Lester Alan Kalish

Looking Everywhere but Right Here Lester Alan Kalish

There was no place like Brooklyn in the 1950s or a better view than the one from the roof of author Lester Alan Kalish's 5-story apartment building. The streets were playgrounds. Only a parent's call for dinner could interrupt the joys of childhood. But, as in all stories, life cannot always be this idyllic. Years later a mother's premonition and a father's cancer diagnosis would create a fear of dying and a fierce determination to avoid mirroring his parents' fates. Embarking on a journey to discover who he was, Kalish broke away from conventional wisdom that suggests one's destiny is predetermined by genetics. Twenty five years after his father's diagnosis a renewed awareness of life and death gave birth to a significant file, one that continued to expand with the latest cancer research. Fate had made one thing abundantly clear for Kalish: it takes the greater part of a lifetime to find what one is looking for.