JEWISH FEDERATION
December 2020
Federation Star
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A sneak peek at two books from December Jewish Book Festival events
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re you ready to enjoy the Jewish Book Festival that begins Dec. 3 and runs through March 30? We wanted to give you a taste of two of the authors and books being featured in December with the following book reviews. Not registered yet? Go to JewishBook Festival.org and reserve your spot today!
Love Is a Rebellious Bird by Elayne Klasson Reviewed by Carole J Greene, Jewish Book Festival Committee Member The title of this novel drew me to it. (Fledgling novelists take note!) “Love is a rebellious bird” are the opening words of “The Habanera,” lyrics from the libretto of Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen.” The first and the final stanzas of the aria say: “Love is a rebellious bird that nobody can tame, and you call him quite in vain if it suits him not to come. The bird you thought you had caught beat its wings and flew away . . . Love stays away, you wait and wait; when least expected, there it is!” Author Elayne Klasson could not have found a more fitting passage to capture the spirit of her novel. Judith Sherman, the narrator of the story, tells readers she must explore the answers to two essential questions: who is it that we love, and why have we loved these people? She begins with Elliot Pine, the love of her life — literally — whom she meets in fifth grade and loves for 60 years with a passion “consuming, painful and, ultimately,
unsuitable.” As Elliot flits in and out of her life, both of them having long-term relationships with others, Judith’s stories ultimately deliver the answer to the second of those two questions — why she loved her two husbands, and why Elliot chose women other than her. The entire story answers the other question of whom we love. Klasson writes the book as if Judith is telling it to Elliot. Her narrative of family life — first with Seth, father of her twins, Evan and Miriam, then with second husband, Walt, father of Joseph — frequently works in a sentence or two directed to Elliot.
“It wasn’t me you wanted; it was diversion.” “You were the man by which I had measured all other loves.” “I pull the thought of you out of a drawer I keep in my mind.” I found much to like in this book. Klasson summarizes the key element in each chapter in a one- or two-word chapter title: Beauty, Consolation, Magic, Insanity, Being Seen, Elliot’s Table… I applaud her taking such care with those selections. I also appreciate her many evocative descriptions. She talks about Elliot’s manner of running his hand through his thick “Kennedy hair.” Anyone who has ever seen a photograph of JFK knows exactly what she means. Klasson bares her soul in simple sentences: “Once I start out on a path, I don’t like turning back.”
“… when we do not appreciate a gift, it is taken from us.” “Isn’t it interesting that these central facts of who we are, we keep hidden from our children?” The book is a Jewish novel only to the extent that Judith and Elliot were Jewish and grew up in the mid-1950s West Rogers Park region of Chicago, a Jewish neighborhood of privilege. As teenagers, the two worked together to boost him to a high office in a Jewish youth group, at the same time exploring their hormone-drenched sexuality — but not to consummation. I won’t ruin the book’s conclusion, except to say that it reflects the final stanza of Bizet’s aria: “Love stays away, you wait and wait; when least expected, there it is!” continued on page 4
Friday, Dec. 11 at 10:30 a.m. $10 Elayne Klasson grew up in Chicago and is a recent transplant to the Santa Barbara area, where she is a popular lifestyle newspaper columnist. Her professional career has largely been in academia at San Jose State University, with her research and clinical expertise focusing on the mentally ill. Now in her 70s, Klasson relishes the fact that this debut novel was a finalist for the Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction from the National Book Awards. Appearing with Elayne Klasson will be Nessa Rapoport, author of Evening. This program is being generously sponsored by the Collier/Lee Chapter of Hadassah.
