Elie Wiesel and Night

Here's another topic I didn't necessarily want to address publicly, so I'll be brief.

I've owned a copy of Night for a long time. How long? The price on the cover reads $2.95. Fifteen years ago Wiesel signed the book for me when he came to speak at my college dorm. That book means a lot to me.

And I want it to mean a lot to others, too. I'm glad so many people will be reading it now that it's received the giant "O" stamp of approval. But I'm not happy to have Wiesel's name placed alongside that of a certain someone else (Mr. Frey, for those of you who can't guess), almost as if to loan Frey (and his benefactor) the protection of Wiesel's experience and reputation. I'm even less happy to have people lump Night with Frey's fiction and question how "true" Wiesel's story is.

Again, I'm not going to go on about this. There's plenty of good coverage around, and so far I'm particularly keen on (most of) what's being posted over at GalleyCat. In particular, I recommend for further reading:

Blake Eskin's Nextbook feature

and

TIME Magazine's "10 Questions for Elie Wiesel".