I had an astonishing experience when I visited the Goodreads.com website and attempted to link to my novels. Instead of my work, I ended up at this bizarre page. In shock, I checked the B&N link and what I discovered there made me post the following review: "This book is a total ripoff! As the author of the "Rashi's Daughters" historical trilogy as well as the Wikipedia article about them, I am outraged that a so-called publisher can download free material from the internet that I wrote and ask people to pay nearly $50 for it.
After googling the publisher, I discovered that I am one of many people appalled by this chicanery. Even more interesting, this whole enterprise may actually be a money-laundering scam.
I strongly urge both authors and readers to be aware of this company. Don't buy their 'books' and if you come across one on Amazon or B&N, and apparently they have 'published' hundreds of thousands of them, write a scathing review warning others away.
Here's a sweet video of my husband reading to our grandsons while I was away in the Carolinas.
Enjoy!
It’s been a very busy last few weeks as I visited and did programs in 8 cities in 12 days: Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Charlotte NC, followed by Hilton Head SC, Savannah GA, and Charleston NC. The later two cities have two of the oldest synagogues in America still in operation, and I got tours of both of them in addition to their beautiful historic districts. The locals may dislike all the Spanish Moss hanging from the trees, but I think it looks very romantic and Southern.
I’m writing this from the plane on my return flight to Los Angeles, which should be leaving in 15 minutes. I received the copyedited manuscript of “Rav Hisda’s Daughter” back from my editor at Plume just days before my Carolina’s book tour, with instructions to read it and accept, reject or rewrite anything they questioned or suggested changing – hopefully by Jan 27. And here I was scheduled to travel until Jan 26.
As it turned out, I had plenty of time in airports and on my two flights so far, not to mention squeezing in an hour here or there on my tour, to work. The vast majority of edits were grammatical, such as commas where none were needed or where dashes should be substituted, so it didn’t take me as long to deal with the occasional changes that required significant thought. To my embarrassment, the copyeditor caught a few places where I referred to something that hadn’t happened yet or had happened differently. As much as I was determined to avoid it, I also had two characters with the same name. That was an easy fix, just spell them differently.
Oy – it's been six weeks since I posted about the three difficult questions I needed to answer for my publisher Plume's author questionnaire. I promised to reveal my answers promptly, but obviously got distracted by putting together the last minute details on my upcoming Jan 15-24 book tour to North and South Carolina. If you live in those states, or know folks who live there, check my schedule and see if I'll be speaking in your town.
So here's the answer to question #1: If you could construct an interview for yourself, what questions would you want to be asked? If possible, could you provide the answers?
1. What motivated you to write about such an unusual topic as Rav Hisda's daughter?
I like learning subjects that most people don’t know about, and after doing some preliminary research, I realized that the 3rd-4th centuries were crucial times in the development of Judaism and Christianity, as well as the history of Babylonia under the Persians and Palestine/Israel under the Romans. Yet most people are unfamiliar with both these times and places. In addition, the place of women in these societies is even more obscure.
2. How did you, raised in a secular Jewish household, come to be interested in Talmud?
I was introduced to Talmud from reading Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen.” It was obvious that women didn’t study it, so when I heard of a woman’s Talmud class starting in Los Angeles, I signed up to see what this Jewish text was that women were excluded from learning. To my surprise, I fell in love with Talmud and have continued to study it for the last 20 years.
3. What was the most surprising thing you discovered in your research?
I had no idea how prevalent, and accepted, magic was in both Roman and Persian Empires during this time, In fact the word ‘magic’ comes from Magi, the Zoroastrian priests of Babylonia. While men were leaders of “official” religions, women were considered experts on spells, incantations, amulets, and other occult matters. When it came to protection from demons or the Evil Eye, people of all religions sought help from their local enchantress. The Talmudic rabbis were no strangers to sorcery, and some practiced it as well, with no hint of condemnation from the text.
4. With no education or experience in fiction writing, what gave you the confidence to start off with a trilogy of historical novels about such unknown people as Rashi and his daughters?
I was always a voracious reader of fiction, so when I discovered that Rashi’s had no sons, only learned daughters, I decided to try to flesh out their lives using the genealogy skills I’d developed researching my family’s ancestry. I was so fascinated by this that I became determined to write the novel that I wanted to read, one that contained my favorite elements – history, Judaism, romance, women’s lives, and Talmud [plus a happy ending]. I didn’t expect anyone except me to read it, and I had no intention of having it published. But a few friends insisted on reading the first draft, and then encouraged me to find a publisher.
Happy New Year. We saw an excellent movie for New Year's Eve, "Midnight in Paris." The hero, a screenwriter who hopes to find success as a novelist, is vacationing in Paris when he is magically transported back to the 1920's, what he imagines to be the golden time for writers. There he meets Hemingway, Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Dali, Picasso, and Cole Porter among others.
He also falls for a 1920's woman who wishes she was back in the 1890's, her imagined golden age. Of course when that happens, they meet Toulouse Latrec and is friends, who wish they were back in some earlier golden age. The movie ends with the hero realizing that there is no "golden age," as everyone imagines that things were better sometime in the past.
But I don't; I'll take the 21st century any day. Since I'm pushing 60 from above, I expect that for most of human history, when life expectancy was less than 40, I'd be dead for many years already. Most likely, I'd have died during childhood or in childbirth. As a woman, I'd be trapped in some patriarchic world where I'd be viewed as inferior to men, with only a slightly higher status than his other chattel. And being a Jew throughout most of recorded history was no picnic either.
Yet my job as a historical novelist is to make those olden times "golden" times for my readers. To let them experience the most interesting and entertaining parts of the past from their comfortable 21st-century easy chairs, while keeping them sheltered from the reality that, as Thomas Hobbs says, "life was poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
On that encouraging note, be thankful you're living in 2012.