagor Award for column writing, given by Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists.

Brotman was born in New York in 1956 and graduated from Queens College. Brotman, her husband, Chicago Tribune photographer Chuck Berman, and their two daughters live in Oak Park, Ill.