Neve Shalom's book event '08 takes readers around world
Feb. 1, 2008
Investigating and exposing family secrets was the common thread weaving together four authors' stories at Congregation Neve Shalom's Book and Author event on Sunday, Jan. 27.
Wall Street Journal reporter Lucette Lagnado discussed her book The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World, poet and college professor Victoria Redel spoke on The Border of Truth, Iranian expatriate Dalia Sofer read from Septembers of Shiraz and New Jersey's own Mort Zachter read from Dough: A Memoir.
Lagnado strove to recreate prewar Cairo, a multi-cultural world in the true sense of the word with people from three religions speaking several languages as they traded wares in the bazaar. It was a time when her father's trademark was the suit from the title, when she followed her father on his jaunts around town, and when the nightly poker game was sacrosanct and not even the approach of Nazis halted play. It was a world her family fled when she was 7 years old. That young girl became Lagnado's alter ego in her book.
"LuLu (herself) absolutely feels the turmoil of what was sweeping through the Middle East," Lagnado said. "King Farouk was corrupt, but he also was a protector of this world."
Redel explained the historical facts behind her novel, which fictionalizes events occurring to the Quanza, a Portuguese ship that left Lisbon loaded with 317 people fleeing the Nazis, of whom 86 were denied entry to both the United States and Mexico. Her father was one of those who happened to be on the ship, and was ultimately was saved from being sent back to Nazi-controlled Portugal and Belgium by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
"I grew up knowing the story but knew nothing about [my father's] struggle," Redel said. "The question of secrets inside of a family -- I think there's probably not a family out there without some sort of secrets. What kept [my father] from sharing that? What do we need to know about the people we love?"
While writing the book, Redel said she constantly reminded herself that it wasn't about him. Nevertheless, he was a major source of information as she researched the history. It would come out informally, in pieces, over lunch.
Their backgrounds were geographically dispersed -- Cairo, Brussels, Brooklyn, and Istanbul -- but the books resonated with the more than 400 people in the audience at the Metuchen synagogue. After each author spoke about their craft and read a book excerpt, they sat at tables to meet the public and sign books. Amidst the compliments, authors were asked if they knew so-and-so from school or told about relatives who came from the same country.
Redel said it was such an encounter that changed her perspective on admitting how much of her novel mirrored her family's experiences. A woman had asked her several questions about her characters.
"She said ÔI am related to that family,'" Redel said.
Sofer's novel also depicts a fictionalized version of trials her father endured. In her case, her family's 1982 flight from Iran was prompted by the imprisonment of her father two years earlier. It was a difficult journey for the then 10-year-old who handled waves of homesickness by imagining what could have happened if the family hadn't left.
"Part of me remained in Tehran and the image of our abandoned house continued to haunt me," she said. "I'd think: What if we had stayed and my father was imprisoned again and what if that time he hadn't survived? I realized I'd never know exactly what happened to him. Working on the novel was my way to get as close as I could to him."
Mort Zachter's secret story was much less traumatic -- he was 36 years old when he found out his uncles had secretly amassed several million dollars in various investments. The revelation had been a shock to the man who'd grown up sleeping in the "dinette" of his family's one-bedroom apartment and whose family ran a day-old baked goods store in Manhattan's East Village.
"I grew up aware we were poor," Zachter said reading from his book Dough: A Memoir while the audience laughed. "My two bachelor uncles made my parents look rich. They lived in a housing project... and mom doled out information like it was sugar and the world was in a diabetic coma."
Laughter continued as he described his family in Princeton and Israel discussing who would play them should the book ever become a movie.
"My lovely wife of 22 years said Natalie Portman should play herself," Zachter said. "I said in that case I will play myself."
Naomi and Marshall Trachtenberg of East Brunswick have known Zachter for years. It was friendship that drew them to Sunday's event, but then the authors' stories drove them to purchase each book before heading home.
"Their presentation of their stories made it come alive and made me want to get the books," Naomi said. The stories, Naomi added, "are all close to home."