Now back to those difficult questions from my publisher. You know, the ones I mentioned last December and only started answering at the beginning of the year.
Well, here's question #2, and its answer:
Q. How did the idea originate? Remember that often the most incidental stories make interesting publicity.
A. I've now been studying Talmud for almost 20 years. When something possessed me in the mid 1990's to write historical novels about women who had some connection to Talmud, I was intrigued by the story of Rav Hisda's daughter in Bava Batra 12b - who, when presented with a choice of which of her father's best two students she wanted to marry, said "both of them." But Rashi's learned daughters also fascinated me, and writing about them seemed easier, as 11th century France would be simpler to research than 3rd-4th century Babylonia. So I did that series first.
I had an astonishing experience when I visited the Goodreads.com website and attempted to link to my novels. Instead of my work, I ended up at this bizarre page. In shock, I checked the B&N link and what I discovered there made me post the following review: "This book is a total ripoff! As the author of the "Rashi's Daughters" historical trilogy as well as the Wikipedia article about them, I am outraged that a so-called publisher can download free material from the internet that I wrote and ask people to pay nearly $50 for it.
After googling the publisher, I discovered that I am one of many people appalled by this chicanery. Even more interesting, this whole enterprise may actually be a money-laundering scam.
I strongly urge both authors and readers to be aware of this company. Don't buy their 'books' and if you come across one on Amazon or B&N, and apparently they have 'published' hundreds of thousands of them, write a scathing review warning others away.
Here's a sweet video of my husband reading to our grandsons while I was away in the Carolinas.
Enjoy!
It’s been a very busy last few weeks as I visited and did programs in 8 cities in 12 days: Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Charlotte NC, followed by Hilton Head SC, Savannah GA, and Charleston NC. The later two cities have two of the oldest synagogues in America still in operation, and I got tours of both of them in addition to their beautiful historic districts. The locals may dislike all the Spanish Moss hanging from the trees, but I think it looks very romantic and Southern.
I’m writing this from the plane on my return flight to Los Angeles, which should be leaving in 15 minutes. I received the copyedited manuscript of “Rav Hisda’s Daughter” back from my editor at Plume just days before my Carolina’s book tour, with instructions to read it and accept, reject or rewrite anything they questioned or suggested changing – hopefully by Jan 27. And here I was scheduled to travel until Jan 26.
As it turned out, I had plenty of time in airports and on my two flights so far, not to mention squeezing in an hour here or there on my tour, to work. The vast majority of edits were grammatical, such as commas where none were needed or where dashes should be substituted, so it didn’t take me as long to deal with the occasional changes that required significant thought. To my embarrassment, the copyeditor caught a few places where I referred to something that hadn’t happened yet or had happened differently. As much as I was determined to avoid it, I also had two characters with the same name. That was an easy fix, just spell them differently.
Oy – it's been six weeks since I posted about the three difficult questions I needed to answer for my publisher Plume's author questionnaire. I promised to reveal my answers promptly, but obviously got distracted by putting together the last minute details on my upcoming Jan 15-24 book tour to North and South Carolina. If you live in those states, or know folks who live there, check my schedule and see if I'll be speaking in your town.
So here's the answer to question #1: If you could construct an interview for yourself, what questions would you want to be asked? If possible, could you provide the answers?
1. What motivated you to write about such an unusual topic as Rav Hisda's daughter?
I like learning subjects that most people don’t know about, and after doing some preliminary research, I realized that the 3rd-4th centuries were crucial times in the development of Judaism and Christianity, as well as the history of Babylonia under the Persians and Palestine/Israel under the Romans. Yet most people are unfamiliar with both these times and places. In addition, the place of women in these societies is even more obscure.
2. How did you, raised in a secular Jewish household, come to be interested in Talmud?
I was introduced to Talmud from reading Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen.” It was obvious that women didn’t study it, so when I heard of a woman’s Talmud class starting in Los Angeles, I signed up to see what this Jewish text was that women were excluded from learning. To my surprise, I fell in love with Talmud and have continued to study it for the last 20 years.
3. What was the most surprising thing you discovered in your research?
I had no idea how prevalent, and accepted, magic was in both Roman and Persian Empires during this time, In fact the word ‘magic’ comes from Magi, the Zoroastrian priests of Babylonia. While men were leaders of “official” religions, women were considered experts on spells, incantations, amulets, and other occult matters. When it came to protection from demons or the Evil Eye, people of all religions sought help from their local enchantress. The Talmudic rabbis were no strangers to sorcery, and some practiced it as well, with no hint of condemnation from the text.
4. With no education or experience in fiction writing, what gave you the confidence to start off with a trilogy of historical novels about such unknown people as Rashi and his daughters?
I was always a voracious reader of fiction, so when I discovered that Rashi’s had no sons, only learned daughters, I decided to try to flesh out their lives using the genealogy skills I’d developed researching my family’s ancestry. I was so fascinated by this that I became determined to write the novel that I wanted to read, one that contained my favorite elements – history, Judaism, romance, women’s lives, and Talmud [plus a happy ending]. I didn’t expect anyone except me to read it, and I had no intention of having it published. But a few friends insisted on reading the first draft, and then encouraged me to find a publisher.
Happy New Year. We saw an excellent movie for New Year's Eve, "Midnight in Paris." The hero, a screenwriter who hopes to find success as a novelist, is vacationing in Paris when he is magically transported back to the 1920's, what he imagines to be the golden time for writers. There he meets Hemingway, Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Dali, Picasso, and Cole Porter among others.
He also falls for a 1920's woman who wishes she was back in the 1890's, her imagined golden age. Of course when that happens, they meet Toulouse Latrec and is friends, who wish they were back in some earlier golden age. The movie ends with the hero realizing that there is no "golden age," as everyone imagines that things were better sometime in the past.
But I don't; I'll take the 21st century any day. Since I'm pushing 60 from above, I expect that for most of human history, when life expectancy was less than 40, I'd be dead for many years already. Most likely, I'd have died during childhood or in childbirth. As a woman, I'd be trapped in some patriarchic world where I'd be viewed as inferior to men, with only a slightly higher status than his other chattel. And being a Jew throughout most of recorded history was no picnic either.
Yet my job as a historical novelist is to make those olden times "golden" times for my readers. To let them experience the most interesting and entertaining parts of the past from their comfortable 21st-century easy chairs, while keeping them sheltered from the reality that, as Thomas Hobbs says, "life was poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
On that encouraging note, be thankful you're living in 2012.
Here is a very nice interview with me on an Orthodox Feminist [no, not an oxymoron] blog that gets to the bottom of what inspired me to write "Rashi's Daughters," as well as some other interesting questions. Thank you, Talia bat Pessi.
I got a nice Hanukah present last week when the "final" manuscript of RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER was accepted by my editor at Plume. While this still isn't the real final manuscript, that is, the version that readers will see in August, it does mean that I've earned the next portion of my advance. My editor found so few things to correct that she sent it off to copy editing, saying that I could address both kinds of changes later.
Luckily I had just finished reading the whole thing aloud, which meant that I'd fixed some more errors [including one scene where I'd referred to something that hadn't happened yet] and improved any wording that didn't sound right [including places where I used the same word several times in one page]. Another lucky thing is that the same copy editor who worked on "Rashi's Daughters" is available to work on "Rav Hisda's Daughter.
But no holiday break for me. Plume sent me a 5-page author questionnaire, some of which require careful consideration.
The tough questions are:
1] If you could construct an interview for yourself, what questions would you want to be asked? If possible, could you provide the answers?
2] How did the idea originate? Remember that often the most incidental stories make interesting publicity.
3] The most difficult - Please describe your book in 250 words or less.
In my next few posts, I'll share my answers to these questions, and more.
You probably know that Hanukah begins tonight, but did you know that Hanukah is a Talmudic holiday? Many Jews are surprised to learn that Hanukah is not even mentioned in the Torah, and in fact, the story of Hanukah, along with its laws and customs, is missing from the Mishna as well, except for a few passing references (Bikkurim 1:6, Rosh Hashanah 1:3, Taanit 2:10, Megillah 3:4 and 3:6, Moed Katan 3:9, and Bava Kama 6:6). Perhaps knowledge of the holiday was so commonplace that the Mishna felt no need to explain it, but some scholars suggest that, as the Mishnah was redacted shortly after the two recent, albeit unsuccessful, revolts against the Romans, its editors were reluctant to discuss a holiday celebrating a successful revolt against a foreign ruler, for fear of antagonizing their Roman rulers.
The rituals of Hanukah are described in the Talmud staring on Shabbat 21. The text begins by discussing Shabbat lamps and then digresses to Hanukah lamps. It says that after the forces of Antiochus IV were driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that nearly all the ritual olive oil had been profaned. Only a single container remained that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the lamp in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this anyway, yet it burned for eight days - the time it took to prepare new oil.
The Talmud presents three options for lighting the lamps that commemorate the festival:
1. Minimally one light each night per household,
2. A better practice is to light one light each night for each member of the household
3. The most preferred practice is to vary the number of lights each night, with Shammai starting with eight and decreasing while Hillel starts with one and increases.
Except in times of danger, the lights were to be placed outside one's door, on the opposite side of the mezuzah, or in the window closest to the street. In Babylonia, where the Zoroastrian Magi considered fire one of God’s most holy creations and thus objected to fire being profaned in Jewish ceremonies, Jews kept their Hanukah lamps indoors for fear of the Magi confiscating them.
According to that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia, חנוכה (Hanukah) is a Hebrew acronym for ח נרות והלכה כבית הלל — "Eight candles, and the halacha is like the House of Hillel". This is a reference to the disagreement between two rabbinical schools of thought — the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai - on the proper order in which to light the Hanukkah flames. Shammai opined that eight candles should be lit on the first night, seven on the second night, and so on down to one on the last night. Hillel argued in favor of starting with one candle and lighting an additional one every night, up to eight on the eighth night. Jewish law adopted the position of Hillel.
For more about the history of Hanukah, click on the link.
And now for something completely different: this year's winner of Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2011, announced Dec 6 at London's "In and Out Club" [of course]. Thank goodness I didn't win it, although there are those who say even/especially bad publicity is good publicity.
For those who want to know more about Talmud study, here is a link to a good article explaining what Talmud is and why it is so difficult to study. It also gives a nice explanation why Talmud is less difficult today than 25 years ago. I admit to being a Schottenstein Talmud fan, not that I and others who want to study in English have much choice. At least I have the resources to translate the text differently if I think they're wrong.
A little while ago I wrote about the primacy of Torah study to all denominations of Jews. When it comes to the importance of Torah study, it seemed that the sentiment of Elu Devarim summed this up so nicely that I wanted to use it in "Rav Hisda's Daughter."
Alas, this prayer is a product of recent Ashkenzi liturgists [it doesn't even appear in Sephardic prayer books], so I couldn't very well have Rav Hisda and his students quoting it. The origin in Mishna Peah lists merely 3 things/devarim: honor mother and father, acts of loving kindness, and making peace between a man and his fellow, and it ends with "and Torah study is equal to them all." There is no "because it leads to them all." The Talmudic rabbis discuss this briefly in Shab 127a.
I sent out the "final manuscript" of RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER to my editor at Plume and to my agent this morning, along with a preface, glossary, historical timeline, cast of characters, and table of contents [still to come are maps and author's afterword]. What – you don't hear the choir of angels singing Hallelujah?
As any novelist knows, what I emailed is not the real final manuscript. My editor will surely want some changes, and in the meantime, I will be reading the entire thing aloud [not just the dialogue] and fixing any wording that doesn't sound right. There won't be any big changes, but it's amazing how much needs tweaking when I say it out loud. This part is rather enjoyable. I can do it in small chunks of time, as opposed to writing where I need at least a couple of uninterrupted hours to gather my thoughts.
Yet even after my editor and I agree on changes to be made, what I turn in still won't be the "final" manuscript, as that's when the copy editors have their go at it. After four novels published, it still astounds and embarrasses me how many typos and grammar errors they find, despite all the people who have already gone over it. But we are getting close to the finish line, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The art department is working on the cover, and once that is decided, it's time to set up the new novel's website.
