​We have a history, Dracula and me.  When I was thirteen, I read half of Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time. I was petrified. I'm not completely sure just what terrified me at that time- but there was something beyond the fact that I was a highly sensitive young person who scared easily and tended to avoid horror stories. Something about a beloved person dying and then transforming into a monster that would destroy everyone she loved frightened me to the point that I couldn't sleep.
 
Now I wasn't completely stupid, even at thirteen. My rational mind did know it was fiction and that vampires didn't really exist. At least I knew that in the light of day. But when the sun set and we all went to bed, my irrational mind took over. I still remember lying awake, hearing branches brush against the windowpanes, and worrying whether it was Dracula trying to get into my house. In the morning after a sleepless night, I asked my parents if I could have a crucifix -- since in the book that was the one thing that would keep Dracula at bay.
 
I'm Jewish. Proudly Jewish. My parents -- even more so.
 
My parents, with the knowledge that vampires aren't real but with the additional knowledge that they had a scared and slightly crazy young teen who had stayed up all night, came up with a compromise. My father bought me a mezuzah necklace - a small silver cylinder that contains the holiest prayer in Judaism, the Shema.  If I wore it, it would keep off vampires, my father told me. I wasn't so sure. I wasn't convinced that vampires would recognize or fear Jewish prayers. I wore it anyway, and it did calm me down. (I still wear the mezuzah not to ward off vampires but in memory of my father.) 
 
I also returned Dracula to the library without finishing it. 
 
It was years before I took up Dracula again and finished it. By then, I was in college and more in control of my mind -- or as in control as anyone in college might be. I never forgot how powerfully the book had affected me at the age of thirteen, but by that point I could analyze books with a bit more skill. I noted with amusement the association of evil and sexuality, how the descriptions of women who were not vampires emphasized their purity, and those of vampires, their sexuality. I was also fascinated by the origins of the Dracula myth -- how Stoker had incorporated real history into the creation of his vampire, that of a Romanian ruler from the Middle Ages, known alternatively as Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler, who had particularly sadistic methods of execution.
 
(As a side note, when I created my villain for Trojan Horse, the first of my thriller novels, I reached back into that early terror. I couldn't resist. My villain Mihai Cuza, an anti-Semitic descendant of Vlad the Impaler, has nothing of the supernatural about him, but he likes to imitate his ancestor when killing people and he's particularly sadistic towards my Russian-Jewish protagonist.)
 
But interestingly, an article I recently read about Dracula has changed my perspective on that thirteen-year-old experience. Rob Silverman-Ascher recently wrote "The Antisemitic History Of Vampires" in the publication Alma. I had never made the association between anti-Semitic stereotypes and Dracula, but once he laid it out, I was convinced.
 
First, Dracula's physical description emphasized a hooked nose and bushy hair, both of which occur in caricatures of Jewish people. He hoards wealth. His house, while large was “that neglected that yer might ‘ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it.” - Chapter 17, page 7.  The choice of Jerusalem -- interesting.
 
According to the article, Dracula was written in the time period when Jewish immigrants, fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe for London, were being described as a "parasitical race with no ideals beyond precious metals" in the British periodical, The Spectator.  Silverman-Ascher also notes that Dracula is Eastern European, with an accent, and he is the ultimate parasite, just as Jews have been described as parasites. Dracula exists off the blood of the living, invoking images of the blood libel --  Jews killing Christian babies to make matzah -- that has been the rationale for massacres of Jews for centuries. Then there's the even creepier stuff - the sexual degeneracy terms used to describe Dracula's preying on young innocent Christian women - that parallels how Jews were portrayed as preying on beautiful German women in Nazi propaganda.
 
And finally, the coup de grace, Dracula cannot bear the sight of a cross or the touch of Christian objects. Yup, Jewish caricature.
 
Maybe what should have frightened my thirteen-year-old self was not the thought of Dracula breaking into my house but the thought that anti-Semitic tropes were used to create him and that those kind of tropes were used as justification for murdering people like me and my parents in the years before my birth. 
 
That doesn't mean we should ban Dracula. Just be aware that it does use troubling anti-Semitic stereotypes - as well as outdated ideas about sexuality.  And the modern versions of Dracula, as noted in Silverman-Ascher's article, have moved away from the more problematic tropes to more diverse and less frightening imagery of vampires - for example Twilight's shiny and helpful vampires who drink animal blood. I personally have a lot of fondness for Spike and Angel - the sometimes good, sometimes bad vampires from the late 1990s, early 2000s television series -Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
 
Anyway, it's Halloween. Who doesn't love a good vampire story at Halloween?

 The outrage at the use of non-Jewish actors to play Jewish characters on television and in movies has received a lot of coverage lately and has sparked good conversations about how Jews are treated differently than other minorities when it comes to casting. But just as important as discussing the choices in casting Jewish characters is discussing the types of Jewish Americans characters who appear in books, on television, and in film.
 
In an age of rising anti-Semitism, it's more critical than ever to have Jewish American action type heroes. But finding Jewish American action heroes isn't easy, and portraits of Jews, for the most part, remain depressingly familiar. As a Jewish American writer of thrillers, I found it disturbing on both a personal and a professional level.
 
Jewish action heroes in books or film generally fall into two categories - Jewish resistance heroes in World War II or Israeli tough guys - like Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon. Ever since Leon Uris penned Exodus and created Ari Ben Canaan, ( who was played in the movie by the gorgeous Paul Newman) Israelis, love them or hate them, have been portrayed as tough and smart protagonists in novels and on television. If there are Jewish secret agents or action figures in non-World War II fiction of any kind, they will be Israelis. Not American Jews. For non-Israeli Jewish heroes, look to World War II. While books and media about the Holocaust, often portray Jews as victims or as being rescued by brave non-Jews, occasionally Jews do inhabit more heroic roles. Inglourious Bastords shows a Jewish American military unit killing Nazis. Defiance depicted the acts of Jewish partisans. In novels, John Hersey's The Wall and Leon Uris' Mila 18 portray the heroism of the Jews who mounted the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 
 
It's much rarer to see American Jews portrayed as heroic in film or television in a contemporary setting - risking their lives to stop evil.  There is the Amazon Prime television show Hunters - in which Al Pacino leads a group to fight against a Nazi threat in the United States. But these kinds of shows are rare. On television, Jewish American characters are more likely to be depicted in leading roles in comedies rather than in leading roles in suspense or thrillers: Seinfeld, the Amazing Mrs. Maisel, the Goldbergs, the Nanny, the New Girl. Unfortunately, comedies all too often get their jokes from playing up Jewish stereotypes - the loud and obnoxious Jewish mother in the Goldbergs, the Jewish American Princess, as personified by the shoe and hat conscious Midge. Beyond those explicit caricatures, Jewish American characters tend to be shown as intelligent but neurotic, maladjusted, and of course, cheap.
 
I was recently struck by the lack of fully rounded Jewish characters in television while watching the last season of a popular television detective show, placed in Los Angeles. In the city of Los Angeles, Jews make up seventeen percent of the population, the largest Jewish community outside New York and Israel. But in this show, which has depicted the Latino and the Black community and characters with depth and sympathy, I can remember no characters explicitly identified as Jewish - until the final season when a rich man arrested for a Ponzi scheme identifies himself as Jewish (and there was no reason for him to claim a Jewish identity) in a conversation with his attorney. Not only had the Jewish culture of Los Angeles been ignored in the series, the only character who is openly named as Jewish in the series is someone whose depiction as a rich, greedy, dishonest coward would have won approval from Goebbels.
 
So what about the world of literature?  
 
There is of course a wider range of Jewish American portraits in novels than on television. Literary fiction is filled with sympathetic Jewish American characters, but not necessarily action heroes. There are some mysteries with Jewish American protagonists. Faye Kellerman writes a detective series with a Jewish police detective; Henry Kemelman wrote novels with a mystery solving rabbi; Michael Chabon wrote The Yiddish Policemen's Union. 
 
But I mainly read suspense and thrillers, especially in the espionage realm. And I remain unaware of Jewish American protagonists or heroes in the thriller genre, and especially in the world of espionage. Harlan Coben comes pretty close with his Myron Bolitar series, but Myron , the Jewish character, is a sports agent, not a secret agent, who leaves much of the heavy violence to his deadly buddy, Win.
 
Why does it matter?
 
I've been thinking about this lately in part because I write an espionage thriller series with a American Jewish immigrant to the United States from Russia as the hero. (Check out Trojan Horse and Nerve Attack on my other pages.) And yes, there is some self-interest in promoting my own work. But, I'm also thinking about it because of the rise in anti-Semitism.
 
In recent years, the old stereotypes about Jews that had been driven underground have remerged, and this is not helped by media and books that show Jews as victims, or worse, as intelligent neurotics, as money hungry, bossy, loud, or, as in the case of the seventh season of the detective show mentioned above, financial criminals.
 
And while American Jews do work in the CIA and American Jews are members of the military in real life, they still face discrimination. According to a discrimination lawsuit filed by a Jewish attorney fired by the CIA, not only was he accused of dual loyalties, but he was described as being "rich" and having a "wealthy" father. Separately, Darrell Blocker, a 28-year veteran of the CIA and a Jewish Black American, in a 2020 interview described the suspicion with which his Jewish colleagues were regarded, suspicion which he ironically avoided because colleagues perceived him as a Black American rather than as a Jewish American.
 
To combat prejudice, it's necessary to break stereotypes. American Jews work in the intelligence field and the military in real life, and we should see them in those kind of roles in novels and television, not just as doctors, lawyers, bankers, comedians, writers. Fictional characters have the power to engage our sympathy and admiration. It's important to see members of non-mainstream groups, and this includes Jews, in different kinds of roles, especially, in the role of heroes, in the vital fight against prejudice. 
 
Books, movies, or television won't defeat those who will persist in their hatred. Having more Jewish American heroes won't muzzle neo-Nazis, and it will take a lot more than simply changing the roles inhabited by Jewish characters to counter the rise in anti-Semitism. But it's a start.  Fiction, television, and movies play critical roles in our society in enlarging empathy, in allowing us to understand and identify with people other than those in our own circles, and by portraying minorities in non-stereotypical roles, start to change perception. 
 
It's time for more Jewish American action heroes.
 
 

Netflix viewers have discovered Jews and Judaism through a series of television shows starting with Shtisel, about the loves and travails of the Ultra-orthodox in Jerusalem, and moving on to Unorthodox and My Unorthodox Life - about women leaving the Ultra-orthodox community for greater freedom. 
 
As a Jew, I understand that the Ultras only represent a small fraction of the Jewish community - that Jews come in various sizes, shapes, and belief systems, but that this may be confusing for  non-Jews who may see the shows on Netflix but not personally know much about the Jewish community. As a public service, I am offering the following rough guide to the Jewish people in the United States. It is not comprehensive by any means, and I will undoubtedly leave out people and groups, and offend someone or other. 
 
There is also some self-interest here - since I'm Jewish and I write a spy series with a Russian Jewish immigrant who is working as an American spy. (The two books in the series are Trojan Horse and Nerve Attack. Check out my books on my other pages.) It helps if people understand just what it means to be Jewish. 
 
Here goes:
 
First, who is Jewish? To be Jewish does not mean believing in anything in particular. It means that you are a member of the Jewish people. And that's who? Under traditional Jewish law, a person with a Jewish mother or a person who converts to Judaism is Jewish.  That means that a person with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother would NOT be considered Jewish traditionally unless that child formally converted. If a Jewish person formally converts to another religion, they are no longer considered Jewish. (Messianic Jews are not considered Jewish by the Jewish community. Nor are members of the Black Israelite movement who tend to blend some Jewish practices with Christianity - but I'm not diving into that can of worms.) However, in some parts of the Jewish community, the exclusion of people with a Jewish father but non-Jewish mother is changing. In 1983, American reform rabbis (see below for reform) determined that a person with a Jewish father but non-Jewish mother was Jewish if that person was raised as a Jew, practices Judaism, and identifies as a Jew. (Note: The reform definition is not accepted by the Orthodox or the State of Israel. Also note: generally, the Orthodox only recognize those converted under Orthodox rules as Jews.  Further note: people selected for extermination as Jewish under the Third Reich were people who had two Jewish grandparents of any gender, regardless of whether they had converted - or their parents had converted - to Christianity. One Jewish grandparent was sufficient for being killed if a person married a Jew or was associated with the Jewish community.)
 
Ethnicity: I'm going to pass quickly over this one but suffice it to say that while the majority of Jews in this country are Ashkenazi, with a history in Western and Eastern Europe, (and who can physically look like what is generally considered "Jewish" or can be blond and blue-eyed) although the Ashkanazie are genetically closer to Middle Eastern people than to Europeans, Jews encompass a wide variety of ethnicities: Sephardic Jews - from Spanish countries, Mizrahi Jews - from Middle Eastern and North African countries, Ethiopian Jews, known as Beta Israel, Black Jews, and Asian Jews. Don't assume that someone is Jewish or not by their looks. 
 
The various religious (and not)  denominations
 
Secular Jews: There are Jews do not go to services or follow any of the religious rules, but who still identify as Jewish. (See the above definition of who is a Jew.) Secular Jews can be atheist or agnostic, they can also believe in some form of God, but they do not belong to any organized denomination or synagogue. They may be proud of the history, the accomplishments, and the cultural aspects of Judaism. They may appreciate or celebrate some Jewish holidays, like Hanukah or Passover, - or not. They may also believe in tikkun olam, which literally means to heal the world - and engage in social action.  As an aside, the protagonist in my novels is a secular Jew - who very much believes in working for a better world - i.e. tikkun olam, although he never calls it that.
 
Reform Judaism: The largest American Jewish denomination, began in Germany in the 1800s, Reform Judaism doesn't require adherence to the very extensive Jewish law known as halakha. Reform Judaism seeks to integrate Jewish practices with an evolving society and culture. Although some reform Jews do observe laws such as the laws on kosher food, adhering or not to halakha is a matter of personal choice. Reform Jews use electricity and cars on holidays and Shabbat, services have more English and are substantially shorter. It is socially and politically progressive. Women have full equality in services. Officially, reform Judaism is supportive of the LGBTQ movement, including the transgender community and those who are gender non-conforming. Social action is an important feature.
 
There are other smaller groups that are somewhere between reform and conservative- Reconstructionists, Jewish Renewal, Humanist Jewish - but I'm writing a blog, not a thesis. Sticking to the major points.
 
Conservative Judaism: Conservative Judaism seeks to retain much of the traditional practices of Judaism and is considered midway between Reform and Orthodox. Services are conducted in Hebrew and are not dissimilar in content to those of the Orthodox. Conservative Jews are expected to keep kosher and follow more of the traditional halakha. However, in Conservative synagogues, men and women sit together, women can be rabbis and have full equality in religious rituals, Conservative Jews can drive to the synagogue, and they can stream religious services.
 
Modern Orthodox:  If you watched Shtisel, you might remember when one of the main characters asked with a curled lip of disgust - "What am I, Modern Orthodox?" Modern Orthodox follow the rules of traditional halakha, the kosher laws, no use of cars or electronics on Shabbat or designated holidays, services are segregated by gender, and while women can lead prayers in all-women groups, they do not participate in minyans, read the Torah in mixed services, or act as rabbis. There is some variability on whether women cover their hair or whether they can wear pants. However, Modern Orthodox, other than obeying the religious laws, live in the 21st century. They work as doctors, lawyers, teachers, computer scientists, government employees - at all possible jobs - as long as they can do so while observing the law. They watch television and movies, read novels (and write them), participate in sports, and wear clothes that while reasonably modest, are also reasonably modern. And by "they" - I mean men AND women.  
 
Ultra-orthodox: The alternative word for the Ultra-orthodox is Haredin. We're now into Shtisel territory. These are the Jews who wear the black suits and black hats, the women who always cover their hair and never wear pants. Strict adherence to Jewish law - like the Modern Orthodox - but also rejection of much of modern society. No movies, no television, very little if any interaction between the ultras and anyone outside the community - from less observant Jews to non-Jews. In fact, some of them would regard a Jew like me as not Jewish. (With the exception of certain Hasidic sects like the Lubavitchers who try to lure less observant or secular Jews back into the observant fold.) While technology may be used, the internet is limited, and smart phones forbidden or strongly discouraged. The role of women is also strictly prescribed. Not only is seating segregated by gender in synagogues - during services, women sit in balconies or behind screens so that men can't even catch a glimpse of them. Some Ultras in Israel not only want women to have separate seating areas on busses, refuse to sit next to women on planes, but want to eliminate even the images of women in public ads or newspaper photographs. Large families are common and encouraged. However, in an interesting role reversal, it is usually the Haredin women who work outside the home so that their husbands will be free to pursue a life of studying the Torah, and many Haredin women see themselves in partnership with their husbands in creating a religious home. The ultra-orthodox are also split into two groups - the Hasidic, who are the spiritual descendants of a religious reform movement in the 18th century that sought to inject joy into observance and who engage in ecstatic prayer, and the Yeshivish, who reject the Hasidic movement and put more emphasis on intellectual study. Television shows like Shtisel have made them more sympathetic, even to me - who as a Jew somewhere between secular and reform, isn't all that thrilled about their practices, especially with regards to women.  
 
And with that - I'm ending my rough guide. This is meant to be a starting place - for those who have little knowledge of Jews or Judaism, not the total sum and knowledge. I probably left out some small groups. I'm sure I left out details or made some mistakes. Feel free to point them out, and I will feel free to ignore you. What I hope I conveyed was the complexity of the community and the wide range of practices engaged in by people who identity as Jewish.  For more information, check out My Jewish Learning online or the many, many books that have been written about Jews and Judaism from different perspectives.
 
 

I've been thinking about age lately, not just because I, like everyone else, am aging, but because I'm thinking time and my series. When you start writing a series that you hope will run for years, you need to think about the age of the characters - and how quickly they will age. Especially if you're writing a thriller series where the characters wind up putting themselves in danger - at what age do you start and at what rate do they grow older?

It seems like a silly question - but I've seen authors who didn't realize they would be writing a series for twenty years regret choices they'd made about age. If you start a character in her late forties - which is still, in my book, reasonably young  - and you age the character in real time, i.e., you put out a book a year, twenty years later, your character is approaching seventy - which is a little old to be trading punches or climbing walls.

Daniel Silva, who writes the Gabriel Allon character in his espionage thriller, tied his character to a real historical event - the justice exacted by Israel on the killers of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. His character is now in his late sixties. It's still a good series, but Gabriel is getting a little long in the tooth to be personally wrestling with terrorists. Not that it stops him - but at some point, it will become questionable. 

On the other hand, Miss Marple, in Agatha Christie's books, started out as a little old lady and never seemed to change. Of course,  her activities were knitting, figuring out clues,  and being adorable, activities that can be done as easily at an older age as at a younger age.

Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky, both writing women detectives who were more likely to get shot or shoot back than Miss Marple, had different approaches. Sara Paretsky initially aged VI Warshawsky in real time. Books are published a year apart, and V.I. aged that year in between. However, in 2010, Paretsky changed V.I.'s birth year from 1950 to 1957. Kinsey Millhone in Sue Grafton's book did not age in real time. The events in Sue Grafton's books, although also published a year apart, took place almost immediately after the events of the previous book.  But that made for a little caginess about in what year her book were taking place.

So what have I decided? I don't know if I'll be writing the Kolya Petrov series for twenty years - but maybe. I really like him, Alex, and the supporting cast. So I'd like to leave my options open. This means that I'd like him to do some aging, but not so much that I can't send him off on dangerous missions.

I've made two decisions. I started Kolya and Alex at approximately age 34 or so, which is damn young, and gives me a little flexibility.  And 34, while young, is still old enough that both of them have had sufficient time to gain a reasonable level of experience and accomplishment in their professions of secret agent and attorney, respectively. But I'm also making the decision that the time in the books will not exactly correspond to real time. The events of Nerve Attack are close to real time - they happen eight months after the events in Trojan Horse, and the book will be published almost a year after Trojan Horse. The events of the book I'm working on now are four months after Nerve Attack, and the book will be published in the summer of 2022 (assuming I finish it).  So in two years, Kolya and Alex will have aged one year. Which means that if both I and the series last twenty years, Kolya'll be somewhere in his forties, still young enough to be that active character that I'm writing, but not so old that I would feel guilty at forcing him to hang off the side of a cliff.  After all, the series is in something of an alternative world - the President and all the politicians are fictional (although Bernie Sanders exists in this world) and there is no Covid - so why not bend time a little?

So what do you think? If you're a writer of a series - what decisions have you made about your character's age? If you're a reader - what age do you prefer for the protagonist - and do you have any thoughts about whether they should age in real time?

Last night, I woke up around midnight and then spent half an hour staring at the ceiling and asking myself why  write novels. It takes me at least a year to go from idea to book - numerous hours actually writing, then there's the obsession time, when I'm thinking about what I'm writing.  When I'm not writing, I feel guilty. Then there are times when I just stare at my computer, not sure what to write next, or the times when I decide that what I've written is total crap.

Writing swallows most of my day. It's absorbing, and on occasion, infuriating and painful.

I do have other interests. Guitar, French, photography, chess. I love to bike and cross country ski, in the appropriate seasons. I'd like to go back to riding horses someday before I'm too old to do so. Yet I spend my days with imaginary people in imaginary worlds.

When I was practicing law, I earned something between $300 and $500 an hour. My first novel, Trojan Horse, came out last October. I couldn't even begin to calculate how many hours I put into writing and editing the numerous drafts. I've had wonderful reviews. A prominent British critic listed Trojan Horse as one of the best thrillers of 2020 and yet my sales have been less than overwhelming.  I would have made more money practicing law for one hour instead of the hundreds of hours I put into this book. My financial bottom line for Trojan Horse, considering all the money I've put into marketing is probably a negative several thousand dollars.

Last night, I was thinking about the obvious truth that, setting aside the superstars like Lee Child or Michael Connelly, the people really making money at writing these days aren't authors of fiction. They are the services selling reviews, selling tips on how to be a best selling author, selling advertising, selling the opportunity to give your book away while offering the hope that  people will read it for free, like it, and then shell out money for your next book. 

Okay, I knew all this going into writing my novels. (I'm on my third Kolya Petrov novel now, the second in the series will be out in September.) I'm fortunate in that I don't need to live on my earnings as a writer. I write, like so many of us, because I feel empty when I'm not writing, because I love creating stories and characters and living in the world of my imagination. Still, nevertheless, there is ego involved here.  I would like to be more successful in selling my books, although I'm going to be damn careful about the services I use to get there.   It's easier to justify how much time I put into writing when there is a tangible reward. There is another reason why I want to be successful, though: to share my stories and my characters on a bigger scale than I do now. The  more successful authors share their stories with thousands of people, and book clubs and organization are thrilled to have them speak. I have to admit, I have an ego. I'd like to have a few more people wanting to read my books and hear me speak.

 The ego is a terrible taskmaster, isn't it? 

This gets me to the incident yesterday which probably prompted my ceiling staring session - although in retrospect I think this could have been an episode on Shitts Creek.

I had joined a very small  - 3-4 people -  local book club and the  scheduled book for the month of March was my book, Trojan Horse. I looked forward to this session for days. I knew it would be only a few people but I thought we'd discuss the themes, the characters, how and why I made artistic choices in writing in book. Have I mentioned that I love talking about my books?

So I signed on to the Zoom for the book club hour. There were two other people on initially, a woman maybe in her eighties and a man, maybe in his fifties or sixties, who, I believe, had been a professor of something. The guy told me he couldn't read my book because of the violence in it. For him, it wasn't just that there was torture but that a woman had been murdered in the opening of my book. Because he's very tuned into the horror of violence against women, although the most explicit violence in the book is experienced by a man."Okay," I said. I understood. I do know that some people have problems with the level of violence. 

The older woman told me that she read the book.  The torture scenes bothered her, but it was a real page turner, and she couldn't put it down. And that was all she had to say about it. I talked about why I wrote explicit torture scenes in Trojan Horse - which actually had to do with the deeper theme of morality and choices: that these scenes were necessary for readers to appreciate the level of betrayal of the character and also raise the issue of characters willing to go along with an evil that they didn't personally witness.  That discussion took five minutes because it was basically a monologue. No one wanted to actually discuss it.  

So fifteen minutes into what I'd thought would be an interesting discussion of Trojan Horse, the two other participants started throwing out the names of books to read next time. The guy, who found my book too violent to read, wanted to read a book about a man volunteering to be sent to Auschwitz to try to organize a revolt. He couldn't read my book because of the violence - but he wanted to read about people in Auschwitz?

Another woman joined the group fifteen minutes into our session. She also was probably in her eighties, and she had trouble getting her mike or her camera to work. She hadn't read my book, either. Apparently, she hadn't even tried. Once we got her sorted, the guy who found my book too violent but was fine with reading about Auschwitz launched into a forty minute narrative about his family background, his family name, what other books he was reading, what he thought about the other books he was reading. He talked about his family leaving Israel - and I realized he meant the expulsion of Jews from what was then their home in around 79 A.D. (We were an all Jewish group - so his family's expulsion from the land of Israel in 79 A.D. wasn't exactly unique to him.) Our newest arrival thought he meant that his family had left Israel within the last few years, prompting a five minute session to explain that he was telling the story of his family's migration over two thousand years. Then the hour was up.

My husband later noted the irony: that a man who was so deeply woke about how women were treated that he claimed he couldn't read my novel had hijacked a meeting that was supposed to be discussing a book written by a woman - to talk about himself.

​I wound up both infuriated and amused, both because of the absurdity of the man taking it over and at my own reaction to it.  That session was supposed to be about me, damnit. About my book. Not about his family or family names. Ego really does take over sometimes, doesn't it? His - and mine.

Dibs on this scene for a comedic novel in the future.

So why do I write? Still don't exactly know, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that my first reaction to the book club session that I just described was to mark it down for later inclusion in a novel. All of which circles back to the fact that I write  because I can't imagine not writing.

My second novel, Nerve Attack, will be out in September. If you haven't yet read Trojan Horse, please check it out on Amazon. https://amzn.to/318VaGy 

I am in the realm of in-between. I just turned in my latest manuscript, Nerve Attack, which will be coming out from Encircle Publications on September 22, 2021, and I haven't yet started a new novel. I have lots of books to read for research, a number of ideas, but I haven't even started an outline. So I am in-between. I thought I'd like being here. Right now, I'm not so sure.

From my window, I can see the hillside covered in snow and the rare vision of sunlight illuminating tree branches and turning the dull white of the hill into glistening diamonds. It won't last long - more snow is expected this afternoon and then for the next three days. It's Vermont. In other years, I would be out cross country skiing. (Actually, to be honest, in other years, I wouldn't be here, I'd be in Florida. Most years we spend January and February close to Ft. Lauderdale. We still get plenty of winter when we return to Vermont since snow in April is not uncommon, but deep winter can be on the grim side.) This year, though, I'm staying close to home. Which is one of the reasons being in between is something of a pain.

Yes, I do have plenty I can do. I have way too many hobbies from playing guitar to taking photographs to learning French. Thanks to my daughter, I recently discovered on-line chess and I've been playing several games a day against the computer. There's a stack of novels I'm working on, and I love reading.   And while I am not going out to trails to cross country ski, I have a lovely big yard, where I periodically traipse through the snow  and woods that are lovely, dark, and deep.

(I also could clean my house and do laundry, but that's a whole other subject.)

But I was doing most of the above when I was still working on Nerve Attack. (Except cleaning my house.) My mornings were for writing and editing, but I would take periodic breaks to indulge in my various hobbies. Working on a book gives my day focus. Purpose. Yes, I have more time now to play, but I don't feel like it.  I feel like something's missing. I'm waiting. And even if you have plenty to do, who really likes waiting?

And, by the way, aren't we all in-between at the moment? Waiting for something to start. In many ways, we've been on pause for a year (maybe four years) - and we can see the  end, but we're not there yet.

We all have lots of things that we say we'd do if we had the time. But what happens when we do have too much time? How much do we really do? Because we don't just need things to do, even fun things to do. We need purpose and direction. And that's what I find to be problematic about being in-between. 

I initially thought I'd take a few weeks off from writing, but since I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would - maybe I'll start on my outline today or tomorrow.  My chess game may suffer, but that's okay. I'm lousy. 

Here's to all of us ending our national in-betweenness as well. 

I've been working on the next book in the Kolya Petrov series, which is due at my publisher's by the end of November. I probably should be writing the next chapter. Instead, I'm writing this blog.  (ADHD. Whaddaya want?) But while I am working on the new novel, I've had to make a decision. Nerve Attack (working title)  takes place in the year 2021, but the Kolya series is generally an alternative universe with different political figures and, while some events  in our past also occurred in Kolya's past (9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan) - not everything is the same. Since Trump was never president, nothing that happened over the past three and a half years because of the Trump administration occurred in my novels. So I started to think - what about Covid? Did it happen? It's hard to ignore the effects of Covid on our lives, on the economy, on the world. But do I want to write anything about Covid into my novel?

So the case for writing about Covid: is a book realistic that's set in the contemporary world but that ignores the existence of the virus? After all, it's here, it's overwhelming all of us. I haven't been in a grocery store since March 11 - and while I know that I am a little more extreme than most, almost everyone has had their lives changed because of the pandemic. And in a lot of ways, I feel we're being tested by this virus- our fortitude, our endurance, our love for each other, our senses of self - and humor.  A thriller by definition challenges the characters to react to extreme situations. Wouldn't readers want to see how these characters react to the same challenge that all of us are enduring? Would readers have a problem relating to characters who don't have to social distance or wear masks?

The case against writing about Covid: my books are international thrillers. If my characters have to restrict travel, social distance etc - would the situations I've created even work? How do you write an international thriller when no one is traveling? Also, are readers possibly tired of Covid? By next summer, will they want to read an international thriller where the characters are forced to do all the stuff we're presently doing to keep safe? Would readers prefer to escape from the presence of Covid into a world where there are threats that have nothing to do with risking  your life from a microscopic virus every time you go to the doctor or the grocery store? I know some people are reading Camus, The Plague, or Stephen King, The Stand, or watching pandemic movies on Netflix or Prime. Not me. I can't stand watching or reading anything about plagues or pandemics - and my preferred genre is thrillers. It's bad enough living in this reality. I don't want to experience it in fictional version.

So maybe I've answered my own question. After all, writing a novel is a huge investment in time. Between now and November, I envision dividing my time between writing the new book and promoting Trojan Horse, which is debuting on October 16 - with a small break for the High Holy Days. If I can't even stand to watch a two hour movie about a pandemic, do I really want to spend all that time writing about the real one that we're all experiencing? 

What about you? If you're a writer working on a book, are you including anything about Covid? If you're a reader, do you want to read about it? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Why do most fiction authors write? Certainly not for fame or fortune. For me personally, I could earn vastly more money per hour as an attorney than as a writer. .As far as fame goes, the vast majority of us, even those who are relatively successful, are generally unknown except to each other and a few dedicated readers. Even the most famous of us would have less recognition walking down the street than the guy on television doing All State commercials. I write for the joy of telling stories and creating characters and the worlds they inhabit. The problem is - once you create them - your characters sometimes talk back to you. And it can be a trifle disconcerting.

The protagonist in my espionage series - Kolya Petrov - a Russian Jewish immigrant who became an American intelligence operative -is now eying me with annoyance because I'm insisting on writing a blog instead of working on the the next novel in the series.

Me: Do you want to talk about why you became a spy?

Kolya: Intelligence operative. Not spy. You write this stuff, you should know the difference.

Me: You called yourself a spy in Trojan Horse.

Kolya: I was being ironic.

Me: Yeah, me too. So back to the subject at hand - why you became  - an intelligence operative.

Kolya: I preferred it to being a lawyer. Or flipping burgers. But I also believe in the ideals of this country, however imperfectly they've been carried out over the years. It's why I risk my life - or to be precise - why you keep risking my life.  Even though it's a somewhat different world than yours, with different heads of government, and different threats than what exist in your world. Why'd you do that, by the way.

Me: Do what?

Kolya: Create an alternative political universe with a different President of the United States and a different President of Russia.

Me: I didn't want to deal with real political situations.  At least not in my novels. Things change too quickly - and you have get all the details right. Besides, I've never been a fan of putting real people into novels. I always wind up wondering what actually happened versus what is fictional.

Kolya: Well, thank you for that at least. I'm pleased not to be in your world, right now. 

Me: Horrible things happen in your world.

Kolya: I still prefer my imaginary world, even though you often have me clinging to cliffs by my fingernails, figuratively speaking, to the world you're in. Your world sucks right now. You have people wearing swastika face masks. You have a pandemic. Have you even been out of your house in the past six months? Then you have murder hornets. Sharks killing swimmers off Maine. Doctors who believe in demon sperm. Things are fucking crazy in your world, and they're getting crazier by the second.

Me: So why are you visiting me right now?

Kolya: You mean, why am I here in your blog instead of on the pages of your novel? Beats the hell out of me. You're the one procrastinating. I'm hanging off that fucking cliff, waiting for you to write me out of this situation.

Me: OK, let me just check my email.

Kolya: No.

Me: Facebook? Twitter?

Kolya: No and no. You're going to get into a political argument and then you're going to be too distracted or mad to write.

Me: We could have a political discussion here.

Kolya: I know you want to. But this is neither the time nor place. And anyway, American intelligence operatives should be apolitical.

Me: That's not really possible.

Kolya: Maybe not. I'm talking ideal world.

Me: Which is neither of our worlds.

Kolya: Point.

Me: So let me just write something on Facebook. One thing. He wants to put off the election. You can agree that's bad in either world.

Kolya: There is no world in which fucking with the American election is good. So okay, you can go write one thing.

Me: Well, thanks.

Kolya: One thing. That's it. Someone responds, let it go. No flame wars. They never accomplish anything anyway. Then get the fuck back to work.

Me: You're such a pain in the butt. And you curse too much. 

Kolya: Of course, I am. Of course I do.  (He smiles, and the smile looks very familiar.) I'm your creation after all, aren't I?

​ 

So just watched Gentleman's Agreement on TCM. It's a 1947 film in which Gregory Peck plays a writer on a magazine who decides to pretend to be Jewish in order to expose the anti-Semitism of the time that excluded Jews from certain neighborhoods, hotels, jobs, club, and subjected them to insults and stereotyping.

The film is clunky, objectionable, and flawed - for a lot of reasons. Hollywood apparently believed that the film had to have a non-Jewish character experience anti-Semitism for it to resonate with the audience. There's the fact that two years after World War II - in a film about anti-Semitism in America - there's not one mention of the six million Jews who were just murdered in Europe. Not a mention of the camps - of the virulent form of anti-Semitism that allowed those murders. The anti-Semitism depicted is humiliating and disturbing, but there's no hint that it's dangerous - that this kind of prejudice lays the foundation for genocide. There's also the fact that the film doesn't have any element or discussion of Jewish culture or Jewish history - just the idea that Jews pray in synagogues instead of churches. There's a lot of discussion of Jews being the subject of prejudice, but nothing to celebrate the richness of Jewish life.

Then there's the fact that the movies is incredibly dated, to the extent that it's almost painful to watch. It's preachy rather than dramatic. There's stilted dialogue: characters say "gosh" and "gee whiz" and other slang of the day that is just laughable.  There's the smart, funny career woman who is great as a best friend, but passed over as a love interest for a soft, whinny, very traditional and incredibly boring woman, quite apart from the fact that she's a closet anti-Semite. Finally there's the phony tacked-on happy ending - where the society woman and closet anti-Semite realizes that she has been enabling anti-Semitism, does something that shows how she's really not as anti-Semitic as she's been depicted through the film, and gets the fake-Jewish guy after all.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting moments that are relevant to today. The theme - that it's not the overt anti-Semites, the ones yelling kike or denying Jews entry to hotels that are the real problem - it's the polite and educated liberals who disapprove of anti-Semitism but go along with it, keeping their mouths shut at anti-Semitic jokes but continuing to go to hotels that exclude Jews, living in areas that don't allow Jews to rent - that hits home today.

In today's world, while anti-Semitism exists and Jews are still attacked, it's not on the level that it was in 1947. It's hard for many Jews to realize just how bad it was for us in this country not that long ago. Still, we Jews - or at least we white Jews (yes, there are Jews of color)- share in the privilege of the white world. We can hide our identities - people who don't want to be known as Jewish can change their names, join a church - and blend in - unless of course, the new Nazis take over and start tracing Jewish lineage so they can kill all of us with at least two Jewish grandparents. But the central theme of the film remains true: that the real obstacle to equality for marginalized people (people of color who don't have the luxury of "passing" that Jews can enjoy) is not the overt racism practiced by the KKK or their ilk, but the polite and quiet people who would never dream of using a racist taunt, but are enjoying the benefits of a racist system - and don't flip over the table when someone tells a racist joke, excludes people of color, or stereotypes someone based on their race.

The one Jewish character depicted in the film said that anti-Semitism isn't a Jewish problem, it's a Christian problem. The same is true of racism - it's a white problem.

Sunday morning, and It's currently a bracing 14 degrees outside at my home in Vermont. I know I'm mentally back in Vermont, after over a month visiting my kids in Los Angeles and New Jersey, because the 14 degrees now seems comfortable. But then it was eleven below Friday, when we arrived. We hurried ourselves and our cats inside, and my husband looked at me with the expression of - you wanted Vermont? It was so cold that even with the furnace going and a wood fire to supplement, we were shivering despite huddling in sweaters and blankets. The cats, miniature heat seeking missiles that they are, never left our laps until we locked them out of the bedroom and then they cried all night. I felt guilty, but not guilty enough to put a foot on the cold floor and and traipse down the freezing stairs to let them into the room.

More on the cats in a minute.

We arrived the day after a big snowstorm, and the roads were terrible, probably because of the subzero temperatures.The satellite didn't work, and I trudged through high drift to knock accumulated snow off the dish while losing feeling in my fingers.  Since then we've had about seven inches of snow more. It's beautiful, but I have a feeling that by April, I'm going to very sick of it. This is the first winter I've spent up here since we moved here. Every other winter, we have fled in early December and returned in March, just in time for mud season. This year is different. We will be here - because Lizzie our cranky black cat needs too much care to be left with a cat sitter and might not survive the travel to Florida. For our visits to Los Angeles, my husband and I went separately, so that one of us would be available to babysit the cat. Last year, we left her with our son for January through March, but under the present circumstances our son didn't have the time or the interest to take on the Lizzie project for two months.. He did it for two days, but that was enough.  

So the good things about being home: I can finally get back to writing. And to comedy. (Nothing more hilarious than being in Vermont in the middle of January, is there?) I'd taken a break from both while traveling and while freaking out over Lizzie - an update on Lizzie coming. Promise. And the good thing about being here in Vermont when the high temperature is 14 degrees, is that I don't have much temptation to do other things. While I do like cross country skiing, I like the temperature to be over 20. (I'm so picky.) Not much temptation to go out to dinner or a movie. Not much temptation to go anywhere much, as a matter of fact. 

Of course, my main distractions tend to be on line - and I'm very bad about it. But I at least have my desk. I have my notes. And I now have a lot of incentive to get to work. Two comedy gigs coming up. As for the novel writing, well, no spoilers, but I will be sharing news soon.

I actually pulled up the draft of the novel I'm rewriting and reread the beginning. It's not bad. Will share the beginning here soon. I even wrote a new sentence. I'm back! I also put my comedy notebook on my lap, on the thought that maybe some jokes will ooze through the paper and jeans and be absorbed into my essence. So far, not noticing much increase in funniness, but it's early going.

SO I just have to decide which I'm working on at any particular time. I just have to ask myself whether I feel like torturing and killing people (writing thrillers) or making jokes. It's possible to combine the two. Maybe down the road. Right now, the comedy and thriller writing are separate paths.

As long as I'm working on either comedy or thrillers - I'm good.

Update on Lizzie: if you've been following my blogs or posts, you would know about Lizzie, my 16 year old cat with renal disease. Back in November, she'd stopped eating, and I was afraid it was the end. It wasn't. She still needs pills twice a day and fluids twice a week, but she's eating a normal amount, sometimes with a lot of coaxing and sometimes, like yesterday, she gets downright pissed that I won't feed her more than her two cans. I don't know how long she'll go on, but then I don't know that about myself either. For now, she's good - and I'm good.