Letty Cottin Pogrebin proves once again that women’s wisdom and capability knows no bounds, that new life is born from chaos and that it’s never too late. This time, though, she does it through a work of fiction.
Pogrebin, inveterate Jewish feminist activist and author of eight nonfiction books including “Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America” and “Getting Over Getting Older,” has leapt into the world of fiction with her debut novel, “Three Daughters” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25).
Pogrebin will visit Milwaukee on Friday, Nov. 22 for two events.
The first, “Brown Bag with Letty,” is sponsored by the Women’s Division of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and will take place at 12:30 p.m. in the Marcus Community Hall of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center. It will include dessert and coffee.
In the evening, she will read from the novel at 8 p.m. at Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in Shorewood, 4093 N. Oakland Ave.
“I’m trying to come out as a novelist,” said Pogrebin in a recent telephone interview from St. Louis, one stop on her 15-city tour. “It was something I’ve wanted to do for 30 years.”
In the book, she tackles the issues closest to her heart: women’s role in Judaism, American feminism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rebellion and equality, human relationships, aging and love. Indeed the book is brimming with issues, sometimes smoothly woven into the complex story, sometimes less gracefully so.
Pogrebin said she enjoyed the “extraordinary” process of writing fiction. “I found I could deal with all the issues I care about through other people’s lives.”
Story of renewal
“Three Daughters” features three sisters, each of whose life falls apart and is reformed. Each sister is complex and interesting, each familiar and admittedly a reflection of Pogrebin herself.
Shoshanna, the control freak, loses her date book and spends the first several pages of the novel sprinting across New York’s Henry Hudson Parkway trying to gather the scattered, slushy remnants of her previously ordered life.
As she nears her 50th birthday, Shoshanna grapples with time and her need to make everything whole, to reunite her estranged sisters and her rabbi father.
Leah, radical feminist and yiddishist, is a brilliant professor with a crowd of adoring admirers she calls “the Schmendriks.” She rises from her troubled childhood, a woman reborn with a brilliant professional life and failing family life. “[She] is the activist and visionary who never gives up,” said Pogrebin.
Rachel shows the strength of women throughout the ages, a woman who had convinced herself to be satisfied with domestic perfection but finds that it simply isn’t enough. A secret scholar, Rachel embodies the lesson that “it’s never too late.”
“I feel very strongly that there are now opportunities for studies and ritual and spiritual expression that didn’t exist when I was younger, as a child and even as a young woman,” Pogrebin said.
“They are, all three, women who are dealing with imposing order on chaos, reconciling the fact that it’s never too late to become acquainted to the people you’re related to.”
Pogrebin is an excellent writer and the book is a well-crafted showcase of grace and readability, not to mention a stellar vocabulary.
The palette of ideas about which Pogrebin is so passionate resonates well. I felt myself re-inspired by feminist notions and actions, excited to be a Jewish woman. I promised myself: Next Pesach, we will have an orange on our seder plate (signifying a woman’s rightful place on the bimah). I will participate in the women’s seder. I will start a Rosh Chodesh group.
As fiction, however, the book falls short. The sisters’ stories, though touching, don’t leave a strong emotional fingerprint; my head knew they were interesting but my heart was left in the cold. The characters are inspiring but emotionally flat and so cloaked in politics that they sometimes come off as two-dimensional.
Still, this book is a worthwhile and engaging read, a wonderful exploration of different types of women and ways of being Jewish. It’s a feel-good story of rebuilding that is smartly complicated and relevant.
Pogrebin writes about important issues and has the experience to do so. Co-founder of Ms. magazine and the original women’s seder, she is contributing editor to Tikkun and Moment magazines, founder of the American Jewish Congress on Women’s Equality and two-term past president of Americans for Peace Now.
For more information about the MJF program, which costs $5, or to make reservations, due Nov. 19, contact Sheila at MJF, 414-390-5741. For information about the Schwartz event, call the bookstore at 414-963-3111.
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