Author Reuven Fenton is joining us for a Q & A Zoom session on February 12th to discuss his debut novel, Goyhood. Mr. Fenton gave us a personalized note:

I’m a longtime reporter for the New York Post covering myriad stories, usually of a breaking news nature but not always. In the spare moments I can squeeze out of my days, I write novels; I’m actually a few months away from completing my second one. Goyhood is my first, and it was based on an idea that came to me on a whim one day—wouldn’t it be interesting if a deeply Orthodox Jew discovered one day that he wasn’t Jewish, according to Jewish law. I wrote the story without outlining, as is my way, and over the course of many drafts the story came together. I hadn’t planned on it being a road trip book—I hadn’t planned anything—but it fell into that subgenre in a totally organic way. What better way for a protagonist to deal with an existential crisis such as Mayer’s than to get on the road?

I was pleased with how the book turned out, and doubly pleased that it became a sort of cult hit with book clubs—mostly Jewish, but not all. I’ve been lucky to have joined some 100 book clubs since the novel came out to discuss it. If you’re keen for more material for this writeup, I’d be happy to answer any questions you have. If you’d like, you can add that I see the two brothers, Mayer and David, as a representation of the duality of the sacred and profane that many people, me included, struggle with. The idea that they start out estranged and become united is supposed to represent the bonding of two extremes into a single, ideal human being.

You may order his book from this link.

If you are new to the Jewish Federation Book Club, please register for the February 12 Zoom meeting at this link.

As a follow-up to last time, two of us got together to watch the 2024 film Nightbitch, and we both agreed it clearly distinguished the main character’s fantasy from reality, portrayed her sympathetically, and showed her art as artistic rather than grossly nauseating. This was the rare case in which we believed the film was better than the book.

One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter

This novel follows Lili (Lilliana) Passigli who before the Nazi occupation, has been a complacent Italian Jewish daughter all her life, enjoying her safe existence. However, as the war accelerates, Lili is living with her best-friend-turned-family, Ester Reiss. When Esti joins the Italian Resistance, while critically injured she insists that Lili should escape with Esti’s toddler,

Theo. Lili reluctantly abandons her friend, and she Theo must survive by pretending to be mother and son. Constantly dependent on dangerous yet deliberate acts of courage and kindness during their flight through war-torn Italy, Lili discovers how a single moral choice can ripple outward, saving lives.

Our group enjoyed the perspective of WWII Italy, the somewhat “lightness” of the subject matter building on strength of character rather than detailed depictions of the Holocaust. Others thought the depictions unrealistic, possibly too light. My favorite part was—without spoiling any details—an ironic twist involving Mussolini.

Beth Buechler, Community Contributor

Upcoming Book Discussions (Subject to Change):

• January 8: The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa

• February 12: Goyhood, Reuven Fenton [the author is joining us on the Zoom]

• March 12: Satisfaction Café, Kathy Wang

• April 9: Memorial Days, Geraldine Brooks

• May 14: Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz

• June 11: El Dorado Drive, Megan Abbott

Unless otherwise directed, the Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. See above for contact information if you’d like to join.

“Tom Lake” is not a character, but a nickname for the lake where memories are so strong that a family’s entire history is revealed during the isolation of the pandemic. This makes these daughters and parents tighter than ever. The majority of our readers loved the book for its lovely narrative prose, its depiction of theater life, the difficulties of a life of fame, and choices surrounding fame vs. the hard yet satisfying work of cherry farming in Michigan.

For audiobook lovers, this is a must-listen if for no other reason than Meryl Streep’s performance as a mother un-layering her past to her daughters. Correction: this mother doesn’t bring out her entire history. For the secrets, you’ll have to read the book.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.

Upcoming Book Discussions (Subject to Change):

August 14: The Ship of Brides, by Jojo Moyes
September 11: Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelly Van Pelt
October 9: The Correspondent, Virginia Evans
November 13: Nightbitch, by Rachel Yoder

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.

Also inevitable is that discussing the book will lead us to the Netflix series, produced by Shondaland. Shonda Rhimes later co-wrote “Queen Charlotte” along with Julia Quinn, for TV. Now in novelized form, both versions well explain the “Great Experiment” related to racial issues not even referred to in the novel of The Duke and I.

The story takes us to drawing rooms, ballrooms, and clubs, reflecting real historical customs but with modern sensibilities thanks to Quinn's dialogue and tone. One reader said that she’d “expected not to like the series, but did,” and “expected to like the book, and didn’t.” She added that the costumes and settings were beautifully depicted,” and another reader said the cast of the show was “eye candy.”

As for the book, readers said it builds on “strong women,” that Daphne was “mature for her age,” that she “acted as Simon’s therapist,” and the dialogue was “contemporary, teasing, romantic, and fun.” However, much of the novel was repetitive, which is partly why two readers hated the book. One of them, after hearing us talk, said she might give the series a try. Maybe she was convinced by the eye candy. It’s a strong argument.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.

Everyone in our group loved this novel that takes place in a fictionalized Central American town. Loaded with explosively visual imagery including a volcano, its eruption, and a cast of engaging characters, we all agreed it’s a winner. We enjoyed the nostalgia from the rebellious 1960s, and the novel’s situations made us feel a mix of dread and danger, both realism and magic realism.

Starting out with multiple tragedies leading to a lifelong secret, the setup made some of us feel the opening is slow. At first, it reads like a memoir. However, early on, a hippie bus ride turns the plot around and the first-person narrative springs to life.

The Bird Hotel is full of charlatans, betrayals, disasters, art, wildlife, and the disconnections between biological mothers and their children. It becomes a tale of enduring love through the test of time.

Here are some comments on this book: “Juxtaposition of danger, mayhap, and beauty,” “Good pacing,” “Kept me guessing,” “Crisp, clearcut imagery,” that “All the women came out stronger in the end after all they’d been through,” and “I’ll want to read more Joyce Maynard books.”

Next time, we’re reading the first volume of Bridgerton—better known for the steamy Netflix romantic dramedy. We don’t often do this genre or begin a series, but felt like we needed “fluff” for uplifting our spirits. It may not work.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.

Upcoming Book Discussions:
(SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

• May 8: Bridgerton (The Duke & I) by Julia Quinn

• June 12: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Vrunt

• July 10: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

• August 14: The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes

The basic premise is that a successful novelist late in life inherits untenable land in her native country of the Dominican Republic. She decides, with her sculptor friend, to create it as a cemetery for her unfinished manuscripts full of stories she didn’t feel she had the right to tell. Many tales are loaded with abuse and suffering mostly at the hands of a vicious dictator.

When the spirits within those stories begin telling them to the groundskeeper and each other, a whirlwind of connections among all the characters, living and dead, takes on a life of its own.

I highly recommend this novel for readers who enjoy complex, braided plots and don’t mind referring back to previously read pages to get a grip on what they’ve read. This book also serves as a cautionary tale for writers who have stacks of unpublished manuscripts and know not what to do with them.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.

Upcoming Book Discussions:
(SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

• April 10: The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

• May 8: Bridgerton (The Duke & I) by Julia Quinn

• June 12: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Vrunt

The novel we read for our February session starts off eerily with a woman we come to know as Cherry. Unnoticed on an airline flight at first, she rises at one point and pronounces unwarranted death predictions to random passengers, setting everything in motion. The novel is a suspenseful, intriguing weave of past and present, addressing loss, fate, mortality, intuitive abilities, and gratitude for life. While you might read this book afraid of what’s to come, I recommend ignoring that sense of dread and trust that the outcome will be both satisfying and realistically explained. You may even hate Cherry to begin with because of the negative impact she has on those whose deaths she predicts, but the more you learn about her past, the more this woman becomes an endearing character. One criticism was that at times, we had to reread portions to keep so many characters straight.

A few of us look forward to reading more of this Australian author’s novels, but one didn’t finish Here One Moment, saying, “Not my type of book.”

With one of us not completing the book, I’m leaving off on averaging a star rating, but would personally give it five out of five.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.

Upcoming Book Discussions:

• March 13: The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

• April 10: The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

• May 8: Bridgerton (The Duke & I) by Julia Quinn

A cozy murder mystery that’s the first in a series of four brings together three local women living by the River Thames to help solve puzzle pieces the police are unable to connect. Our group consensus was that at times like these, we need escapism, upbeat stories, fluff, magic realism, and possibly science fiction. Those who enjoyed Marlow called it “entertaining and a good beach or fireplace read.” We all appreciated the characters’ diverse personalities, and one reader recommended this novel to all her friends. Some of us saw the TV series and agreed with only minor changes, it is not only close to the book but is also charming for its acting and visual stunts. Our criticisms were one reader’s difficulty in suspending her disbelief, several instances of implausibility, and the contrived unlikelihood of what transpired among the villains.

Overall, we gave the book 3.5 stars out of five.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month.

Upcoming Book Discussions:

• February 13: Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

• March 13: The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

• April 10: The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

• May 8: Bridgerton (The Duke & I) by Julia Quinn

• June 12: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Vrunt

Our members unanimously rated The Women five out of five. The Frozen River came close, averaging four out of five.

The Women: “It’s been a long time since I couldn’t put a book down. The pacing, romance, reality, honesty, humanity, and the blessing of it honors the women who served in Vietnam. The author exposes a tough subject while celebrating the fellowship among these women. I was impressed with the book’s characters, situations, and overall sense of compassion.” —Book Club member, a career, US military woman

The Frozen River: Based on a true diary, this novel is historical fiction infused with the author’s imagination bringing a huge cast of characters to life. While it was one reader’s favorite book of the year, another thought some plausibility was in question. However, we all felt immersed in the life of a midwife in rural Maine of the late 18th century and couldn’t put it down.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Upcoming Books:

• January 9: The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood

• February 13: Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

The Jewish Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM on the second Thursday of the month.

James is a novel derivative of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn via the point of view of “Jim.” One of our readers, having loved Huck Finn throughout her life, expressed mixed feelings over not being able to suspend her disbelief. My favorite part—James instructing family members and other enslaved people how to behave and speak around Whites—came across to her as the author’s self-permission to avoid writing huge amounts of dialect, something Mark Twain had mastered.

We had a lively discussion of the issues raised such as racism, slavery, morality, amorality, religion, con men, friendship, loyalty, and family. They are braided throughout the novel seamlessly—in a universal manner that inevitably brings up the current practice of book banning. James, the novel, points out how the so-called “free states” at the time were still dangerous territory for escapees. What it comes down to is the question of choosing what kind of person you want to be.

Comments from our readers were: “Inventive, fresh take on a very old story,” “Entertaining,” “Impressed with the loyalty and fortitude of main character, James,” “More than a retelling of Huckleberry Finn—a new story worth discussing with friends,” “How brave of the author to take on such a venerated story in James’s perspective,” “A thoughtful, deliberate look at issues back then and of today,” and “A celebration of the human intellect.”

Overall, our average score was 4+ out of 5.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

JEWISH FEDERATION BOOK CLUB READING LIST

• November 14 - The Women by Kristin Hannah

• December 12 - The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

• January 9 - The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood

The Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM on the second Thursday of the month. Email info@thejewishfed.org or call the office at (574) 233-1164 if you would like to attend.

When I said to my husband, “This book means well,” I meant it kindly. The novel depicts a community among diverse populations, uses authentic dialects, engages its readers with humor, and begins with a murder mystery. This would all seem like a winning formula, but most of our group found the novel tedious and agreed we’d prefer it as a well-edited film.

Comments included, “Too many different threads, characters, and names,” “Really boring, I almost stopped reading,” “Two important characters, Nate and Addy, weren’t developed enough,” and “It took too long to get to an ending which was too abrupt.” My own gripe was something I call “info-dumping.” The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store has too many long sections of endless dialogue used to pass information to the reader.

Sorry, James McBride. I really loved the part about Dodo and Monkeypants learning to communicate with each other. However, when our book club talks about how much we’re already enjoying the next book on our list (James, see reading list above), it typically means we didn’t favor the current one. Our average score was 2.5 out of 5.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

The Jewish Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM on the second Thursday of the month.

Email info@thejewishfed.org or call the office at (574) 233-1164 if you would like to attend.

Upcoming Books (subject to change)

• October 10 - James by Percival Everett (click here)

• November 14 - The Women by Kristin Hannah (click here)

• December 12 - All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (click here)

If you don’t read spy novels yet want to dip your toes into what that might be like, this book would be a good transition for you. While the novel does not depict spying at a national or international level, it shows the necessary actions a “normal” person must take if domestic espionage is forced on them by organized crime.

Our group often talks about the relevance of titles, and I was grateful that the author explained the meaning of “first lie wins” early on. If you’re going to lie, make sure the first one is all-encompassing. This makes it easier to let the rest follow.

When Evie Porter (an alias) is set to spy on Ryan, the man with whom she lives, her desire to take down her crime boss grows. One of our members read the book twice, another disliked it over “Evie” (not that you can’t dislike a main character and not enjoy a book) until later, when Evie’s conscience began to develop. Some readers had trouble with the timeline and multiple characters, and one thought it, “far-fetched and disjointed.” But the consensus was that the mystery, twists, tension, and cleverness of the plot kept us guessing until the end. Our average score came out as four out of five, for being a “page-turner,” no one considering it a five-star, all-time favorite book.

For me, that would take an actual Ken Follett spy (or historical) novel.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Upcoming Books:

• September 12: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

• October 10: James by Percival Everett

Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the second Thursday each month. Email info@thejewishfed.org for more information.

Most of us agreed the novel’s only fault is its non-memorable, possibly non-relevant title, until someone said that the “light” that came into the main character Wanda’s life represents survival after two other characters became so meaningful to her in a lost world. We all involuntarily went, “Ahhhhh.” Other themes that came up in the book were climate change/climate-change deniers, adaptation/evolution, entropy, rebirth/regeneration, doomsday preppers, infrastructure, corporations/capitalism, technology, and having nowhere to go.

The novel begins with Wanda’s father, Kirby, an electric lineman, preparing for the onslaught of yet another extreme hurricane in Southeast Florida. Aware that no amount of sandbagging and boarding up windows would ever be enough, and that disaster funding had dried up, he still did anything he could to either keep his town’s power on or restore it later. Meanwhile, his pregnant, newlywed wife, Frida, has lost her joy—her beloved mother Joy—in a recent hurricane, and desperately wants her new family to leave. This includes Kirby’s two sons who seem to hate her. Frida cannot effectively communicate her prescient fears to Kirby, who has a hero complex.

One reader said, “The first fifty pages read like a hurricane, very intense, best pages in the book.” The book’s depiction of climate change is so plausible and could well be our future reality. Another book club member read the book with dread over seeing coastal towns, cities, states, and whole countries dysfunctional after going underwater. For one of us, it brought back memories of losing (not for good, thank G-d) her parents during Katrina.

The story jumps ahead through subsequent decades, following Wanda. It’s particularly scary to read how all institutions fall apart and along with them, the loss of all satellite communication. No more Internet, no more cell service. This novel has strongly built character development who survive via an intriguing new type of community—the smaller, the better.

Imagine living without any land.

“Now,” someone said, “is the time to pay attention.”

We all recommend The Light Pirate, especially the reader who said, “I enjoyed it so much I read it in one sitting.” He literally couldn’t put it down.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Upcoming Books:

• August 8: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

• September 12: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

• October 10: James by Percival Everett

• November 7: The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM on the second Thursday of the month.

May 2024

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

Our original pick for this month was Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim which I had to give up on since it felt too much like “how to” videos that waste time never getting to the point. The group agreed to change our book to A Slow Fire Burning, by Paula Hawkins—the well-known author of The Girl on the Train. Two of our members had already read Happiness Falls, one who said the depiction of a character’s therapy was true to treating autism and trauma, while the other said it was not a favorite book and still never solved the mystery by the end.

A Slow Fire Burning is a mystery that “kept us guessing all along.” Full of unlikeable characters such as a successful male writer who plagiarized a woman’s memoir. Miriam, the plagiarized victim, was described by one reader as “despicable,” and someone said these characters were “all a bunch of whiners” with “no redeeming qualities.”

However, we all appreciated Laura who, due to a brain injury, had no social filters. This made her fun and funny, with surprising dialogue that kept getting her into more trouble with police. We compared this novel to The Girl on the Train—readers liked A Slow Fire Burning better for having “more character development,” being “easy to follow,” “a good beach read,” “a good dog-walking read,” and, “a good thriller.” Our reader who liked Happiness Falls preferred The Girl on the Train to this one, and suggested another thriller which is now on our list: First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston.

June 2024

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

An astute comment on Life After Life was made by the member who recommended this semi-historical reincarnation novel. “Maybe,” she said, “with the current fad of jumping back and forth between eras, this author wanted to find a different take on it.” Quite common lately is the 1800s/1920s/1940s jumping ahead and back again to characters in the 2000s discovering their ancestral pasts. Life After Life’s different take was not only a change in time for the readers but for the main character, Ursula, as she experienced multiple opportunities to redo her life. It’s a form of reincarnation that allows a redo of her life at all the crucial junctures. These include birth, childhood, adolescence, and various abusers. The rise of Hitler and a husband swept up in Nazi propaganda are an important piece of the mix.

For audiobook listeners, the whiplash of date changes made it a difficult read. With a physical or an eBook, one could refer back and get a grip on what was happening. Even so, it takes a great deal of patience and stamina to follow a story that continually changes—this makes it hard to believe which is the “true” version of events. When reaching the end, our readers wondered what the author’s point was. Does Ursula ever get it all completely right?

Many moments of the book were rich with detailed imagery of life during the London Blitz. Descriptions of the food made it feel so authentic. The bombing scenes were “poetically horrifying,” and the author did a great job of showing “the best and worst in people.”

As readers, experiencing the rise of fascism and Hitler’s popularity felt all too real and all too possible at any point in any of our lives; and the novel, published in 2013, raises the chilling

questions we all must ask ourselves of whether that could ever be stopped, and what our individual parts in that might be.

Some final comments from our readers were: “Different, original.” “Accurate research on the depiction of childhood during the London Blitz.” “We don’t usually read about substitutes for medical personnel.” “Fascinating detail.” “Groundhog Day over multiple lives of an English woman, segments from influenza, navigating life in the twenties and forties, abuses from men, learning to survive in society, and getting along with other people.”

One last suggestion was we ought to read the author’s afterward in the updated edition of the book for intriguing and relevant information.

Upcoming Books:

July 11:                      The Light Pirate, by Lily Brooks-Dalton
August 8:                   First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

The Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM on the second Thursday of the month.

Sometimes, we read historical fiction to lead us into research we hadn’t realized we wanted to do. Snow Falling on Cedars weaves the Japanese internment camps into a post-WWII trial in which racism plays an important role in the verdict. Our readers thought it was a beautifully written, suspenseful novel with finely crafted character development. Its rich landscape is a fictitious island off the coast of the State of Washington during a particularly ominous, unrelenting snowstorm.

While the depiction of the internment camps felt realistic and detailed, one of us got bored and wanted to return to the trial. Another thought some scenes might have been eliminated to improve the novel—especially the WWII beach battle in which a major character loses an arm. Meanwhile, I thought too little was explained about the injury to the arm. Every reader is different!

Snow Falling on Cedars was published thirty years ago, and it’s remained so popular that if you want to listen to it on the library system’s Libby app, you’ll have to accept placement onto a waiting list. We all enjoyed talking about the characters, the star-crossed love story, whether the redemptive ending was too accelerated at the conclusion, and most especially, the poetry of the narrative.

The group’s conclusive opinions were:

“Thought-provoking, relevant to our times,” “Plot twists kept it interesting,” “Enjoyed the sidebar illuminating from the trial drama,” “I had so much fear while reading it, afraid of how it would end for Kabuo (the man on trial),” and, “A long, slow read.”

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Upcoming Books:

• May 13 (Changed): A Slow Fire Burning, by Paula Hawkins

• June 13: Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

• July 11: The Light Pirate, by Lily Brooks-Dalton

The Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM on the second Thursday of the month.

One reader would have preferred to have a map of the routes in Kentucky, even if fictitious, while another purposely did not join this group discussion because of the book’s similarities to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson, published earlier in the same year. A short-lived plagiarism charge arose, although nothing came of the accusations.

Moyes’s novel is not only a love story between couples but about the love of friends, camaraderie, books, self-education, freedom, animals, and the land. It inspired at least three of us to research Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) Program to learn more about these amazing librarians. One such researcher found the depiction of poverty representative of the time and area, although “not horrific enough.” We were all pleased to learn there’s a PBS documentary titled “The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia.”

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

The Jewish Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM. Unless otherwise scheduled, we meet every second Thursday of the month.

Upcoming Books:

April 11 - Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
May 9 - Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim
June 13 - Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
July 11 - The Light Pirate, by Lily Brooks-Dalton

We invited the author, Elizabeth W. Garber, to discuss her second memoir, Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year—the sequel to Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter. It depicts events from the ship in much greater depth based on Garber’s memories, journals, letters, and information gathered from people in her past. Since I typed this conversation from speed-written notes, there may be inaccuracies, grammatical errors, and incomplete thoughts. So, with apologies to Elizabeth:

Elizabeth’s Presentation, Paraphrased:

Elizabeth: What I discovered about writing a memoir is that so often in our life, we experience something, and it happens, but especially when we’re young, we’re only halfway there. My first was Implosion, which took ten years, then Sailing. The story of sailing on that ship, even though I kept journals and wrote pages a day; and even though I stayed in contact with some of these friends, I realized when I went back to it and started researching it, I realized there was so much I didn’t know and hadn’t figured out about the ship and that I didn’t know about what actually happened in Panama. So, what was so fun was going back and finding my friends, first I took a good six, eight months finding as many people as I could from the ship. And I loved doing detective work and finding people online.

So, I gathered this group together, and we created this private Facebook page. And then I’d keep adding people when I’d find them. We would ask each other questions. We probably had a thousand messages back and forth. And I would ask a question like, “Do you remember when we had to get out of the way of the submarine, and we ran into the sandbar, and do you remember when the rope broke?”

And I realized I did not know how utterly dangerous it was back then. But when I talked to my brother and I interviewed my brother, let us know how dangerous it was. And I took pages and pages of notes talking to him. He’s the one who let me know how utterly dangerous it was. Then, there was a book about Sea Cloud, which had interviews with the captain. He was interviewed about ten or fifteen years later. And I thought, oh, by then, he was older, in his seventies (my age!), and I thought he exaggerated things, made things up, or things were mixed up. But he said, “Oh, we were shot at.”

Huh?

 I went to the Facebook group and said, “That’s ridiculous; we weren’t shot at, were we?”

Two or three people said, “Oh, that’s ridiculous.”

And then my closest friends, Kim, Pogo, and Zip; Pogo said, “Oh, yes, we were shot at.”

Kim said, “We were shot at.”

Zip said, “I was right there. I felt the bullets go through the air right over my head.”

The whole story (came out) of how, near the end of our being held hostage on the ship, our captain was afraid that the other ship anchored near us would run into us. He’d asked Zip at about six in the morning to go and lift the anchor chain to get the motor going so we could drift sideways. As soon as they heard that, the soldiers in the PT boat jumped up, started yelling, and shot over Zip’s head.

Meanwhile, at that moment, Pogo was in the bowsprit net watching the morning. He thought this was going to be the end of his life, that he was going to be killed. Kim was up on the bridge with the captain, and they saw it all. I don’t know if they agreed not to tell anyone. I think, especially when you’re shot at, and you’re on a ship with fifty teenagers—if that (information) had gone around the ship, people would have gone nuts. And I think, interestingly or wisely, they didn’t tell anybody.

That was when the captain said, “We’ve got to get all these kids off the ship.”

Part of going back into the experience of what happened that year, the process of writing about it, was that I learned so much about what happened. There were all these really close friends, and some I wasn’t as close to. But in this process of asking all questions and people answering—writing letters back and forth—it was like I was back on the ship again like we were all back on the ship again. We felt so connected again, and we got to experience that camaraderie but (this time) being mature adults. And a number of people said, “I wish I hadn’t been so shy then,” or, “I wish I knew how to communicate better then because I would have been a much better friend.”

We’d all been kids, and we were all learning, but it felt like this extraordinary experience to get to go back in, re-experience something in a new way, extract learning, reflect and learn from it, and then write about it. It was profoundly rewarding. And then getting to share it.

Over the years, sometimes I’d forget about this, and then I’d talk to a friend and say, “Did I ever tell you about being in Panama and there were armed gunboats?”

“No, you never happened to tell me that story.”

It was like, “Oh, yeah, it was pretty crazy.” This gave me that chance to go all the way back in it to figure out what happened. And we never really did figure out what happened. And then hearing the story from a young man in a Native American Reserve up in Canada who told us another whole story about how, (while we were held hostage) Nixon called the Queen, or maybe the Queen called Nixon. Who knows if that’s an urban legend? But hearing about that was like, oh, there might be a whole other level to how we got out of Panama, something we didn’t even know about.

Kathie’s Question: “What do you think Rachel Maddow would say if she independently investigated the story?”

Elizabeth: If Rachel Maddow wrote this, she’d have had a hoot looking into this story that these American kids were held hostage on a ship, and nobody knew about. If it happened now, the news would have been all over it, but back then, nobody knew about it. And I think it must have been covered up.

            Later, at home, an aircraft was held hostage, and no one talked about the aftermath of that or anyone needing therapy from the traumatic experience. We just thought, well, we got out of it and what will happen next? The difference between the 70s and now is very different in how things happen to kids.

Karen: “I was wondering how your father was never mentioned again at the end of your book.

Elizabeth: Part of that is because I first wrote a book about him, Implosion—my relationship with my dad and the rest of his life. By the end of the time I was leaving the ship and leaving home, I was just so ready to sort of break out of being his daughter that I cut him out—worked it out over a lifetime.

Sandy: Do you do therapy?

Elizabeth: (Talks about thirty years of therapy involved.) I think my writing these books helped with (the family’s) recovery process. About Implosion, originally, my mother said, “We’ll never read it.” But she read it twice and then praised my writing.

Karen: Who from the ship had the most influence over you?

Elizabeth: Kim and Pogo. Kim became a therapist in England; we’re still in touch. Pogo was supportive and caring—he’s an architect and is still in contact with them. They visited each other in England. During Covid, I made sure to have calls with Kim. We talked about life and death. She was struggling, too. Came to a balanced place over time. Taking care of patients helped us balance this.

Karen: Stephanie and ______(?) Were they real believers (in the school)?

Elizabeth: Their kids were lost, but she kept the school going for nine years. Brilliant, could talk the talk. She was on speed and bipolar. “Diet pills,” I forgot what they were. (Sandy, in the chat, wrote, “amphetamines.”)

Karen: Were they “pimping” the students?

Elizabeth: Steph probably just thought these were good connections for her students to have. Jeffrey Epstein-like, negligent parenting, pay phones were too expensive. Like most parents, my mom was busy in college at the time, which was different from “helicopter parenting.”

Question: What really happened in Panama?

Elizabeth: Canal negotiations? Owners/Panamanians, who had the ship? Probably the owners. I sold it years later.

Kathie’s Question: What kind of book genre is it?

Elizabeth: There are lots of ways to write a memoir. My favorites are written like novels. Often, as an adult, looking back with reflection. When young, it needs to be the point of view of a young person. I was a sixty-year-old adult looking back. I worked with (?) to figure out the right voice.

I used a voicy-voice teenager voice. It helped me step back into that teenage voice and put me right there. Memories poured back from my journals, alive and well in me, with so much self-consciousness. It was really fun interviewing people. They got back into their teenage voices.

Real hero—my brother—I realized how remarkable my brother was. He understood way better than Stephanie. He told the truth, always got into trouble for it, and thought badly about himself.

I wanted to show how remarkable he was. Such a wise person at fifteen. One of the heroes of that year. Writing that book was my way of giving my brother a gift. His spirit was annihilated by my dad. The healing process of the book. Book about a tormented adolescence. Lots of kids could have gone over the edge. It’s hard to believe no one died.

Question: Would (you) do it again?
Elizabeth: Shakes head. I don’t know. Amazing years. Shocking things happened. A friend is working on a screenplay presentation, hoping to present and for filming.

Question: Why did they take you for birth control without permission?

Elizabeth: So shocking, so crazy. It puts readers back into the 70s and what a wild time it was. Three people (in Maine) were accepted the same year as us but couldn’t get the airfare. She was devastated her whole life until she read the book. Then, she did a great year abroad in England instead. Steph sent twenty kids to the Ivory Coast. They felt abandoned by her and had to make up their own program.

Karen: Your mother trying to be independent. How did she make out after leaving him?

Elizabeth: Got a degree in criminal justice. Volunteers on probation, set up programs for judges and lawyers to spend time in jail and see what it’s like. I worked for Child Protective Services. She’s 94 years old, and she lives near me. There are stories about my mom on Facebook and Instagram. We still have adventures.

Sue: I really enjoyed the book. Older/years, wouldn’t I have loved to do that, maybe not the nerve. Reliving the 70s, when I was at that age, took me back.

Kathie: Has anyone approached you about using this book as a class?

Elizabeth: I didn’t think of this as a way to bring it to young people. Maybe a summer class. Teen class, great idea. Tie it into being a memoir-writing class.

Streaming services, not to shorten it, develop characters. Songs, groups, singing. It made me feel like a teenager all over again.

Question: Storm/waves, incredibly high, were you afraid that you’d have the fate of your grandparents?

Elizabeth: My brother and I both thought we were going to die. Up on the rigging, one of the scariest things in my life. Writing (this book), I closed my eyes to relive all the five senses. I asked myself, what scene have you been putting off with the rigging? I cried when I read it. The student did EMDR with me to get me back into balance after reliving it.

New Project: So much history. My grandmother was the love child of Albert Hubbard. She died at the age of twenty. While researching there, I stayed in a house where she lived when she was ten. Went through different eras.

I imagine myself into her. She wrote lots of essays. 1819 farming. She was the person I admired most in my childhood. I was immersed in the 1920s and 30s. A whole different experience of it. Calling it a historical novel, I have to call it fiction, imagining myself into her. She volunteered at the nunnery and became an associate at Evensong—friends with the heiress of Proctor and Gamble. Had Van Goghs, Picassos, and Chagalls. We were in the house across the street.

Today, I wrote a scene (taking place) there with tea, talking about buying her first Chagall. She researched the art museum. My mom sometimes corrects how her mom would have said something.

I have stacks of notes of vivid details of their stories.

For More on Elizabeth Garber, please visit her website at:

https://elizabethgarber.com/

Unfortunately, it became a continuation of more exploitation, not only of Elizabeth and her brother, but of all the students. Twenty pages of a single chapter weren’t enough to give readers the full experience, and we are all grateful she wrote this riveting sequel. Elizabeth spoke about her research process for Sailing at the Edge of Disaster, starting with her extensive journals. Reconnecting with the other students on the ship, gathering their memories, and learning that their days of being held hostage in the Panama Canal were even more “utterly” dangerous than she could have imagined.

If you’re old enough to remember life in the sixties and seventies, you’ll appreciate their re-creation in these two books, but you probably didn’t live through that era like this.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

Click here to read a transcript of February’s Book Club Conversation with Elizabeth Garber.

The Jewish Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4:00 PM. Unless otherwise scheduled, we meet every second Thursday of the month.

Upcoming Books are Currently in the Works.

• March 7 - The Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes

• April 11 - Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson

• May 9 - Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim

• June 13 - Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

• July 11 - The Light Pirate, by Lily Brooks-Dalton

This transcription is from notes taken during the Jewish Federation’s Book Club’s January session via Zoom. We invited the author, Lori Rader-Day, to join us to discuss her book after sending her a list of questions in advance. Lori prepared a presentation for us, and the following was typed from speed-written notes. There may be inaccuracies, grammatical errors, and incomplete thoughts, with apologies to Lori:

Lori’s Presentation:

I got the idea for Death at Greenway in 2012. Had no confidence yet. Read non-fiction about Agatha Christie, The Secret Notebooks, (Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making) by John Curran. She was a notebook writer, especially when stuck. Wrote at typewriter. She had many notebooks and many houses, eight homes, so the notebooks were all over the house and many houses. John Curran got family permission to look at the notebooks, collated them—an Agatha Christie super fan.

I got to the part about evacs (evacuees) in Britain and Germany—three million people in metro areas, school groups. A long time before the bombing happened, people wanted their kids back home. Agatha Christie used her home for these kids.

Lots of intrigue in the Agatha Christie books. I had loved those books and loved “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” with Angela Lansbury. I was intrigued with Agatha’s house, the mystery, and mystery solving.

Anyway, I was interested in the kids, the evacs, and nobody had written that story. All the kids taken to her home were under five.

As a crime writer thinking about how young children make readers worry, my goal was to capture as much fact as I could find. It really happened, these people were in the house, Agatha Christie’s house, during World War II. These (characters) were the chaperones. I wanted to create the book that talked about the real thing. When it comes to crime fiction, there are so many sub-categories. I wanted it to be mostly psychological suspense, not about a professional crime fighter. An ordinary person encountering the extraordinary.

I knew I couldn’t do an Agatha Christie story, hard to pull off for modern readers. Mostly interested in the house as a harbor for the children during the war and home base for the military during D-Day.

Lori’s Response to Previously Submitted Questions from Book Club Members:

Donna: What was your inspiration for developing the characters of Bridget and Gigi?

Lori: Fact-based, scraped at it, the estate gave the dates of the kids being there and when Agatha Christie was there. Relatives of Mr. Arbuthnot wrote an email. Got names of butler and cook. The home had hospital nurses. I used them as the two girls and wanted them to get into real trouble.

Matt: Could you comment on the difficulties, or lack of, in being an American writing about British culture?

Lori: The book took from 2012-2021. I don’t love prepping, wanted to get started, but it’s a messy process. One afternoon, it became the thing I had to start working on tomorrow! Had to build the research skills and do it. So much of it was unexpected, I didn’t know what was out there. Agatha Christie wrote three sentences about all this. I went to Greenway 2016-17, walked around, looked for evidence of children.

I asked someone. The military added fourteen latrines. Agatha Christie had them fix her house but left the frieze someone had created over her library. (Shows pictures she took.) In the same room, picture of a six-year-old girl and name. She wrote a letter back, and I got a full letter and her email address; she was eighty years old. This was Doreen. We remained pen pals. Doreen became a character in the book. She remembers the house and group and love but doesn’t remember the war. Like in the book, Doreen believed she was being adopted when her real parents finally came.

Donna: Was Gigi supposed to be a part of the Mass-Observation group?

Lori: Mass Observation—a real group, spying, sent out war propaganda. Gigi was a member of Mass Ob because of it being a group easily misunderstood. Their books are fascinating. In terms of war, things that are perfectly fine may not be. Mass Ob not necessarily spies, but ordinary people knowing they’re listened to, it could be troubling. I tapped into that.

Beth: How did you get the British speech patterns down so pat?

Lori: I watch lots of British TV, read any British novel from that period. British baking shows, plus, friends who are British. Tapped two of them to look for problems, wrong words, etc. For instance: “handbag” vs. “purse.” One was Katrina McPherson from Scotland who trained as a linguist. The other was Anne Cleeves who read it for me and sent it all back! Even the audiobook narrator tweaked one of the sentences.

There was something called, “The Blitz Spirit,” which I didn’t have, so they pointed out places when they didn’t see it in my writing. I felt stuck inside of Bridget, had to get to know her.

Matt: Did you choose to never use Gigi's point of view in order to not reveal something you wanted to hold back?

Lori: No Gigi POV—If it had been there, the book wouldn’t have been a mystery for very long. Gigi stole money, a bad guy is after her, so she’s hiding out. No one seemed to know her, but they all had opinions about her. Eight point-of-view characters—I don’t recommend that. They think she’s mysterious, “fast.” It amused me not to have her on the stage to tell her story. Bridey gets closest to figuring her out.

I visited Greenway twice, then got invited to stay and my husband and I were there for several nights. It’s a coastal area, known as the “Greenway Riviera.” We also went to “The Old Swan,” and the Harrogate Mystery Conference. (Mentions “the River Dart,” which plays a role in the novel.)

Lori’s Response to Spontaneous Questions from Book Club Members:

The murders in the book were not based on real murders. I wedged crime into this story and didn’t want it to happen on Greenway land or near the children. Their experience had to remain loving and safe. Needed someone going back and forth from town house to be transporting Bridey. Anne Cleeves runs a conference on Whitley Bay to hang out with editors. I’ve been on book tours with her. She’s been to Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburg, and library events.

The research took an extra year. You can follow me on Facebook to see posts about my upcoming time with Anne Cleeves. My current book is The Death of Us, takes place in the U.S. Midwest. A limestone quarry is the setting. Family. A woman raising another’s son who’s now fifteen—her husband’s son with another woman he cheated with, that mother disappears. They find her corpse at the quarry, and everyone (other than the baby) is under suspicion.

Link to images of Greenway House:

https://britishheritage.com/history/greenway-house-agatha-christie

Lori Rader-Day’s Website:

https://loriraderday.com/

I met the mystery/crime author Lori Rader-Day at the Midwest Writers Conference in Muncie, Indiana, in July 2023. She agreed to join the Jewish Federation Book Club’s session on Death at Greenway, her novel that takes place at Agatha Christie’s summer home during World War II. Despite its title, this book is not written in the style of a Christie murder mystery, rather, it’s an interpretation of what it might have been like for two women hired to take care of ten children under the age of five who had to evacuate their homes without their parents during the London Blitz. Infused with fictional mystery, the novel’s authenticity starts with the setting. Lori’s three visits to Greenway House made this possible; her first two as a typical tourist got her thinking, and then her third took place during a stay for several nights with her husband. Lori was privy to the few remaining children’s names carved inside a hidden cabinet. She became email buddies with “Doreen,” now in her 80s, who makes several crucial appearances in the novel.

Our group put together a list of questions for Lori in advance, and she selected her favorites to address during our Zoom video chat. Lori was generous with her time, easy to talk with, and shared extra details about what she learned during her research years of creating Death at Greenway. Prepared with stories and photographs, she explained how the book took ten years to complete and shared eye-opening details about how she came up with her use of “British English” throughout the text.

“I watch lots of British TV and read any British novel from that period. British baking shows, plus, friends who are British. Tapped two of them to look for problems, wrong words, etc. For instance: ‘handbag’ vs. ‘purse.’ One was Katrina McPherson from Scotland who trained as a linguist. The other was Anne Cleeves who read it for me and sent it all back! Even the audiobook narrator tweaked one of the sentences.”

Some of you may know about Anne Cleeves, author of several novels on which the series “Vera,” “Shetland,” and “The Long Call” are based.

For a transcript of our Zoom discussion with Lori Rader Day, click here.

To read more about Lori’s work, check her out at LoriRaderDay.com.

Beth Buechler
Community Contributor

The Jewish Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the first Thursdays of every month. If you’re interested in joining or learning more about future titles on our list, please visit TheJewishFed.org/Books.

Upcoming Books (subject to change)

• February 1 - Sailing at the Edge of Disaster, by Elizabeth Garber, with author talk on Zoom

• March 7 - The Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes