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Author Archives: Yona Zeldis McDonough
July 31, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Is Rape a Crime? A Conversation with Michelle Bowdler
Is Rape a Crime: A Memoir, an Investigation and a Manifesto (Flatiron, $27.99) ought to come with a warning: parts of this book are so harrowing that I frequently had to put it down for a spell before picking it up again, avid to continue. Long after the fact, author Michelle Bowdler returns to the home invasion and brutal rape she suffered as a young woman. As one might expect, the attack both branded and shaped her. When she was finally ready to explore the subject in print, she was able to go deep into her own experience but also wide, to place it within a historical and cultural context. Bowdler talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about what this literary exploration has meant for her—and what she hopes it will mean to others.
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July 14, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Stitching for Survival: the Story of Holocaust Survivor Trudie Strobel
Some artists work with a brush; others with a pen, and still others with their voices, bodies, or a musical instrument. Trudie Strobel’s instrument is a slender needle, and she wields it with fierce and incredible power. Lilith first learned of Trudie Strobel’s recovery of her Holocaust past when she told Rabbi Susan Schnur of recreating the treasured doll the Nazis had torn away from her when she was a small child. When Jody Savin encountered Strobel’s work, she knew she had to tell her story (Stitched & Sewn: The Life-Saving Art of Holocaust Survivor Trudie Strobel, Prospect Park Books, $35). Savin talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about the delicate process of excavating Strobel’s harrowing past and how her art was a way of coming to terms with it.
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May 31, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Three Characters, Three Storylines, and Three Time Periods
The Book Of V (Henry Holt, $27.99) is nothing if not ambitious—three main characters, three storylines and three wildly divergent time periods—and yet novelist Anna Solomon manages to weave all three together with an effortlessness that belies the profound nature of her fictional probing. She talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about why Esther and Vashti continue to be subjects of endless speculation and fascination, and what their stories can teach us today.
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May 20, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Embracing “Quasi-Motherhood” With Humor and Empathy
Dani Alpert is one funny lady, and like many comics, she uses her life as a prime source for her material. After falling for a divorced dad of two, she struggles to find a way to embrace the offspring she claims never to have wanted. Fast forward to the break-up with said boyfriend, which comes with an unseen punch—by this time, she loves the kids and wants to keep them in her life.
Alpert talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about her new memoir, The Girlfriend Mom, in which she gives us the skinny on how she does just that—and what she learns along the way.
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May 6, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Reducing Waste By Reusing Flowers
I’ve been hunting for, buying, and wearing second-hand schmattes for decades. So when I learned about ReVased, a new company that devised a way to re-use flowers, I had to know more. I tracked down the founders, Aviva and Arielle Vogelstein, and we chatted about their ingenious plan to reduce waste while creating and spreading joy.
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April 25, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Beyond the Ghetto Gates: The Liberation of Jews in Italy
In the late 18 century, French troops invaded the Italian port city of Ancona, liberating the Jews from the ghetto where they’d been forced to live. This new freedom had consequences both cultural and personal. Novelist Michelle Cameron’s Beyond the Ghetto Gates (She Writes Press, $16.95) is set in this bracing moment and she talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about why she chose this particular time and what she hopes her readers will learn from it.
Yona Zeldis McDonough: You selected an atypical chapter in Jewish history on which to focus; what drew you to it?
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April 23, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
A New Translation of a Yiddish Comic Gem
If you crossed Helen’s Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary with Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, you might end up with Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle Against Free Love (Syracuse University Press, $19.95) written by the Yiddish writer Miriam Karpilove and recently translated by Jessica Kirzane. Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough talks to Kirzane about how she stumbled upon this singular writer and why her work still matters today.
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April 15, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
An Imaginary Quarter of a Food-Obsessed City
Consider the Feast (Open Books, $19.95) offers a wild ride through an imaginary quarter of a food-obsessed city. Debut novelist Carmit Delman talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about how food becomes both marker and symbol for the haves and the have nots.
Yona Zeldis McDonough: Like your protagonist,Talia, you have a background that’s both Indian and Israeli. Can you describe growing up within those two cultures?
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April 13, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Making Jewish Life in 15th Century Spain Come Alive for Kids
Loma—short for Paloma—is a Jewish girl living in 15th century Spain and the clear hero of this middle-grade historical novel, (A Ceiling Made of Eggshells, HarperCollins, $17.99). Clever with words and even more clever with numbers, Loma captures the attention of Belo, her stern and commanding grandfather. To her surprise, he decides that she will accompany him on his travels and she discovers she has an important role to play in determining the future of her people. Newberry award-winning author Gail Carson Levine talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about bringing significant episodes in Jewish history to life again.
Yona Zeldis McDonough: What sparked your interest in this period in Jewish history and what kind of research did you do?
Gail Carson Levine: My father is the culprit! Soon after his death, because I missed him so much, I wrote my first and only other historical novel (so far), Dave at Night, which is loosely based on his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City. A Ceiling Made of Eggshells comes indirectly from that orphanage experience, too, because it separated him from his Sephardic roots.
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April 2, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Fran Is Just Fine
Fran Drescher is once again having a moment. And she should be: in this dark, uncertain moment, her brand of humor is exactly the flavor we need.
As one of the stars in the new NBC sitcom, Indebted, the 62-year-old comic actress is trading on the fame she gained during the run of The Nanny, which aired from 1993-1999. I started watching that show because of my daughter Kate, who chortled her way through the reruns that aired every weeknight just after dinner time.
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