Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Amber Nicol
Guest: Karen Bermann
Book: The Art of Being a Stranger: A Family Memoir (New Jewish Press, 2025)
Date: February 11, 2026

In this episode, Amber Nicol interviews Karen Bermann, professor emerita of architecture and author, about her latest book, The Art of Being a Stranger: A Family Memoir. The discussion centers on Bermann's unique artistic memoir, her creative process, and the generational, cultural, and personal complexities within her family’s history—particularly those surrounding her father’s migration from Vienna to Palestine, and eventually to New York.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Art of Memoir: Medium and Memory

• Fragmentation as Form: Bermann discusses the fragmented, snippet-driven structure of her memoir, which combines images and text. This format reflects the inherent fragmentation of memory itself.
  • “Since childhood, I've worked, A, in fragments, in what you call snippets, B, in between the visual and the textual... It's natural to me to do this. But also...in the context of memory, all of our memories...is always fragmentary.” (01:27)
• Reader Engagement: The book invites readers to participate in assembling connections, leaning into ambiguity and the interplay between text and artwork.

2. The Power of the Title: 'Stranger'

• Title Evolution: The original, rejected title—Either I'll Kill Myself or I'll Eat the Cookies—reflected the memoir's dark humor. The final title, The Art of Being a Stranger, resonated deeply for Bermann.
  • “I love the word stranger, and I think it's a very rich word. My father experienced himself as a stranger, meaning both a foreigner and an outsider and an unknown person.” (03:22)
• Etymology and Identity: The word ‘stranger’ encompasses foreignness, alienation, and guesthood—a perfect metaphor for her father’s life and for the broader Jewish diasporic experience.

3. Vienna: A Story of Rupture and Contradiction

• 1932 as a Turning Point: Bermann’s father’s childhood in Vienna was marked by poverty, political unrest, and growing anti-Semitism. The city was both a promised land and a site of chaos.
  • “1932, in this case. I mean, my father was nine years old in 1932...the end of the world as he knew it began in 1929...with the worldwide depression...Plus...the Austrian Civil War...culminating my father's departure in 1938, shortly after Kristallnacht.” (05:30)
• Complex Transitions: The family's trajectory from Eastern European poverty to Viennese assimilation was fraught—true acculturation eluded Bermann’s ancestors, especially given social and cultural exclusion.
  • “It was the goal of many people...to become Viennese...But this was not actually possible for people like my grandfather...He was orthodox...They were not acculturated, they were not assimilated.” (07:43)

4. Mandate Palestine: Agency and Contradiction

• Refugee to Colonial Subject: Bermann’s father, relocated via a child refugee scheme, became part of the machinery of British colonialism—ironically evicting others while having just been uprooted himself.
  • “He worked with a bunch of other young men. Their job was to go into the desert and evict Bedouins from their land with guns and with an official decree. What I understand, he felt guilty. He was sorry. He believed it was wrong...He saw the contradictions and he saw the symmetry and the irony in Jews who had just fled Europe evicting Bedouin from their land.” (10:57)
• Lack of Agency: Her father felt deeply his lack of control, describing life as “a dog or eat the dog world.”
  • “He said, I mean, you do not want to Be the dog that gets eaten.” (12:47)

5. New York: Building Maintenance as Metaphor

• From Handyman to Maintenance Chief: In New York, Bermann’s father rose through the ranks in building maintenance, applying his vigilance and fear of disaster to both physical structures and life itself.
  • “He was keenly attuned to the fractures and failures in building infrastructures, as he was keenly attuned to the fractures and failures and everything else...‘I’m a good maintenance man because I know it’s not a matter of if, but of when.’" (13:56, quoted at 14:50)

6. Death and the Weight of Brutal Honesty

• Narrating Suicide: Bermann discusses her father’s suicide, its context, and the family’s coping mechanisms for dealing with his frequent threats and extreme language.
  • “He committed suicide. Which led me to the first title of the book, either I'll Kill Myself or I'll Eat the Cookies. This was a sort of comic, menacing threat he made to me often in his last years.” (15:19)
• Quote – Brutal Parenting Philosophy:
  • “My father said, 'I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, my dear child,...I tell my children the truth, even when it is brutal. I tell my children the truth because it is brutal...History is a tidal wave and it will wash you away.’” (Read aloud at 17:48)

7. Intergenerational Trauma and Escape

• Family Legacy: Bermann underscores that hers was not simply a story of a happy family disrupted by Nazis, but rather one of inherited authoritarianism and brutality compounded by history.
  • “The patriarchal authoritarianism that we associate with Nazism pervaded pretty much all of Austrian and German culture...and Jewish families were not exempt from all this.” (19:12)
• Negotiating Darkness: For Bermann, building and architecture became a form of care and resistance against her father's outlook, which saw only inevitable collapse.
  • “For him, as a building maintenance man, he was looking at looking into the apocalypse...For me...it was about care and it was about love...how this shared concern held us together and how we differed...that's central to the book.” (20:58)

8. Current Work: Stones in Rome

• New Project: Post-memoir, Bermann is working on image-text pairs inspired by courtyard stones in Rome, expanding to themes of monumentality, geology, and time.
  • “During the pandemic...I started looking at [pebbles] closely and I started drawing them...thinking about their history vis a vis our history...I'm drawing pictures about of stones and I'm writing about stones.” (23:11)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Memory and Medium:
  • “All of our memories, which is, I think, is always fragmentary, it seemed particularly appropriate to not sew all the pieces together, but to allow them to standalone and to sort of mix and match as they wanted to.” (01:27)
• On the Paradox of Belonging:
  • “They did not go to concerts and lectures and waltzes...and from when, 1939 on...they reverted to the poverty that my grandfather had grown up with.” (09:43)
• On Agency and Irony in Palestine:
  • “He was mired in conflict and contradiction.” (13:22)
• On Survival and Catastrophe:
  • “I’m a good maintenance man because I know it’s not a matter of if, but of when.” (14:50)
• On the Weight of Brutal Truth (read aloud):
  • “History is a tidal wave and it will wash you away.” (17:48)
• On Fatherhood and Escape:
  • “A lot of the story is about my need to escape from my father...I needed to resist this. I also needed to resist because my father didn’t believe in hope...” (19:12)
• On New Directions:
  • “I’m drawing pictures about of stones and I’m writing about stones.” (24:40)

Important Timestamps

• Book format and fragmentation: 01:27
• Title discussion: 03:22
• Vienna and generational rupture: 05:30
• Immigrant transition complexities: 07:43
• Mandate Palestine—contradictions: 10:57
• Arrival and life in New York: 13:56
• Father’s suicide and its context: 15:19
• Reading of page 134, patriarchal brutality: 17:48
• Intergenerational trauma and negotiation with darkness: 19:12
• Current work about stones and time: 23:11

Tone and Summary

This conversation is intimate, reflective, and unsparing in its portrayal of family, history, and the heavy legacies inherited from the past. Bermann speaks with candor and humor, oscillating between analytical and deeply personal tones, mirroring both the tenderness and ferocity of her relationship with her father and their entwined histories. The episode deeply explores themes of displacement, survival, artistic creation, and the negotiation of personal and collective darkness—a vital listen for those interested in migration, memory, and the artful complexities of family memoir.