← The History of Literature
The History of Literature
692 An Investigation in Chinatown (with Radha Vatsal) | The Five Books (with Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen)
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- [00:02]
Jack Wilson
The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.
- [00:10]
Smithsonian Narrator
Have you ever had the urge to sneak behind the cordoned off areas of a museum or roam the halls after closing time? The Smithsonian's flagship podcast, Side Door, will sneak you behind the scenes of the world's largest museum and research complex. Come learn about the ghosts that supposedly walk the museum halls after dark, how a train robbery gave rise to criminal forensics, why leeches are actually the coolest thing ever, and how to get away with murder in the Arctic. Maybe you'll discover stories of history, science, art and culture you won't find in a display case you can listen to Side Door wherever you get your podcasts or find us online at si Edu Sidedoor.
- [00:59]
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- [01:21]
Jack Wilson
Hello. Today on the podcast we talk books with two very intelligent women, Radha Wattsal and Tali Rosenblatt Cohen. It's a two for one special today on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I'm Jack Wilson. We have a fun one today with some spooky smart, smart, smart people. 1. You might recall one of these women if you've been listening since the beginning. She was our guest all the way back on episode 40. I think she was the second or third guest we ever had. And then she returned for episode 99. And we talked about women in the early 20th century in Hollywood and mostly in New York City as reporters. That was an incredible time to be a reporter in New York City. And women flocked there. Intelligent, ambitious, literary women. How many authors have we seen did that very thing? Radha returns today to discuss her new book, which has a different protagonist, a woman from India who turns up in Manhattan and once again takes on the world of journalism and crime and mystery, this time in Chinatown. That is our appetizer today. And then we're going to have Tali Rosenblatt Cohen. Speaking of intelligent, intrepid women in New York City, we'll have Tali Rosenblatt Cohen, who is the host of a podcast called the Five Books, which has a couple of meanings. One is the five Books of Moses, which are, as I know by heart, from Sunday School, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It's also known as the Pentateuch or the Torah. Tali draws upon that tradition with a literary twist. She asks her guests, Jewish authors mostly, to describe five foundational books, five books that were foundational to them. We'll hear what she's heard and what she's learned. But first, Radha Wattsal in New York City. Okay. Joining me now is Radha Wattsal, one of the very first guests that we had here on the History of Literature podcast. When she was here before, we discussed two novels in her Kitty Weeks series, a Front Page Affair and Murder between the Lines. And she's here today to discuss a new novel, Number 10 Doyer's street, in which a woman journalist from India becomes embroiled in a case involving a Chinatown gangster and his young daughter in 1900s New York City. Radha Vatsal, welcome back to the History of Literature.
- [04:12]
Radha Vatsal
Thanks for having me again.
- [04:14]
Jack Wilson
So I remember discussing this era before when we talked about Kitty Weeks and women journalists and what a fertile time it was for them in New York City. And we'll link to those episodes in the show Notes so people can check those out. But now in this book, we have a new protagonist, Archana Morley. What can you tell us about her?
- [04:37]
Radha Vatsal
So the period of this novel is slightly earlier, but travels took place in 1914, 1915. So while World War I is just beginning in Europe, number 10 Doyer street takes place in 1907. And so that may not seem like a big difference. I think of it as like a slightly less modern time history, a time where there was a lot of change happening and there were immigrants from all over the world in New York City. And we usually think of European immigrants in the U.S. but this book is actually about Asian immigrants. And so Archana Morley is, she's, she never came to the US to be an immigrant. She came to visit. And then for various reasons that you read about in the novel, she stays on and she gets married and she becomes a journalist and she works for a very scrappy newspaper in New York City. She also, when she is doing her work, she roams around the city in, in trousers and a jacket so that she doesn't attract much notice. And as a small brown person, she kind of nobody gives her a second look in this jacket and pants, and she uses that to her advantage.
- [06:00]
Jack Wilson
Hmm. Right. And this is really kind of a heyday for newspapers. Right? We're sort of, it's before the radio, it's obviously before television. And my guess is there were probably tens and dozens of newspapers in New York that were all clamoring for attention.
- [06:19]
Radha Vatsal
Exactly. They were all clamoring for attention. And actually, I'd like to just talk a little bit about Archana before. More. Before we get to the newspapers. You know, one of the difficulties I had in writing this novel was that it's set in Chinatown and it's about the Chinatown gangster Mock Duck, who I'm sure we'll get to. But I definitely felt when I was writing it that I couldn't sort of write this book in the third person and just directly relate to Mock Duck without the filter of a narrator. And I struggle to think about whose perspective this novel should be written from, who that narrator should be. And I really spent a couple of years trying, trying to figure it out and trying to put my own perspective, like, channel or ventriloquize, my own perspective through, like, a white narrator. Then I did kind of a nameless narrator, because I just felt like, oh, it's not possible for there to have been. I just couldn't imagine Indian people in New York in the start of the 1900s because we never hear about them. Finally, in desperation, I decided, oh, New York had a population of 2 million people at the time. It was a port city. And I was kind of thinking about port cities more at the time, and places like London and things had people literally from all over the world in them. So I was like, new York, similar to London, port city. I'm going to guess that out of 2 million people there, I'm going to guess that one was from India, and I'm going to make her a woman. And then the minute I made that imaginative leap, I was actually able to ask the question, wait, were there any women from India in the US at that time? And it's amazing. I had such a strong block against thinking that was possible. It never even occurred to me to ask the question. And so once I did, I looked it up, and immediately the answer was yes. And in fact, there had been women from India coming to the US through the 19th century. And two very famous examples are. One was a young woman who came in the 1880s for three years to study. Study to become a doctor. And then another was a woman who traveled around the US in the 1880s and gave lectures all over North, South, East, West. Seems like almost every state. And then after she went back to India, she wrote a book called Conditions of Life in the United States, which people don't really know about. But, you know, we have de Tocqueville but we also have this woman, Pandita Ramabhai, and her book. So I just felt sort of very. It's fiction, so you can make up whatever kind of character you want, obviously. But I like to write historical fiction that, at least in theory, that cues closely to the facts. And it was really amazing to me to learn about this history of Indians in the United States. Yeah, much sooner than we know.
- [09:16]
Jack Wilson
So what kind of background did you have to give Archana Morley in order to make her plausible? I mean, would it be likely that she was coming from, you know, a position of wealth and privilege in order to be able to make that journey to the United States at that time?
- [09:34]
Radha Vatsal
Well, so different kinds of people made the journey. And there's an academic book called Bengali Harlem, and it's more about traders and seamen and stuff from India who made the journey. And then some of them settled in Louisiana, but some settled in Harlem and married, you know, Puerto Rican and black women. But then there's also another tradition, which is the one that Archana fits in, which is people who were highly educated and privileged in that respect. The two women who came were both highly educated, upper class, upper caste women. They didn't have much money, but they had a lot of learning and education. So that's the kind of background Archana has. And her dad works for the British in India. And so she's very fluent in English and speaks English very well. And she comes for six months to learn a little bit about the US and about democracy, which was the thing that also interested Pandita Ramabhai when she came, which was how democracy worked, because people were trying to think, oh, what might democracy look like in India? So she comes and then. And then she ends up staying on.
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Jack Wilson
Right. And the book was inspired by real events. Were those related to Mock Duck? Is that a real figure or was he based on a real figure?
- [11:03]
Radha Vatsal
No. So Mock Duck is the name of a real figure. He is sort of the origin of the story. And he in fact, lived on number 10 Doyer street, which is a street in Chinatown in New York City. And mocked up was. Was like one of the most feared gangsters in New York City at the time. In the book, it's like it talks about him staring out from the backs of playing card and playing cards and matchboxes, like he was a legendary figure. And he was very, very young. He sort of shot to fame as a gangster in his early 20s. And the time the novel takes place is he's 20, he's. He's in its late 20s. And this is all of this actually happened. Mock was acute. There were these different gangs in Chinatown that functioned both as kind of benevolent societies, as groups that helped newcomers when they in America. But then they also, like, were involved in these other activities. A lot of gambling and. And then they fought with each other for turf. So there was this turf warfare going on between different Chinatown gangs. Mock was considered to be the leader of one of them, the Hip Sing To. And what happens at the time the novel takes place is that he also has this young daughter. And I don't want to give away any spoilers, but this happens pretty early on in the novel. The agents from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children come take away his daughter. That was the incident that was reported in the papers. And that's how I came across it, because I came across it in the papers. That is like the heart of this novel. And then the other thing that was happening at the same time was also that the city was planning to raise Chinatown. So New York City was growing, and there was this big push to make it feel modern. And it had just consolidated. So it had formerly been consisted of only Manhattan, but In, I think, 1898, so, like, 10 years before the novel takes place, all the five boroughs, you know, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten island, all of them, the Bronx, all are consolidated into one big city. And so then there's these questions of what is the city going to look like? How are we going to prepare for the future? Huge influx of population. And so there's a lot of infrastructure building, and there's a lot of thinking about, oh, what are we going to do? Also about these unruly immigrant communities. And so one of the solutions as well, let's tear Chinatown down and replace it with a park. And that also gives us the opportunity to get rid of these immigrants who were back then, as now, unfortunately connected with crime.
- [14:02]
Jack Wilson
Right. So how does Archana come across this? Is she working for the newspaper? And they assign her to this. I mean, one of the things we talked about with Kitty Weeks is how often women journalists were kind of consigned to the gossip pages and writing about recipes and so on. But they often yearned to do something more substantial or something more that would seem more exciting or would show off their reporting skills and things like that. Was she a crime writer before this, or was this part of her upward trajectory to try to report this story out?
- [14:43]
Radha Vatsal
So in this novel, because Archana is not white, she's not sort of treated in the same way as Kitty was, she does things she's not really on the ladies page, but she just does whatever. She does the little stories that nobody else wants to do. But she's not given the same kind of dignity and decorum as, or like, you know, respect that a white woman might have been given. And she kind of stumbles. The novel opens with this shooting that's a famous shooting that took place in Chinatown, and it was a gang shooting. And she stumbles on it, and then she insists on covering this story. And what was happening at the same time as this event with Mak Duck was a much bigger case. And this is actually, again, also factual was this case of Harry Thaw having shot the millionaire. Harry Thaw having shot the famous architect Stanford White over his. Over his wife is kind of like the O.J. simpson trial of that period. And it literally happened at the same time. So when I was going to look for information, it's like this Harry Thaw trial is just taking up pages and pages of newspaper and then the mock stories confined to this little one or two columns and one or two papers here and there. And so Archa has to fight to cover this story a little bit because she's covering a criminal. And they're like, maybe you shouldn't. Or not so much because they're scared for her safety, but more it's like, oh, the guys should be covering that. But also because they want her to be covering the big story. The story that's her editor tells her, you know, this thought trial is our bread and butter. That's the story that's selling newspapers. And people at the time were really just obsessed by that story. And there were crowds outside that courthouse all the time. It really was the O.J. simpson trial, and there was no very little air left for anything else.
- [16:45]
Jack Wilson
Right. So one of the things I love about your books there is just the research that you do and that comes into the book. And you've talked about it a little bit along the way, but in giving us some examples of the kinds of things you were researching, but what did the research look like for you, and how much did you need to do in order to develop this particular story in an era that's a few years earlier than the Kitty Weeks stories? And you've got a different setting and so on, so were you. What kinds of materials were you digging up? Could you get it all through newspapers, or what did you have to do in order to build this one out?
- [17:26]
Radha Vatsal
So the mock Duck story was through newspapers. I always do more research than I need, and then I try to forget it. Yeah, the Archana story, which came later because I had to kind of imagine her and figured out. And I allow myself to get a little bit lost in different things. But, you know, the Archana story, I. I started reading about the trade between India and the US in the 19th and early 20th century, which I wasn't aware of. And I found fascinating also that there was, because we always hear about the connection between India and England, but not India and the US and this idea that there were people, like there were shipping companies in Boston that used to ship ice, actual blocks of ice to India, which seems crazy to me, but that's what happened. So I did a lot of research to kind of like flesh out my idea of what Archana would be like and what the relations between India and the US were. But then also, most of the characters actually in this book really existed. So the mayor at the time was a very interesting guy, George B. McClellan. He was the son of the Civil War general by the same name. And he was a very forward thinking guy. He actually went on. He went to Princeton. So he was really like this clean and very upstanding guy. And I became fascinated with him. And so then I read his memoirs, and they're in the New York Historical Society still. Just part of it has been published as a book that, you know, is out of print, so I had to get a secondhand version. But then the full memoir is available in its typewritten form at the New York Historical Society Library. And so that was very exciting. Just like leafing through these typewritten pages that, who knows, he or his wife must have typed up. And geography is very important to me always. And then particularly in this novel, which is about raising a neighborhood. But also, like, I was looking at old maps because all the newspapers used to be located on what was called Newspaper Row, which is a street right opposite City hall, so that they could sort of keep tabs on what was going on at City Hall. And then, like, you know, there's an easy route. You just walk up to Chinatown from there. And so I like to make all of that work out. You know, like, I like geography and everything of the place makes sense. It really bothers me when it doesn't. And then I feel like I'm. My characters are moving through this very stable, well thought out, you know, completely fleshed out world for me.
- [20:12]
Jack Wilson
That's right. I heard a writer, I want to say it was Ian McEwen who had said, I need to know enough that I can splash around in the world. It's not Enough to just have a little bit of research or a couple of ideas. You have to have more than you need in order to feel like you can kind of move as a writer.
- [20:35]
Radha Vatsal
Yeah. And I, for me, I feel like, you know. Yeah, you can just imagine things. But I think what I'm learning is that the past is actually more interesting than what you can imagine many times. And so I prefer to kind of look into it because it really surprises me, you know, and then it gives me things to work with. Like, for instance, this is just like an in passing thing in the novel. But there's like this little cafe in Chinatown called the Pelham Cafe, and it's owned by this guy who hires these singing waiters to sing to the customers and all. So people used to go sort of slumming to Chinatown. Like, all the fancy people would come and, like, look around and, you know, gawk at all the foreign stuff there. But this cafe was frequented by, you know, the Astros and the Vanderbilts and stuff. And then one of those singing waiters was Irving Berlin, who was, you know, so like, just this idea that cures all this stuff going around. And Irving Berlin, when he was still an unknown, was, like, sitting there singing songs and playing on his piano. I feel like our preconceptions of the past make us think, oh, people were not mixing around because, like, in a way, that's what we've been told and. And that's what so many period pieces show. They're like super white, super not diverse, but the reality was totally different.
- [22:08]
Jack Wilson
Right. And when you think that the people are probably somewhere between racist and ignorant, and you think that they're, you know, probably kind of provincial minded and that kind of thing, it's easy to project that onto them. But at the same time, in a place like New York, where everything is so condensed and the population is, you know, they have no choice but to mingle kind of elbow to elbow, and they're on the sidewalks, in the streets and so on. And like the example you gave of the Astros and the Vanderbilts kind of wanting to do something for fun and being in this neighborhood, you know, it would be much more interesting than just to stay in one type of place all the time.
- [22:58]
Radha Vatsal
Exactly. And you know the thing. And I'm not saying that there wasn't racism, obviously the coverage of Mock Duck in the press was extraordinarily racist. But then you have things like, you know, that there were a lot of Irish and Chinese intermarriage because of the Chinese Exclusion act, which prevented, first of all, it prevented Chinese from becoming naturalized citizens, but also prevented Chinese women from coming to America. So the. The ratio was very skewed. There were a lot of men and much fewer Chinese women. So a lot of them married Irish women. And so mock ducks, like archenemies. This guy called Tom Lee and his wife is this. I think she's part German, part Irish, you know. And there are multiple instances of these intermarriages going on. And I think in a way, race was definitely a thing. And it also was less kind of fixed than it is the way it is in our minds today. There was space. And particularly if you're someone like Archana, who's one. She's not part of a large Indian community. She's just one person. There was flexibility to kind of move around and not be sort of stuck in a box. And I think that's very interesting. And I think we often, you know, we often lose that. And now, like, for instance, I'm reading all these Sherlock Holmes and I'm finding, like, almost in every story there's like an Indian someone, you know, there's like an Indian butler or an Indian this or an Indian that. And they're all there and they're just in two lines. They never have much of a role. And so, like, if you were not reading for that, you would just not even notice them. But you think, oh, all of these people, like, if Arthur Conan was just sprinkling them about his novel, they must have been there. This is London, of course, but must have been there. What were they doing? Did they come alone? Did they have wives? Did they have family? So I think that it's our. It's our preconceptions of what is possible that makes it hard for us to even see things that were right there. Like, for me, I've been in this country for 30 years. I just assumed there were no Indian people here before.
- [25:22]
Jack Wilson
Right. Well, we base it on books we read. And, you know, there may be a ton of books where they're just. They're just invisible or they're subtracted out of it, or films. You know, I'm always kind of astonished when I watch a movie that's before 1980 or something, and you just think, well, this is. This is set in a. In a location that has, you know, 45% black Americans and yet every single person in this film is white.
- [25:53]
Radha Vatsal
Yeah, exactly. And that they must have talked and they must have. Yeah, people definitely interacted. And just the fact that we had to have these laws means that there was a little bit More than just talk to each other. There was a lot of mixing. Sometimes force, sometimes not, but. But yeah, I think the past is much more complicated and nuanced and. And particularly today, I think, you know, with all this rhetoric about trying to go back to some past time, which was like, sort of mono, racial, or like, everyone stayed in their own place, you know, that's just not true. And a little bit, I wanted number 10 Doyer street to sort of complicate that history.
- [26:36]
Jack Wilson
Right. So as we're coming to an end here, I don't want to ask you too much about the plot because I don't want you to be in the position of giving away spoilers, but maybe we could give listeners a little more of a taste of what to expect. Would you say that this is. Is it a mystery that she's solving, or is it a journalistic book that's showing us, you know, her trying to get the story? Is it about her ambition or what's in store for the reader who picks up the book?
- [27:04]
Radha Vatsal
So it's these two fights that are going on. One is Mach trying to get his daughter back, and one is the fight that this community and Mach are having against the city that wants to raze the entire neighborhood. And we follow all of that through Archana's eyes as she's trying figure out what's going on. And her position allows her to move. Her husband is white in the novel and actually works for the city, so her position allows her to see things from both sides, from the side of the city, but also as an outsider.
- [27:35]
Jack Wilson
Right. And like the. As I found with the Kitty Weeks books, it's just fun to spend time with her in such a great place at such a great time. I mean, the. It's just kind of a comfortable place to be with your protagonists in New York City in such a fascinating time period.
- [27:59]
Radha Vatsal
Thank you.
- [28:01]
Jack Wilson
Okay, well, let's leave things there. Radha Wattsal, thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.
- [28:07]
Radha Vatsal
Thanks. It was great to talk, as always.
- [28:51]
Jack Wilson
Okay. Joining me now is writer and literary insider Tali Rosenblatt Cohen, who has written for publications such as New York Family Magazine, the New York Jewish Week, and the Forward. She's here today to discuss her podcast, the Five Jewish Authors on the Books that Shaped Them, which was created with the support of the Jewish Book Council. Tali Rosenblack Cohen, welcome to the History of Literature.
- [29:17]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Hi. Thank you so much for having me, Jack. As I said, I'm such a big fan of your podcast, so I'm super Happy to be here today. Thank you.
- [29:25]
Jack Wilson
You're welcome. So I understand that you went to Barnard College on the Upper west side of Manhattan. Are you from New York originally?
- [29:35]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
No, I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and came to Barnard for college, and I haven't moved far. I've stayed on the Upper west side since then.
- [29:43]
Jack Wilson
Right. So what was childhood like for you in Baltimore? And how did books fit into it?
- [29:51]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, I grew up in an observant Jewish household, which directly relates to my love of books. We were Shabbat observant, as I still am, which means that we don't use electronics, TVs, computers, et cetera, phones on Shabbat. So there was a lot of reading going on in my house. So from Friday night to sundown on Saturday, you know, there were. There were other kids in the neighborhood, but I love to read. And so Fridays were really all about going to the library. Coming home with a huge stack of books and then just plowing my way through them would drive my parents crazy. I would just pick the next one up as soon as I finished one.
- [30:29]
Jack Wilson
All right. That was like my favorite Friday ritual, too, was coming home with books from the library. But then I would get tempted by dumb television programs and so on. So I sort of. I can imagine how special that must have felt for you to have that time each weekend.
- [30:51]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, I really miss boredom. I think boredom is a wonderful thing for kids. Yeah.
- [30:57]
Jack Wilson
You know who else said that I heard or I read in an interview say, that is Bill Watterson, the Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist. And he said, you know, the great gift my parents gave me was leaving me alone bored. And that. That was where he found, you know, his parents weren't cartoonists or anything, but that was where he found his love of cartoons and his. And comics and his love of drawing just to have something to do during those hours. But were you surrounded by other bookish people? Did you know any writers or when did literature kind of enter the scene?
- [31:39]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, my dad is a writer. He was a journalist and also a big lover of books. My mom started out as an English teacher. My uncle's an English professor. It was pretty much in the DNA. So there was, you know, a lot of exchanging of books when I was a kid. And because my father was a journalist, he did know a bunch of other writers and journalists, and they were a part of my life. Just like A Funny Story is that my parents. My. When my grandfather passed away, my father set up a lecture in his memory. He had been a rabbi in Annapolis, Maryland, and He was friends with Elie Riesel and invited him, this was in 1986, invited him to be the first inaugural speaker. And my grandmother was worried no one was going to understand him and they weren't going to know who he was. And then a few months later, he won the Nobel Prize, and she was very proud that he had just been to speak at the synagogue. Memory of my grandfather. So there were things like that. And I remember. I think I can't remember if I was in high school or college where I was reading a book by Cynthia Ozick, and my dad said, oh, do you want to ask her about the book? Sure. He set up a phone interview for me with sticks since the I was sick. So there were bits like that where I certainly had a chance to meet a lot of incredible writers and thinkers.
- [32:59]
Jack Wilson
Right. And so, in a way, it seems like this podcast that you're currently hosting is almost like, you know, I'm sure when you were young, no one could envision what a podcast would be, but it's almost as if you were destined to host it.
- [33:14]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
I'm not sure about that, but I did get to interview. One of my personal heroes was Francine Clagburn. She just wrote a book, a biography of a woman named Henrietta Zold. And I've known Francine since I was a teenager. But getting the chance to interview her and talk to her about the books that she read as a child was really just amazing and felt like a really fantastic full circle moment.
- [33:38]
Jack Wilson
Right. So was this podcast your idea, or did was someone putting it together and thought of you as being a good person to host it?
- [33:48]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
So it was my idea. It came about, really, in the wake of 10, seven and a bunch of cancellations and boycott lists of Jewish authors, and just the idea that silencing artists is somehow a logical answer to the actions of a particular government. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I think we need artists and writers in particular to make sense of a particular moment to, you know, to reflect on their government, et cetera. So I knew that I wanted to do something that would help help lift up Jewish authors and Jewish books more broadly. And I chair a book award committee through the Natan Fund, and with that committee, we partner with the Jewish Book Council. So I had been talking to them and came up with the idea. I didn't think that I was going to host, and I didn't think I wanted to, but I had a particular vision, and that's kind of just the way it evolved.
- [34:44]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. And so I Think it's mostly in the title, but I'll give you a chance to explain. If there's anything further to explain about the format. It's the five books. So I'm guessing that you asked Jewish authors to list five books that shape them. But is there anything else that we should know about the way you've set up the podcast?
- [35:05]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, it's five books in five categories, which has been really fun. So the first book is a book that the author read in childhood that impacted their Jewish identity. Then we asked them a book they read in adulthood that impacted their Jewish identity. Book three is just a book that changed their worldview, a book they think everyone should read. Book 4 is a book they're reading now, which is kind of like a quick recommendation. And then book five is, is the book that they've just published and, you know, a chance to talk more about, about the book and how it came about. So because it spans both childhood and adulthood and Jewish books and, you know, not necessarily Jewish books, it's just been a really illuminating way to get to understand an author in a different way.
- [35:52]
Jack Wilson
Okay, and which authors have you spoken with so far?
- [35:58]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
I have spoken with Yael Van der Vowden, who wrote the Safekeep, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Benjamin Resnick published a book called Next Stop. Jean Meltzer, who's the queen of Jewish romance and wrote a book called Magical Meet Cute. Francine Clagsburn Stant. Samantha Green Woodruff, who wrote a great historical fiction novel called the Trade Off. Zibby Owens, literary powerhouse, book publishing powerhouse, and she published a book called On Being Jewish. Now. Gila Pfeffer, who wrote a memoir about her cancer journey called Nearly Departed. There have been a bunch of others. I don't want to leave anybody out, but it's been fantastic so far.
- [36:39]
Jack Wilson
Okay, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back with more and we'll ask Tali what she's heard from these guests and what she's learned about the books that have shaped them. Okay, we're back. So, Tali, as you were mentioning that, I was thinking, although I am not Jewish myself, I could easily, easily name five Jewish writers who were essential to me. I could probably name 50 without struggling too much. And books from childhood, Judy Blume and E.L. konigsberg and the mixed up files of Mrs. Basily. Frank Wyler was a book I've probably read a hundred times, along with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow is a book I've read and reread Franz Kafka, and that's not even to talk about Proust or Salinger or so many others. And one of the things that I hear from Americans who come from underrepresented groups is that they didn't grow up with role models in the books or the authors that they read. And so they were grateful when they discovered a particular book or when a particular book came out, and it was for the first time, they felt like, here's someone who is speaking to me in my experience and showing the world that people like me exist. I'm not so sure that would be an issue for Jewish American kids, or am I wrong about that?
- [38:24]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
That's so interesting that you say that. I think because the question is a book that they read in childhood that impacted their Jewish identity. People haven't thought as broadly as just Jewish authors. I think they're really thinking about it in, like, Looking for a Jewish Story. And I'm not necessarily saying that I had that conception going into it. And interestingly, one of the authors I'm about to interview next, she just submitted her picks and picked Judy Blum. And I was thrilled, and I'm excited. And, you know, some of the Judy Blume books, especially like Are you There, God? Or Me, Margaret? Deal exclusively with religion. But I think for me, as a kid who grew up observing, certainly didn't see any of the Jewish observance reflected in childhood books, even if the characters were Jewish. And I think that as much as, you know, that representation is wonderful, you didn't really get a lot of stories that had any mention of Jewish holidays, of Jewish practices, Jewish tradition. Yeah, anything like that. So there was a book, that series that I loved as a kid, the all of a kind family series by Sidney Taylor. And I think for a lot of girls growing up, when I did, those books did reflect Jewish tradition. The whole book are organized. The chapters are around the Jewish holidays. So each chapter is the story of a family and a family of five sisters, and they're growing up in the Lower east side and tenements in the turn of the century. And I loved reading about the past. I loved seeing that they were doing the same things I was doing, you know, almost 100 years later. So that really did feel revelatory to me. And there were very few books that incorporated Judaism to that extent.
- [40:12]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, that really. That really hits home now because when I think about it, my experience of reading these, not only am I not Jewish myself, I grew up in rural Wisconsin and was not really around any Jewish people when I was a kid, very few. And so I would read these books, and then there would be maybe a brief mention of a bar mitzvah or something, and I would think, oh, what is this? And I would have to kind of look it up or figure it out. But it wasn't as if these books, you know, I can see where you. From your perspective, it would be, well, this may be by a Jewish writer. There may be a kind of brief reference here, but it's not really a kind of story about Jewish identity.
- [41:02]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. And. And, you know, Jewish identity is broad, and that's not to take away from any kind of secular Jewish identity. It's just to say that I didn't feel like those books represented a particularly Jewish experience. They felt like childhood experiences and, you know, tales of a Fourth grade. Nothing is. I have four kids. I've loved reading every single one of them to every single one of my children, but it felt to me like an amazing story of childhood and not necessarily an amazing story of Jewish childhood.
- [41:37]
Jack Wilson
Right, right. Okay. So in terms of the writers, what kinds of things are people choosing when they choose a book that was important to them as an adult?
- [41:52]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, great question. It's. It's really all over the place in the best possible way. You know, some of the books are more academic. Somebody recently discussed book by Professor Yerushalmi called Zachor, which is about Jewish history and memory. Zibby Owens talks About the book 10:7 by Lia Rohn, which obviously just came out. And somebody else talked about Viktor Frankl, man's search for meaning. So it's really been very wide ranging and has really given us the opportunity to delve into Jewish identity from so many different directions.
- [42:32]
Jack Wilson
Have there been any fiction or poetry choices, or are these mostly you're finding nonfiction or works of philosophy?
- [42:42]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Oh, great question. Yeah, totally. Fiction. Yeah. Marjorie Morningstar was actually, I think, after two or three writers, picked Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wuk, I had to sort of say in my pitch beforehand, like, if it is Marjorie Morningstar and it changed your life, that's great. And if there's a second book to discuss, that would be great, too.
- [43:07]
Jack Wilson
Right. She's at the level of, you know, people say with the desert island, they'll say, okay, you can take the Bible and you can take Shakespeare and then pick the books that you want for the desert island after that.
- [43:20]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, exactly. I think it's very much a comfort read. That really resonated, especially, I think, with young women. So there's definitely been many other fiction writers. One writer talked about Shalm Aleichem's collection of stories, Tevye's Daughters, Tevi Nadare and the Unwitched, Fiddler and the Roof is based. There is some discussion of Philip Roth and Fortnite's Complaint. So, yes, a range of fiction and nonfiction.
- [43:47]
Jack Wilson
I was wondering about Philip Roth when I knew I was going to be talking to you today because I really grew up in an era, roughly, I guess, let's say the 70s into the 90s, that was kind of when I was coming of age. And it seemed as though. Though Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and a few other really heavyweight authors had kind of staked out some territory as Jewish American writers. Norman Mailer, Cynthia Ozick, we've mentioned, Bernard Malamud maybe would be in there. And they kind of dominated the literary world, not just as American writers, but specifically as Jewish American writers. And I'm wondering if that era, how that looks to you in 2024 and 2025, have those figures been replaced by new writers? Are they still kind of looked to as some kind of golden age, or did they dominate the scene or are people moving on, or how do you look back at that particular period of time?
- [44:58]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
It's so interesting. I am far from an expert, and I'm sure there are many other people way more qualified to talk about those writers. But from my limited experience, I also, you know, I took a Jewish literature class in college. Those were the writers that we were reading, you know, who really typified that period of time and defined, I think, the Jewish American story for a period of decades. It seems to me like no one has mentioned Bernard Malamot at all. And I remember, you know, I read every one of his books. I'm curious about it. He's such an incredible writer. He's obviously writing in a particular time. So I don't have the answer as to why, but it doesn't seem like his books necessarily are continuing to be read. Now, the other book that I should have mentioned that a bunch of people have brought up is Jonathan Thackeray, Floors. Everything is illuminated.
- [45:53]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, right, right.
- [45:54]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
So I think there is a kind of new crop of Gary Steingart and Mason Englander, Michael Chabon. Yeah. And even Ayala Tsabari and, you know, hopefully some other women writers. I think Yael Xander Vowden's book is a great addition to that. That group as well. So I do see that every generation is going to produce its own voices to reflect that particular moment, and some of them I think will continue to be read and maybe others not as much.
- [46:29]
Jack Wilson
And it's possible that they may not seem to us like giants, but that could be because novelists aren't giants anymore. That was an era where writers like that could. They'd be on the Tonight show and they'd be. Be on the nightly news or something, ask their opinion about something, and more people were reading fiction, more people were taking ideas seriously and looking for it in fiction and so on. So it could be that that's why they loom so large in my memory, is because they, you know, so did John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates and some of the other writers who were kind of, you know, tearing through that decade with their giant books every. Every few years. Okay.
- [47:17]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah. I just. I want to add one more to that list. And, you know, pretty new is Taffy Brodess or Eichner is in trouble and then Long Island Compromise. You know, I do think there will always continue to be new writers reflecting on the current moment. But, yes, you are correct. The writer as a character doesn't have the same role.
- [47:40]
Jack Wilson
Right. Okay, so when you started the podcast, did you have expectations about which books you were going to hear? And have there been any surprises either things that you. You mentioned the Marjorie Morningstar. But have there been other surprises of things you've heard or surprises of things that you expected to hear that you haven't?
- [48:01]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yeah, I. I think that because so many of my friends also loved all of a Kind Family, I would have expected that series to have crept up. I'm sure it will. I have confidence that I will get to talk about it, but it hasn't yet. And I don't think I'm entirely surprised, but I think it's just still interesting to note that the Diary of Anne Frank and Night by Elie Wiesel still continue to loom so large for. For just my generation. And also when people are talking about their Jewish identity, that they. They do go back to those two books as really formative books, which maybe isn't surprising, but I'm still fascinated by it.
- [48:45]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. Right. And have you learned anything about how literature can shape identities? I mean, what are. What are people saying when they. When they say the Diary of Anne Frank was important to them? In what ways do they give you that it was important?
- [49:05]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Well, I think for the Diary of Anne Frank in particular, and even, you know, and also Night by Elie Wiesel, I think for a kid growing up post Holocaust, and, you know, this was 40 years ago when Some of these authors are talking about having read them in their childhood or even now, 80 years later. I think that as much as we know that the Holocaust was the seminal event of the last few centuries for Jewish people and for Judaism, just in terms of having an entire way of life really decimated. You know, it makes sense that people are going back to those books and trying to connect to an identity that. Trying to connect to a way of life that existed that they are struggling to connect with because they don't have the natural connection of having generations, you know, pass on what they were doing and where they were living in their customs and their language and all of those things. So it does make sense to me. But in terms of the power of literature to shape identities, I think in general, we're drawn to the stories that pull on the thread of who we are at our core or what our inner conflicts are. And I think books help us make sense of those things. So it's interesting to talk to authors about what the books were that they read in childhood and see the threads that pull through, you know, the books that they've read and how they've impacted them, and then how they show up in their own books that they've written and maybe dealing with similar themes all the way through. That part has been really fun to hear.
- [50:45]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, it does seem like it would be, you know, something we haven't really talked about is that the people you're talking to are themselves writers. And so in a way, it could be shaping them as people, but also shaping them as people who write and the kind of writers they want to be or the kind of themes that they want to tackle or. I mean, are they. Do you get the sense that people are looking at some of these books as this showed me how my voice could sound, or this showed me a kind of style that I would want to write in, or do you feel like it's more. This helped me understand who I am as a person?
- [51:26]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
I think it's both, yeah. El Xander Vowden said in her interview, she was talking about. I think she was talking about Jonathan Safranforth's book. And she also talked about Carmen Maria Machado's book In the Dream House as a book that changed her worldview. And she said, you know, I gravitated to books where I just. I didn't know we could do that. But maybe the form was so different, the structure was so different, that it opened her up to sort of telling a story in a different way. So I think there's that aspect in terms of the writing. And then there were other people who said, you know, I maybe had a pretty sheltered upbringing, and this book opened my eyes to other kinds of communities, other kinds of people, you know, brought me out of my shell. Owens just talked about the power of writing through trauma and how writing helped her get over some losses that she'd experienced in her life. So it's been different. And also, obviously, for writers, you know, books are so powerful and they are so meaningful, and the reading of them really did change the trajectory of their lives.
- [52:32]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, I had a. I guess, in a way, when I asked the question and put it as an either or of is it about the style or is it about the substance? They would probably say, in a lot of cases, the style is the substance. That that is part of their identity is their voice or the way that they write. And I remember now a writer I knew who said she would read in school. She was assigned short stories by Hemingway and Faulkner and Fitzgerald, and. And then she read a story by Grace Paley, and she said, well, this is how my aunts talk. This is a voice that I know and can tap into. And so it gave her a way of writing, but it also, you know, it was connected to who she was.
- [53:17]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Absolutely. Yeah. And actually, when I spoke to Benjamin Resnick, he talked about Mouse by Art Spiegelman as being one of the formative books for him and that the language in the story was so close to his grandparents and how they spoke as immigrants, and so it just felt so familiar to him in that way. Absolutely. Yeah.
- [53:39]
Jack Wilson
And it must be. I mean, the Holocaust does just. It looms over everything. It's such a before and after thing and such a consequential thing to wrestle with as part of really is part of humanity's identity. But I'm guessing that for a lot of writers it would be, you know, how do you even approach such a subject? How do you talk about it? How can you even. Or how can you talk about anything else? And it's nice to have the precedence of Jewish writers who have come before, who have had to struggle with that and have had to find a solution for how one even makes room for fiction or poetry when something in real life was as awful and all encompassing as that.
- [54:29]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Yes. And, you know, so many writers have written about just that problem, and I don't think it's really possible to make sense of what happened. And there have been two writers that I've talked to who have said, you know, I didn't one who said I didn't want to write a Holocaust book. You know, I was definitively not going to write a Holocaust book. That's. Yeah. Ol Vander Gaaden. And then, you know, her book entirely deals with the aftermath. It doesn't. It's not set in the war and that it's only tangentially referenced, but it's the weight of the book. And another woman who I'm speaking with, whose father is a survivor and she just couldn't go near it. She couldn't touch it. And so she ends up writing a memoir about food and caretaking, really, in light of his experience. But I think it's this push pull where you can't avoid it and you also kind of can't take it on in any, in any real way.
- [55:28]
Jack Wilson
Right. Okay. So is there anything that you are particularly looking forward to for things upcoming for the podcast?
- [55:40]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
I just love talking to people about books.
- [55:44]
Radha Vatsal
Yeah.
- [55:44]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
I want to talk to everyone about books. And I think when you understand the books that shape the person or that they feel deeply connected to you, understand their values, you understand more about their worldview. So I'm just excited to talk about more books with more people.
- [56:01]
Jack Wilson
Okay. Well, the podcast is called the Five Books. Jewish Authors on the Books that Shaped Them. Tali Rosenblack Cohen, thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.
- [56:11]
Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Thank you so much for having me.
- [56:19]
Jack Wilson
Okay, there we go. That's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature. My thanks to Rana Wattsal, author of Number 10 Doyer street, which is still a real address, by the way. Those of you in New York City might want to swing by there on your way to and from the bookstore where you buy RADA's new book and throw, throw in one of the Kitty Weeks books. Throw one of those in your bag, too. I've read them both. Highly recommended. While you're shopping, you should put in some headphones and listen to the Five Books with Holly Rosenblatt Cohen. My thanks to Tali for joining me today. We'll be back soon with oh, boy. Alan Lightman, author of the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams. He's a very, very smart guy, a serious physicist who also writes novels and essays. And he has a new book, all about the miraculousness of material things, which he'll tell us all about. We'll tie that in with literature. Alan has six honorary doctoral degrees, which is not too shabby. Some might even say that even exceeds my own qualifications of nine honorary expulsions from some of the best universities in the world. What can I say? I'm a sucker for accolades. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
- [57:50]
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