Author: annsepstein@att.net

Ann S. Epstein is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays.

Learn History Through Fiction: Italians Not Welcomed

Southern European immigrants, including Italians, were not welcomed in the United States. On December 18, 1880, a New York Times editorial titled “Undesirable Emigrants” railed against the arrival of “promiscuous, filthy, wretched, lazy, criminal dregs [from] the meanest sections of Italy.” Read more about Italian-Americans in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

What I’m Reading: White Houses by Amy Bloom

My Amazon and Goodreads review of White Houses (Rating 5): A Smooth Puree of Fact and Fiction. Fact #1 is that Eleanor Roosevelt is the famous person, dead or alive, with whom I most want to have dinner. (Although if she were setting the menu, I would follow the advice given to visitors when she was First Lady and eat beforehand.) Fact #2 is that Amy Bloom has concocted a gourmet meal in White Houses, a smooth purée blending truth and imagination that is both tender and raw, and intriguing and intrigue-filled. Eleanor’s portrayal matches the idealized figure of my dream dinner companion. The humanitarian champion comes across as authentic, compassionate, wise, and a lot looser than her elegant posture suggests. But Lorena Hickok is the star of the book. The talented journalist and First Lady’s purported lover is sharp-tongued, self-aware, and devoted, a scrappy woman who knows what it means to scrape bottom. As a writer of historical fiction myself, I urge readers on social media to “learn history through fiction.” I am also delighted if, when I finish creating a manuscript, I have forgotten what is and is not true. As a reader of White Houses, I can attest that Amy Bloom accomplishes both in this fine book.

Thank You, Jerry Seinfeld

Now I understand why I roll up a weaving and put it in a trunk when it is finished, and I don’t like to reread a story or novel once it’s completed. Interviewer: When you’re flipping channels and you come across a “Seinfeld” rerun, do you flip right past it or do you linger? Seinfeld: Right past. I think there’s a level of focus you need to get something to a certain point creatively, and you pay a price for that, which is you can’t ever look at it again. (From “Jerry Seinfeld Says Jokes Are Not Real Life” Interview by Dan Amira, The New York Times Magazine, 08/19/18, p. 58). For more thoughts on writing, see REFLECTIONS).

 

 

Learn History Through Fiction: Victory Parade 100 Years Ago

A World War One victory parade was held in New York City on September 10, 1919 to honor General John J. Pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), and 25,000 soldiers who had served in the AEF’s 1st Division on the Western Front. Read more about the parade, an uncle’s search for his missing nephew, active duty and the home front in the First World War, and the life of an immigrant family on NYC’s Lower East Side during this era in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Persuasive “Doll Test” Studies

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was influenced by UNESCO’s 1950 statement “The Race Question,” which scientifically and morally condemned racism, and by the research of Harvard psychologists Kenneth & Mamie Clark whose “doll test” studies showed how racism hurt the self-esteem of young black schoolchildren. Read more about race relations in Topeka 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Tansy an Ancient Method of Abortion

In the early 1900s, tansy was a frequent choice to induce abortion. The perennial flowering plant, native to Eurasia and found throughout mainland Europe, had been used there as an abortifacient since the Middle Ages. Although ineffective and toxic to the liver in large doses, poor women used it because the cost of a doctor’s abortion was $25 to $75, or two to six times the average weekly wage. Read more about abortion options for women 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

When a Ten-Hour Work Day Was Progress

In Bunting v. Oregon (1917), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 10-hour work day for men and women and required businesses to pay time-and-a-half for overtime up to three hours a day. It granted states the right to let workers and their employers implement a wage scheme agreeable to both. However, minimum wage laws were not changed until 20 years later. Read more about labor conditions and labor laws over the last century in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS https://www.asewovenwords.com/novels/).

Learn History Through Fiction: The Uprising of the 20,000

In November 1909, 23-year-old labor activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson led a strike of 20,000 women to protest the working conditions in New York City’s garment industry. Male union leaders had cautioned against the strike, but in February 2010 the “Uprising of the 20,000” got factory owners to agree to a 52-hour work week and recognition of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), which subsequently achieved better safety regulations and higher wages. One holdout was the Triangle Waist Company, where just a year later, in 1911, a fire killed 146 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. Read more about the Triangle Waist Company fire and immigration in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS). Learn more about this labor pioneer in BEHIND THE STORY.

Lively TAZIA AND GEMMA Book Reading

Great audience turnout and lively Q & A for the Tazia and Gemma book reading and signing at Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor on July 31. I read narrative passages from the first Tazia section and my daughter Rebecca joined me to read the mother-daughter interview from the first Gemma section. I encourage city residents and visitors alike to visit this premier downtown independent bookstore. Thanks to Literati for hosting and to all who attended the Tazia and Gemma event. For a complete list of my publication events see NEWS; to read more about my books see NOVELS.