Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
Peter Mark Roget was 73 when the first issue of Roget’s Thesaurus, a project to scientifically order language, was published in 1852. An esteemed member of London’s Royal Society, he’d already developed the slide rule, published medical and scientific papers. and contributed to the invention of motion pictures. Roget oversaw every update of the thesaurus until his death at age 90. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
Roget, of thesaurus fame, didn’t rest on his laurels
Woodruff Home for the Aged, where aging with dignity battles corporate greed
Varian Fry was 33 in 1940 when he snuck $3,000 into Nazi occupied France and facilitated the escape of 2,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees. Among those saved by the U.S. journalist were Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Hannah Arendt. Fry was the first of five Americans recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations,” an honorific given by the State of Israel to non-Jews who saved many refugees during World War II. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
“Righteous” Varian Fry helped 2,000 refugees escape the Nazis
Woodruff Home for the Aged, a lively place where old people go to die
Théodore Chassériau at age 15 became the youngest painter ever exhibited in the Louvre. He was a Dominican-born French Romantic painter known for portraits, historical and religious paintings, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria. A prolific draftsman, he made a set of prints illustrating Shakespeare’s “Othello” and his 1834 portrait of Prosper Marilhat was hung in the world-famous museum. Driven to exhaustion while completing a series of commissions, he died at age 37. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
A portrait created at age 15 made Chasseriau the youngest painter exhibited in the Louvre
Woodruff Home for the Aged, where aging with dignity battles corporate greed
Wilson founded Alcoholics Anonymous at age 40. An Army veteran and businessman who struggled with depression and alcohol, he crashed five years after the 1929 stock market and checked into a hospital, where he overcame drinking through the spiritual principles propounded by the Oxford Group. Several years later, tempted to drink again, he contacted a fellow patient, surgeon Robert Smith. Their five-hour conversation led them to found AA in 1935. After a Saturday Evening Post article about AA in 1941, the organization took off in popularity. Today, AA has more than 2 million members worldwide. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous helped himself, which now helps 2 million members worldwide
Woodruff Home for the Aged, a lively place where old people go to die
My Goodreads and Amazon review of Leave the Kid Alone: A Fractured Remembrance (Rated 5) – Inn-side Story. In his coming-of-age memoir, Leave the Kid Alone: A Fractured Remembrance, Steve Zettler offers an entertaining mix of youthful innocence overlaid with adult wit. In short, pithy chapters, the book zips along as quickly as childhood itself. Young Stevie’s (mis)perceptions about the world are at once hilariously off target and astutely on the mark. Growing up in a family-owned inn in rural Pennsylvania, Zettler is exposed to people from widely different backgrounds. What he doesn’t learn from his tough Navy veteran father and outspoken schoolteacher mother, he learns from the guests and staff, who range from the New York City celebrities who come to “shack up” for the weekend to the hardened “stew bums” who man the kitchen, pretty waitresses, and street-wise bartenders. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page, I admire Zettler’s skill bringing each character to life on the page. Like many children with families in the hospitality business, he was expected to work. Much as he missed playing with his classmates, he recognized the “silver lining” of his position. Literally, he got paid. Metaphorically, he learned things that enriched his knowledge beyond that of his peers. The closed world of the inn opened Zettler to the bigger world of human experience that is captured in his endearing and entertaining recollections.
The world of an inn seen through a 7-year-old’s eyes
Why writers read: “There is no friend as loyal as a book.” – Ernest Hemingway
The 124 Munchkins in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz were mostly adult actors with pituitary dwarfism. Only ten, aged 7 to 9, were children of normal height. The youngest non-child, Margaret Pellegrini, was 16. The oldest little person, Meinhardt Raabe, was 24. [Note: My novel A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. is a fictional biography of Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner.] Toto the dog was five. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
All but 10 of the 124 Munchkins were adults with pituitary dwarfism
Woodruff Home for the Aged, where aging with dignity battles corporate greed
A fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner
John A. Roebling was 63 when he designed the Brooklyn Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world at that time. Born in 1806 in Prussia, Roebling emigrated to the U.S. at age 25. Work on the span began in 1869 and was completed in 1883. Tragically, the architect died from a tetanus infection during the bridge’s construction, but his son, Washington Roebling, finished the project. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge architect, died before the project was completed
Woodruff Home for the Aged, a lively place where old people go to die
My Goodreads and Amazon review of Whistler: A Novel by Ann Patchett (Rated 5 – Surprise and Inevitability.Whistler: A Novel by Ann Patchett is a small quiet book about the big noisy subject of love. Love in its infinite combinations, between parents and children, spouses, siblings, humans and animals, people and their work. Love that boasts its presence and the love that “dare not speak its name.” Love that calls to us and, like Whistler, the horse of the book’s title, shows up to save us. Patchett creates unforgettable characters. Life has been kinder to some than others, yet each finds a way to survive. Some are instantly endearing: Protagonists Daphne and Eddie, a middle-aged woman who accidentally meets the stepfather who abruptly left the family when she was nine; Daphne’s considerate and down-to-earth husband Jonathan. Others, like Daphne’s birth father Buddy, set up to be villains, turn out to be mensches. And even the real baddies, Eddie’s overbearing friends Skip and Polly, merit sympathy as victims of the social norms that force people into compromising roles they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves. Patchett creates a network of ties among people brought together by chance whose relationships nevertheless feel meant to be. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire her ability to make surprise and inevitability coexist on the page. Whistler is a satisfying and deceptively deep book.
Rekindling a lost love
Why writers read: “A good book is an event in my life.” – Stendhal
Nils Bohlin was 38 when he designed the harness seat belt in 1958. He was working for Volvo when he came up with the seat belt model that has saved millions of lives. Lap belts had been around for nearly a century, but his three-point system (shoulder, chest, and lap) was a major improvement. After some initial resistance from drivers who resented being told what to do, even for their own good, Bohlin’s seat belt became standard equipment around the world. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
Harness belt more effective than lap belt at preventing injuries and saving lives
Woodruff Home for the Aged, a lively place where old people go to die
Judy Garland was 16 when she was cast as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, 17 when the movie was released in 1939. Born Frances Ethel Gumm into a vaudeville family, she began performing at age two with her older sisters. At 12, she signed with MGM, where she made 27 of her 34 films. Her long career earned Garland an Academy Award, two Grammys, and a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Her personal life was a struggle however, and she died of an accidental overdose at 47. Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
The iconic singer-actress was successful on screen but troubled in life
Woodruff Home for the Aged, a lively place where old people go to die
