Here’s some good news! At long last, my YA prequel to Book I – JOHEVED, “Rashi’s Daughter: Secret Scholar,” is now available on Amazon and through the publisher, JPS', website. In my opinion YA doesn’t mean young adult, but actually more like a preteen, age 10-15. In other words, this book is a G-rated reworking of Book I with some extra material at the beginning [it starts a year earlier], and all the R-rated scenes deleted. Much of the complicated Talmud discussions are gone, but not all of them, as well as the subplots involving Catharina, Baruch and Anna. Essentially “Secret Scholar” stops at the wedding, with no wedding night, and then jumps to the finale with Joheved about to give birth.
Please tell everyone that this is NOT Book III, which should be out next fall. I don’t want my readers to be disappointed. Of course my website is now updated with more material about “Secret Scholar,” so you may want to check it out. And for those of you who do read my new book, perhaps out of curiosity, don’t forget to post a glowing review on Amazon.com.
Again my personal life and my characters’ lives (as I write them) are intersecting. My stepmom, Eileen Anton, married to my dad for almost 20 years, died suddenly (as well as mysteriously and tragically) last Thursday night. I received a late-night call from paramedics and drove up to Santa Barbara early the next morning to be with my 90-year-old father. He just got out of the hospital the previous week after having a pacemaker installed, so this has been a total & horrible shock to everyone.
We're still waiting on news from the coroner, but Eileen wished cremation and a small non-religious memorial to scatter the ashes, so I'm not even sure when I would begin official Jewish mourning. I didn’t leave my dad’s house until Monday, but I’ll be at shul this Shabbat to say Kaddish [a Jew mourns with anyone in mourning for whom they would mourn themselves; i.e. I would mourn for my father, and he for his wife, so I mourn for her too, for his sake].
All this impacts Book III, which I’m close to completing, because it concludes with Rashi’s death. Rashi also died suddenly, right in the middle of dictating his Talmud commentary to son-in-law Judah, so his daughters and grandchildren would be greatly shocked and saddened. The same feelings I’m experiencing now. So when you eventually read that scene, know that his family’s pain was mine
Some of you may recall that when I was in Jerusalem in Dec 2006, I celebrated Rosh Hodesh Tevet with "Women at the Wall" and was honored with an aliyah. I just learned about a new documentary on the group and wanted to share it with you. For those in LA, it's playing this Sunday [June 15] and on the following Monday [June 23].
SNEAK PREVIEW SCREENING AT THE ISRAEL FILM FEST
PRAYING IN HER OWN VOICE
A NEW DOCUMENTARY BY AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR YAEL KATZIR
EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY RAVIT MARKUS AND DAN KAZTIR
FOLLOWED BY A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH RABBIS
LISA EDWARDS, NAOMI LEVY, AND LYNN BRODY
Sunday June 15th at 3pm
Sunset 5 in West Hollywood
Have a look at the trailer online.
The documentary Praying in her own Voice is a fascinating piece about Judaism, Feminism and Israel. It depicts the struggle of the Women of the Wall in the last few years for the right to pray, wear a talit and read from the Torah at the Western Wall. It includes commentary from some of the prominent women rabbis in LA: Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Naomi Levy, Rabbi Lynn Brody, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Rabbi Denise Eger and Rabbi Lisa Edwards.
Rabbi Levy, Rabbi Edwards, and Executive Producers Dan Katzir and Ravit Markus will attend a panel discussion after the film, moderated by Rabbi Brody. The film was directed by award winning director Yael Katzir and is an hour long, Hebrew and English, with English sub-titles.
I’m finally back to actual writing after an exhausting week of book business at BEA/Book Expo America, which met in my home town of Los Angeles for the first time in several years, instead of on the east coast. With my new YA novel, “Rashi’s Daughters: Secret Scholar,” coming out in late July, II spent much of my time at the JPS booth promoting it to visitors. I was also busy taking classes, visiting other booths of all sorts of interesting booksellers, plus meeting with my publisher, my agent, my editor and lots of folks in the Jewish book world. I was also interviewed for a podcast on a Jewish blog, but that’s another post.
At the JPS booth I picked up a copy of a book that might be of interest to my readers, “Swimming in the Sea of Talmud” by Michael Katz and Gershon Schwartz . The book is a good introduction to Talmud study and includes over 100 sugia (passages), including some I put in my books. A few are:
Berachot 60a – how loving your God with all your heart (from the Shema) means with both your inclinations, your yetzer tov and yetzer hara.
Shabbat 21b – debate between Shammai and Hillel over lighting the Hanukkah menorah
Pesachim 112a – R. Akiva says that when it comes to teaching Torah, the cow wants to nurse more than the calf wants to suckle.
Yevamot 63b – regarding procreation, Ben Azzai is accused of preaching well but not practicing well because he would rather study Torah than procreate.
Niddah 16b – a discussion of how “using the bed” in the daytime affects the child conceived.
I hope this whets your appetite for Torah study just in time for Shavuot. For those in the Los Angeles area, I will be drashing on Rashi, the Ten Commandments, and Creation at midnight on Sunday, June 8, at Beth Chayim Chadashim, 6000 W. Pico Blvd.
My previous post discussed finding out the names of characters who were real historical figures and how I dealt with too many people with the same names. Next I needed to invent names for both fictional characters, like Rashi's servants and neighbors, and real folks whose names were unknown, like Rashi's wife and the parnas' daughter-in-law. My first caveat was to avoid any names I'd already used for other characters. Another was to only choose names that were actually used in 11th century France.
This was a relatively simple matter for the non-Jews. I had several histories of medieval Champagne and I borrowed names from various members of nobility, such as Catharina, Milo and Guy. For the Jewish men, I was able to find plenty of names among the Tosafists and throughout the Responsa literature Unfortunately I did not have a nice list of names back in 1997 such as Wikipedia now provides.
Finding Jewish women's names was difficult, as very few texts are written by or about women. I felt free to use biblical names (Sarah, Rivka, Judita), because Jewish men were frequently named this way. However I knew that Jewish women also used secular names; the problem was which secular names. My main source was the Jewish Museum in Paris, which in 1998 had an entire room of medieval cemetery inscriptions, and luckily for me, of course men and women were equally represented. I collected a quite a list, including Johanna, Yvette and Fleur. Another source was a book about Chretien de Troyes, creator of the King Arthur romances, who may have been born a Jew. The author of this biography pointed out that nobody born Christian was named Chretien, only converts. He backed this up with lists of names for inhabitants of 12th century Troyes: Christian and Jewish, men and women. The women's names were especially useful and I appropriated Brunetta and Columbine.
Lastly, there were characters who never got a name, like the parchment maker. Believe it or not, I didn't want to burden my readers with too many names. I would have used less but my editor insisted that readers relate better to a character with a name, rather than someone merely being called 'Shmuli's grandfather' or 'Fleur's cousin.' So these folks got names, even if they only appeared in a scene or two.
As I approach the end of the first draft of Book III - RACHEL and try to tie up all the lose ends, I realize I have so many characters that I don't remember their names [don't worry, Book III will have a family tree to help you sort everyone out]. Creating names for all these people was quite a challenge. First of all, many of them are historical figures and I wanted to use their real names, if I could find them, even for obscure ones like members of Count Thibault's retainers. But learning these real names caused new problems, because some of these folks had the same name (as in real life where I once attend a bat mitzvah reception where all five men at my table were named David). But readers become confused if several characters have the same name, so I felt compelled to avoid this as much as possible.
For example with Rachel's son Shemiah vs. Meir's study-partner Shemayah, I kept their real names and used different spellings. I had a different tactic for all the Samuel's; also using the Hebrew, Shmuel, as well as a nickname, Shmuli. Unfortunately, there were a few times when I gave up and made up a completely new name even though I knew the correct one. There were already too many Eliezer's (even with variant spellings), so I named Miriam's third son Elisha instead. I know that Rachel's daughter was actually named Miriam, but secondary characters with the same name as the leads would have been far too confusing, so she became Rivka. Of course, I made up that name for Rashi's wife, whose true name has been lost to us. Actually, I didn't just make it up. I read a legend that said he married a woman named Rivka, but the tale was clearly false because it had Rivka as a duke's daughter. Another legend gave his wife's name as Miriam, but of course that was also impossible. I knew that neither his daughters or mother was named Rivka, so I went with it.
When I couldn't find a character's real name, or the character was completely fictional, I still wanted names that were authentic for the 11th century and for the country they lived in. How I did that will be in my next post.
I want to wish all my friends and fans a happy Pesach. For those of
you who are curious to see a photo of me and my grandson, Nathan,
here it is.
As usual , Rashi's family is celebrating a different holiday in my
writing than I am in real time. I am writing about Shavuot, which is
when boys started their religious study in medieval times. Also, Rashi
has a drash/commentary on the Ten Commandments in Machzor Vitry, which
my hevruta and I are about to study. Then I can incorporate this in
Book III - RACHEL.
Today was a good one on several fronts. I received my first look at JPS's cover for "Rashi's Daughter: Secret Scholar." You'll have to wait a little until it's final and I can post it on my website, but I can tell you that the style is very different from the adult books. Also, I was invited to speak about Rashi's Daughters at the Hadassah national convention this July in Los Angeles, which is quite an honor. On the home front, my 14-month-old grandson Nathan started walking without assistance, suddenly taking five or six steps at a time.
After spending two weeks on it, I finally finished the first draft of a scene in Book III - RACHEL where Eliezer teaches from the first chapter of Tractate Rosh Hanshana and explains how the Jewish calendar is calculated. It's an extremely complicated subject and Rashi's commentary is one of the most abstruse I've ever seen of his, considering his reputation for conciseness and clarity. It took me weeks just to make sure I understood it myself before I could even begin to try to explain it to my readers. This will be one of my longest Talmud sections, which you'll find in Chapter 24. I figured that if I'm curious about how the Jewish calendar works, my readers will be too.
Boy, a month has sure gone by quickly. I was out of town speaking
in Phoenix and Las Vegas, as well as several local gigs. Always the
most popular question, as well as the most common subject of my fan
mail, is: When is Book III coming out?
My contract with Plume says "Book III - RACHEL" is scheduled to be
released in Fall 2009, keeping with the two year span between MIRIAM
and JOHEVED. I am trying to keep that deadline, which involves getting
them the final draft in November 2008, but life keeps getting in the way.
Last month Dave and I closed escrow on a new house in West LA, and
we're now attempting to sell our current abode in Glendale. So I'm
constantly being distracted by urgent real estate paperwork, not to
mention the upheaval of sorting, packing, and moving 30 years worth of
stuff. Once my housing situation sorts itself out, which better be by
Passover, I'll have to put pedal to the metal to finish RACHEL asap.
As part of my research for "Book II - MIRIAM," I discovered many medieval Christian clerics who loved each other passionately and weren't ashamed to write about their feelings. Now, as I'm learning about the First Crusade as I write "Book III - RACHEL," I found a pair of young Jewish men, both sons of rabbis, from Cologne who could give those Christian fellows a lesson about love. Here's from a 12th century Jewish medieval account of their martyrdom in 1096:
Two young men, R. Samuel the bridegroom ben R. Gedaliah and Yehiel ben R. Samuel, were cherished in life - for they loved each other exceedingly and were not parted in death. When they decided to throw themselves into the water, they kissed each other, and held one another, and embraced one another by the shoulders, and wept for one another and said, "Woe for our youth ... Better to die here for the Holy One's great Name than the uncircumcised seize us and sully us with their evil waters. Yet I cannot bear to see the death of my friend." The pious ones ascended the tower, clasped one another by the hand, and threw themselves into the Rhine, and died together in the river. Thus they fulfilled the verse: "They were never parted in death." (sorry - I can't find what verse this is)
In light of my upcoming YA novel, I got an email from what has to be my youngest fan, a ten-year-old girl named Zoe from the Midwest. With her permission (and her mother's) I'm sharing what she thought about the adult content.
"Regarding the sex scenes, I thought they were interesting. I am interested in sex topics in general and thought it was educational the way you described the customs at that time. I did not find anything offensive. I had a pleasant feeling while I was reading the sex scenes. I was not shocked at all. They were presented very nicely. I never knew exactly what people do. Now I have a better idea. In our house we talk about everything. So I have the freedom to explore and ask about all sorts of topics that other families may find distasteful or taboo.
I thought there was too much discussion of Talmud. It was a little boring for me. On the other hand, having the Talmud intertwined throughout the story was cool because I like to learn about what the Talmud teaches. I thought it was really fun when bride and groom were advised to read certain things before the wedding night and for other relationship issues."
Some of my fans are aware that two years ago, JPS (Jewish Publication Society) approached me to write a YA (Young Adult) version of "Book I - JOHEVED." After some consideration, I realized that such a project would be interesting and not too difficult, and since many people have told me that they wish my book was more appropriate for preteens studying for Bnai Mitzvah, I agreed. I did most of the revision last summer, while "Book II - Miriam" was being readied for production, with the result that "Rashi's Daughter: Secret Scholar" will be out in June. Yes - this June!
"Secret Scholar" begins a year earlier than "JOHEVED" and stops at her wedding (without the wedding night). The YA version then ends with the birth of Rashi's grandson, as does the original novel. Much, but not all, of the Talmud study is omitted, as are the adult themes of the second half, as well as some of the minor characters. The flow of scenes is different, and hopefully better, as I made the chapters end with more cliff-hangers for example. I tried to use my improved writing skills to make "Secret Scholar" a better book than the one that inspired it.
This week I received the copy-edited version of "Secret Scholar" to check and make any final corrections. So I stopped writing "Book III - RACHEL," which is at Fall 1096, and went back 30 years in my Rashi family saga to the year before Rachel's birth - a rather disorienting experience. JPS is still thinking about a cover design, so if you know of a nice piece of art depicting a medieval girl, let me hear about it.
