Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
“When the capacity of Dachau grew from 5,000 to 50,000, I had to share my narrow bunk bed. First my bunkmate and I hated each other, but we soon realized that sleeping pressed together helped warm our emaciated bodies.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“Rushdie went on, ‘I just thought, There are various ways in which this event can destroy me as an artist.’ He could refrain from writing altogether. He could write ‘revenge books’ that would make him a creature of circumstances. Or he could write ‘scared books,’ novels that ‘shy away from things, because you worry about how people will react to them.’ But he didn’t want the fatwa to become a determining event in his literary trajectory” (“Defiance” by David Remnick, The New Yorker, 02/13&20/23). Writing takes courage, vision, and sometimes, heroic single-mindedness. For more literary thoughts, see REFLECTIONS.
My Goodreads and Amazon review of Better to Have Gone: Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville by Akash Kapur (Rating 5) – (Un)Holiness and (Dis)Harmony. Better to Have Gone by Akash Kapur is a biography of both a family and a community, Auroville, where the author and his wife grew up. The memoir is at once sympathetic to the visionaries who flocked to build this utopia in 1968, the heyday of intentional communities, and a heartbreaking critique of how idealism can succumb to fanaticism. The sprawling landscape of Auroville, in southern India, was conceived as a “reverse Tower of Babel,” where people from different corners of the world, speaking a multitude of languages, would live together in “concord and harmony.” Their shared tongue would be the yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the commune’s namesake, and the teachings of his anointed disciple, called “The Mother.” Initially, this utopia did not fare any better than the biblical edifice whose demise it proposed to reverse. While Auroville survived, it endured years of chaos, riven my factions that proved tragic for many well-intentioned people. Among them were the parents of the author’s wife, whose deaths Kapur sets out to investigate. It is noteworthy that he and his wife, attracted to modern-day ideals of escaping the American rat race, decided to move back to Auroville with their own children in 2004. While some members of the deceased families are eager to assign blame, Kapur is more motivated by a desire to explain and understand. We hear from people who could rightly be demonized but also from those who tried their best to help, and those who didn’t want to take sides but were nevertheless caught up in the hostilities. A writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I appreciate Kapur’s urge to humanize behavior that readers would otherwise be quick to condemn. As a cautionary tale, Better to Have Gone recognizes the inevitable destructiveness of human nature — in the way that many Bible stories can be read. But it also acknowledges the triumph of faith, a belief that this time, in this (other) way, we can aspire to do better and achieve a higher harmony.
“Our mother, said to have ‘hands like an angel,’ attended the Vienna Fashion Institute, and passed on her sewing skills to my sisters and me. It saved our lives. We became seamstresses in the camp, pulling threads from the confiscated clothes of dead prisoners to reuse in uniforms.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Pleas from Jewish leaders to help save Europe’s Jews were largely ignored. Many members of the U.S. State Department, led by Cordell Hull, were anti-Semitic. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“The SS marched us for hours until they began running away. Finally all the German soldiers disappeared. We came to a soccer field where soldiers in jeeps threw us chocolates, cookies, and cigarettes. People yelled, ‘The British are here, the British are here.’” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Unlike the mainstream white press, Black newspapers put the killing of Europe’s Jews on the front page, likening Nazis to southern white racists. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“Twice a day, no matter the weather, we stood outside for Zellappell (roll call). One day, a woman gave birth to a premature baby. No one knew she was pregnant. The tiny baby just slipped out. Still standing, we dug a hole with our feet in the sandy soil and buried it.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Historical Novel Review praised One Person’s Loss, saying in part, “Epstein paints a skillful picture of the tragedy of the Holocaust mirrored in miniature with each person. The use of a present-tense narrative voice in close third-person gives an immediate sense of the looming and unstoppable horror of the war as each suspected loss is confirmed.” Read the full Historical Novel Review of One Person’s Loss and learn more about the book One Person’s Loss in NOVELS. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, join the Historical Novel Society and receive a print copy of their quarterly magazine.
“Some sick prisoners tried to outwit SS selections. In the barracks kitchen, they rubbed scraps of beets on their cheeks to make them look red and healthy. It was risky, though, because sometimes healthy prisoners were picked to give blood for German soldiers.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
