MBJCC VIRTUAL AUTHOR UP-CLOSE SERIES Wednesdays at 12:30 pm $10 | Members and Patrons: Free Reservations are required at mbjcc.ticketleap.com
Rachel Barenbaum November 18
Elayne Klasson December 16
Jennifer Steil January 27
Michael Frank February 17
Neil Bascomb March 17
Maurice Samuels April 21
November 18: Rachel Barenbaum, A Bend in the Stars
February 17: Michael Frank, What is Missing
Set in 1914 Russia, A Bend in the Stars is the story of a scientist racing Einstein to prove relativity. In the chaos of war, on the brink of solving the famous field equations, he goes missing— launching his sister on a desperate search across Russia to find him.
Suspenseful and gripping, What Is Missing is a psychological novel that, like the author’s prizewinning memoir, The Mighty Franks, asks who we are, and who those closest to us are, when life puts us to disturbing and powerful tests.
Rachel Barenbaum is a prolific writer and reviewer for the LA Review of Books, the Tel Aviv Review of Books and DeadDarlings. She is an Honorary Research Associate at the Hadassah- Brandeis Institute and a graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator. A Bend in the Stars is her debut novel.
Michael Frank’s essays, articles, and short stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate, The Yale Review, Salmagundi, The TLS, and Tablet, among other publications. He served as a Contributing Writer to the Los Angeles Times Book Review for nearly ten years and is recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship.
December 16: Elayne Klasson, Love is a Rebellious Bird Who is it we love and why do we love these people? Love is a Rebellious Bird examines these questions through the eyes of Judith who is trying to understand why she chose Elliot Pine to love. Why, for sixty years, did she persist in loving someone who never gave as much as he was given? In her quest for understanding, she writes her story to this exceptional man. This is Elayne Klasson's first novel. Her professional career has largely been in academia at San Jose State University, with her research and clinical area of expertise being the severely mentally ill. She is a popular lifestyle newspaper columnist and has appeared on San Francisco public television as a restaurant critic.
January 27: Jennifer Steil, Exile Music Based on an unexplored slice of World War II history, Exile Music is the captivating story of a young Jewish girl whose family flees refined and urbane Vienna for safe harbor in the mountains of Bolivia. Jennifer Steil is an award-winning author and journalist who lives in many countries (currently Uzbekistan). Her previous novel, The Ambassador’s Wife, won the 2013 William Faulkner- William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Best Novel award and the 2016 Phillip McMath Post Publication Book Award.
March 17: Neil Bascomb, Faster For fans of The Boys in the Boat and In the Garden of Beasts, a pulse-pounding tale of triumph by an improbable team of upstarts over Hitler’s fearsome Silver Arrows during the golden age of auto racing. Neal Bascomb is a national award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of a number of books, all non-fiction narratives, all focused on inspiring stories of adventure or achievement. His work has been featured in several documentaries, and optioned for ma jor film and television projects.
April 21: Maurice Samuels, The Betrayal of the Duchess Brimming with intrigue and lush detail, The Betrayal of the Duchess is the riveting story of a high-spirited woman, the charming but volatile young man who double-crossed her, and the birth of one of the modern world's most deadly forms of hatred. Maurice Samuels is the Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French at Yale University, where he also chairs the Judaic Studies Program. A specialist of the literature and culture of nineteenth-century France, he has written four books and is a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and the MLA's Scaglione Prize for the best book in French studies.
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