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Fiction I was born dead THE WHITE CRUCIFIXION By Michael Dean 256 pp. Holland Park Press Reviewed by Marty Carlock “On a highly auspicious day, the seventh day of the seventh month, I was born dead.” What an opening sentence! How can we not read on?   The narrator born dead is Moyshe Shagal, known to us now as Marc Chagall, painter of dreamlike fabulist scenes. The White Crucifixion is a fictional autobiography. The opening paragraph continues: “I was brought back to life by the midwife holding me in a tub of cold water, then lifting me out again. I went from black to blue to pink. Then a fire broke out.” According to this author, Chagall’s paintings refer to actual events in his life, and the figures painted, whether flying (some are) or grounded, are pictures of actual people. My painting of the scene, Birth , shows a claustrophobic single-room izba pressed down by a low crooked ceiling. By a red-canopied bed, a midwife is holding a baby. There is a proud father present, and a co...