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.
Congress ignored the plight of the one million refugees left in German Displaced Persons (DP) camps, most of them Jews who refused to be repatriated to countries decimated by the Holocaust. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
My Amazon and Goodreads reviews of I’m Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss by Joseph Lezza (Rating 5) – Tribute and Tirade. Joseph Lezza’s I’m Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss is a moving tribute to his late father, whose death from pancreatic cancer left his son bereft. It is also a tirade against the unjust and untimely death of a generous man on the cusp of finally enjoying the fruits of a hard-working life. Lezza struggles with his identity as a gay man, raised by devout parents in a Catholic Church that condemned who and what he was. An only child, the beneficiary of his parents’ unstinting love, Lezza was filled with guilt and remorse for having disappointed them. Reading about his journey from self-abasement to self-acceptance is painful, but ultimately redeeming. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I was impressed by Lezza’s agility with language. His lesson on the meaning of “fine” (adjective, verb, and noun), rooted in the Latin “finis” or end, is a masterful discourse on its ambiguity; it can describe a state ranging from superb to barely tolerable, from being done with grief to utterly and finally dead to the world, like his father. Likewise, Lezza’s description of his reawakening is simultaneously surreal and wholly authentic. As an end-of-life doula, I value his unsparing description of dying, a process that can literally and figuratively strip away our humanity — unless we transform it. Lezza and his mother, backed by family, friends, and hospice, never let the ravages of cancer deprive a brave man of the dignity and adoration he deserves. Lezza’s ferocious yet funny memoir restores justice to his father and rewards his own talents as a writer.
“Antisemitism in our town began when Romania became part of Hungary. We were marched from the ghetto through the cemetery. I stopped at my father’s grave to tell him we were being deported. At the railway station, our former neighbors cheered.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“I was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto as an infant and handed to a Christian woman, who was later sent to a labor camp. Somehow we got separated and I was left at the train station, knowing only my first name and age: 2 ½ years.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
After WW2, Congress refused to allow Germans in Displaced Persons (DP) camps to immigrate to the U.S., except for several thousand Nazi collaborators and scientists whose expertise could help us fight the cold war against the Soviets. The secret intelligence program was dubbed “Operation Paperclip.” History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
My Goodreads and Amazon review of We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (Rating 5) – A Gift to Dying. We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman is the story of the lifelong friendship between two women, Ash and Edi, the latter now in hospice. As Edi moves towards death, Ash surrounds her with love and assembles a community of other family members, friends, and hospice workers to accompany her on this journey. The finality is painful, but the long days and dwindling hours are also filled with humor and outright joy for life’s gifts. Newman’s novel is a gift to dying. While aspects of the tale are somewhat idealized — the women’s friendship, their respective families, and the residential hospice facility itself — the bodily humiliation and emotional grief of death are portrayed with honesty. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m impressed by the authenticity of Newman’s characters, especially the self-absorbed but self-aware Ash. As a certified end-of-life doula, I appreciate the realistic depiction of dying. It’s messy and draining, but also a time to tie up loose ends and magnify love. Edi is faced and graced with it all. Don’t we all deserve the “good death” that Newman portrays?
Today, March 14 (3/14), is Pi Day, an annual event first celebrated in 1988 because 3, 1, and 4 are the first three digits of the mathematical constant Pi. It is traditional to eat “pie” of every variety on this day, from the one- or two-crust pastry dough with a sweet or savory filling, to the thin- or thick-crust pizza pie topped with whatever sauce, cheese, meat, vegetables, and/or other ingredients one can stomach. Curious about the “storied” history of pie?
The first documented use of the English word “pie” appears in the 1303 records of a Yorkshire priory, possibly related to magpie, a bird that collects assorted things in its nest. However, pie’s origins are ancient. A written recipe for chicken pie from before 2000 BCE was discovered on a Sumerian tablet. Images of early pies, called galettes (flat, free-form crusty cakes of grain mixed with honey), are on the walls of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BCE. Greeks invented pie “pastry” in the 5th century CE by adding fat to a flour-water mix. Rome’s innovation was “covered” pie to retain the juices of the meat or fish used to stuff it.
The Roman Empire spread pies throughout Northern Europe, where they became a dietary staple of working people. Custard and fruit pies began to appear in the 15th century. Pilgrims brought their pie recipes to North America, adapting them to local game and produce. When Native Americans taught them how to boil down maple syrup, maple became a popular pie sweetener. Successive waves of immigrants brought their own variations — Scandinavian cheese and cream in the Midwest — as did enslaved peoples — molasses from the Caribbean and sweet potatoes from Africa in the South. Pies — notably pigeon and venison — appear often in the novels of Jane Austen. In fact they are the only food mentioned in the Christmas feasts she describes.
Pizza pie has its own history, a long one dating to the flat breads of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. However, the modern pizza pie was born in Naples, Italy. Legend has it that when King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889, they were bored with French haute cuisine and asked for an assortment of pizzas from the city’s century-old pizzeria. The variety the queen enjoyed most was topped with soft white cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil, coincidentally the colors of the Italian flag. Thenceforth, that combination was named the Margherita. But pizza pie wasn’t well known outside Italy until the 1940s, when Neapolitan immigrants brought it to the United States. The simple and adaptable aromatic treat soon became a hit in New York and other American cities. Who can forget John Travolta, as Tony Manero, slapping two slices together as he strides through Brooklyn’s pulsing streets?
If you like your pie encrusted in historical fiction, please continue to savor my website. See NOVELS and SHORT STORIES to read about the culinary traditions brought to America by immigrants. Leave a comment. Share your family’s pie and other food favorites.
“Before we were deported, soldiers put tags with SS insignia on all our belongings . They owned everything now, down to the last toothpick.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Holocaust deniers are no longer a fringe group. They’ve been given space, room to grow, and positive media coverage by some national leaders. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
