Yona Zeldis McDonough
“The Last Book Party,” a novel by Karen Dukess
“The Last Book Party,” a novel by Karen Dukess
Kirsty Manning began to explore the largely untold history of the Jews who found refuge in Shanghai during WWII while visiting the city with her family. She then embarked on a quest to tell this story.
“I know what it’s like to feel hated and betrayed by a woman friend. I think we all do.”
“Nationalism, for all its insistence on keeping like with like, inevitably tears families apart. Homes are bombed, children are separated from their parents. “
I could feel it in the manners, the mores, the very air around me. Vassar was a WASP institution and bastion, and I knew I didn’t entirely belong.
As Alice Rosenthal's novel of friendship, Bess and Frima, unfolds, the menace of world war is growing, and Beth and Frima must grow up fast. Balancing love, ambition, religion, family, and politics, each young woman faces challenges she never imagined in her girlhood. Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough talks to author Alice Rosenthal about the personal history she mined to write this tender story.
Welcome to another installment of this occasional recurring feature in which Lilith staffers reveal what books are on our nightstands, our e-readers and tucked in our bags for the commute.
I do not know if Ida knows my name. She does not remember that her son Gary left me ten years ago for a twenty-two year old nurse at his hospital. I have seen Ida more often than I have seen my ex-husband, who has moved to Anchorage, Alaska and now has two sons with his second wife.
The magazine proudly spotlights both emerging and established writers. Winner receives $250 + publication. Deadline: 9/30/18.