Book and author event
Congregation Neve Shalom, Metuchen, will present the Donald and Ruth Kahn Book and Author Event on Sunday, Jan. 25, at 10 a.m.
The event — in its 15th year — has been renamed in memory of the Kahns, longtime Neve Shalom members who generously supported charitable, educational, cultural, and Jewish institutions.
In addition to Diana Spechler’s Who by Fire: A Novel, featured books and authors will include: The Pages in Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home, Erin Einhorn; From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books, Arie Kaplan; and Songs For the Butcher’s Daughter: A Novel, Peter Manseau. The authors will take part in a question-and-answer period as well as sell and sign their books.
Admission is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served at 9:30.
For more information, call 732-548-2238, ext. 14, or visit www.neveshalom.net.
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January 20, 2009
As excited as she was to see her first book published, Diana Spechler was worried. Who by Fire: A Novel (HarperCollins) considers as one of its main points the portrayal of Orthodox Jewry as a cult.
When the book was released, Spechler braced for the negative responses.
“I was so self-conscious writing about the Orthodox community, because I’m not Orthodox and never have been,” she told NJ Jewish News in a telephone interview from her home in Manhattan. “I was thinking a lot about people who write historical fiction. They have some leeway because in the end, who’s going to know if they’re exactly right? But I was writing about a world that really exists and is thriving today and has many members, so I really worried about authenticity and I didn’t want to offend anybody.”
Much to Spechler’s relief, the anticipated backlash hasn’t be realized. In fact, “I’ve gotten a lot of fan mail from ba’alei teshuva,” she said. “It’s been so gratifying.”
Spechler will discuss her work as part of the Donald and Ruth Kahn Book and Author Event, hosted by Congregation Neve Shalom, Metuchen, on Sunday, Jan. 25.
Who by Fire deals tells the story of a family in crisis. Three characters — mother Ellie, daughter “Bits,” and son Asher — all present their perspectives, all of which stem from a tragic incident that happened years before. There’s plenty of guilt to go around, and everyone has a unique pain to deal with. Asher sought solace by devoting his life to God and fled to a yeshiva in Israel. Ellie believes he’s been brainwashed and will do whatever is necessary to get him back. Bits, the hedonistic daughter, is caught in the middle.
Spechler presents each character in the first person. “There were days when I was stalking around my apartment saying ‘I’m never doing this again.’ When I talk about it, I feel like I’m describing a mental illness,” she said, describing her creative process. “I would never write from two characters’ perspectives on the same day. If I woke up in the morning and started to write from Bits’ point of view, I couldn’t delve into Ash’s; I had to have a night’s sleep in between.”
Who by Fire is an offshoot of a story Spechler wrote while in graduate school. In that version, Bits learns of a suicide bomb attack in Israel and spends the rest of the narrative waiting for Asher’s call and wondering if her brother was one of the casualties.
The piece was published in a literary journal. “But I was never able to shake it,” Spechler said. She returned to it some time later to include Asher’s voice because “I was curious: what’s the deal with this guy? What is he doing? Why is he in Israel?”
Something was still missing, though. “I became very interested in the family dynamic,” she said. “For years I was only writing from the point of view of Bits and Ash; Ellie was almost an afterthought. I needed something to bring the whole thing together,” she said.
The mother’s voice proved the most difficult. “Ellie’s from a different generation. She had so much life experience that I haven’t had,” said the 29-year-old writer.
Spechler is proud of the amount of research she did. She had been to Israel as a high school student, but returned a couple of times since then, most recently to hammer out details for the book. “I’m glad I went, for a million reasons, but…I got to know the texture of the country. To write about a country you’ve just visited on vacation is tough, but I had traveled and lived there.”
She sent e-mails to yeshivas in Israel asking for tours of the schools. “Most weren’t very receptive,” she said.
Back home, Spechler tried to immerse herself in the Jewish world. “I taught at a girls’ yeshiva high school in Dallas, I worked in an Israeli restaurant, I worked for an Israeli woman in New York; I was always hoping to get jobs relative to my research.”
Spechler grew up in a Reform household in Newton, Mass. “My family was always very into Judaism, but not observant in an Orthodox sense.”
What a surprise it must have been, then, when her own brother decided he wanted to follow that lifestyle. That announcement came after she was well into her novel — which took more than four years to complete — but Spechler believed it was just an amazing coincidence.
“I must have seen some kind of indication, but I never really realized what it was. Now everybody in the family has become more religious, except me,” she said.
Her parents and sister began to follow the Conservative movement; Mom and Dad also began to keep a kosher kitchen so her brother could feel comfortable in their home when he came to visit.
Spechler still remembers the day last fall when the publisher delivered a carton of her book. “There it is, the fruits of my labor. It was such a gift…. What did I do with my 20s? Well, here it is in a box.”
Spechler is already at work on her second book, which is set at a weight-loss camp in North Carolina. “There’s still a Jewish theme,” she said, “but it’s less prominent.
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