annsepstein@att.net

Learn History Through Fiction: Nazi “Test Killing” of Disabled People

Five years before the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945, the Nazis conducted a “test killing” of 9,000 disabled people to make sure the carbon monoxide gas method they’d developed was “suitable” for mass extermination. Citing the theories of eugenics, the Third Reich claimed the murdered children and adults were “animals, not humans.” The test was declared a success, and followed by the killing of 70,000 additional disabled people at that site, another 230,000 elsewhere, and 6 million Jews and other victims in concentration camps. The site of the test killing, Aktion T4, in Brandenburg, Germany, contains the remains of an old brick barn with only a small memorial plaque. By design, there were no survivors left to testify about the Nazi “experiment.” Read about a disabled person who escaped the Nazi social hygiene policies in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Aktion T4, in Brandenberg, Germany, site of the mass “test killing” of disabled people by carbon monoxide gas

A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. by Ann S. Epstein (Alternative Book Press, Editors’ Choice Selection of Historical Novel Review)

Cultural Appropriation Backlash

If writers succumbed to charges of cultural appropriation, literature would be devoid of imagination and empathy. Says Hari Kunzru in The Guardian (10/01/16), “Clearly, if writers were barred from creating characters with attributes that we do not ‘own’ (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on), fiction would be impossible. Stories would be peopled by clones of the author.” For more thoughts on writing see REFLECTIONS.

Why writers write: “To survive, you must tell stories.” – Umberto Eco

Learn History Through Fiction: 1910 Chicago Garment Workers Strike

A year before the tragic 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire in New York City, women staged the Chicago Garment Workers Strike against Hart, Schaffner, and Marx, which employed several thousand workers in dozens of clothing factories — sweatshops — around the city. Women unified across racial and ethnic boundaries to protest low wages and poor working conditions. The strike, which lasted from September 1910 to January 1911, ended when labor and management agreed on a deal to raise wages and meet health and safety standards. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The Chicago Garment Workers Strike ended, successfully, just two months before the tragic Triangle Waist Company Fire in New York City

Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press) by Ann S. Epstein

The Manhattanville Review to Publish “Over the Road Song”

I’m happy to announce that my short story “Over the Road Song” will be published by The Manhattanville Review in their January 2020 issue. Here is the log line: In “Over the Road Song,” women truckers (CB handles mothertrucker2, Grannygears, and tankertopper) from three generations have a testy debate about the pros and cons of life on the road. The story will be online at the end of the month on The Manhattanville Review website. Read more in SHORT STORIES.

Of the 3.5 million truck drivers in the U.S., only 6.6% are women

Why writers write: “To speak up, insofar as we can, for those who cannot do so.” – Albert Camus

Learn History Through Fiction: Munchkins Paid Less than Toto the Dog

The actors who played Munchkins in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz were paid only $50-100 a week, less than Toto the dog whose salary was $125. Some resorted to boosting their earnings by pimping and prostitution, even begging. They reportedly propositioned crew members, leading to wild, though unsubstantiated, tales of drunken orgies. Read more about the Munchkins and the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

What I’m Reading: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

My Amazon and Goodreads review of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Rating 5) – The Balm of Words. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by award-winning poet and debut novelist Ocean Vuong is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age and coming out story. The narrator, Little Dog, writes of being a Vietnamese immigrant and a gay man, growing up alien and poor in Hartford, Connecticut. The novel takes the form of a letter to his illiterate mother, traumatized by a childhood napalm attack and often abusive. The odds of her reading, let alone understanding, the letter are slim so Little Dog is writing to himself as much as to her, trying to make sense of the forces that shaped him: his mother and grandmother, his quasi-grandfather, and the older redneck boy who was his first love. The imagery is transporting, invoking not only the five senses, but also hallucinatory states. As a fiction writer, I know how difficult it is to describe the indescribable. (See my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page.) I attribute Vuong’s metaphorical acuity to his gifts as a poet. Some descriptions are overwritten and desensitizing, but then a shattering scene reawakens readers’ nerves. Little Dog, like Vuong, escapes in books and writing. When his mother and grandmother are mocked for their lack of language, he vows never to be without words himself. The novel tells that tale, and is a testament to the phenomenal fruits of his pledge. Words are Little Dog’s balm. Vuong’s family story is horrific and while far removed from the lives of most readers, it remains a common truth for refugees today. Vuong triumphed, but the rare beauty of his writing reminds us that most trauma survivors will not.

Words overcome trauma in Vuong’s semi-autobiographical novel

Why writers read: “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. – Franz Kafka

Learn History Through Fiction: The Exhausted Mother

One hundred years ago, American women averaged six children, not counting miscarriages and stillbirths. Without adequate medical care, new mothers often had complications, making subsequent births more painful and dangerous. In addition, working-class women had no time to rest and recover after giving birth, and were expected to resume domestic chores and employment, along with mothering their newborns and other children. Read more about motherhood a century ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

“A nap, a nap, my entire brood for a nap”

Learn History Through Fiction: Bad Aim and Dud Bombs

In World War I there was only one attack on U.S. soil, dubbed the Battle of Orleans. On Sunday morning, July 21, 1918, the German submarine U-156 surfaced three miles off Cape Cod and fired at an unarmed tugboat and four barges. The submarine’s aim was so bad that many of the 150 shells landed on Nauset Beach in the town of Orleans. However, the barges sank and the tugboat was badly damaged. An air base in the nearby town of Chatham dispatched two planes. Each dropped a large bomb called the Mark IV but, famous for malfunctioning, they failed to detonate. Unaware the bombs were duds, the German sub retreated and the Coast Guard rescued all 32 persons aboard the tugboat and barges. Read more about WWI and its veterans in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

The U.S. responded to Germany’s lone but inept attack on American soil in WWI with dud bombs

What I’m Reading: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Friend: A Novel (Rating 4) – A Grieving Woman’s Best Friend. In The Friend: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez, a woman writer, grieving the suicide of her friend and mentor, adopts his dog. The Great Dane is named Apollo, the multifaceted Greek god of archery, music and dance, poetry, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, and the epitome of beauty. Slightly imperfect, but still stunning, the beast is the book’s only named character. He is a stand-in for the man, prompting the question: If dog is man’s best friend, and the man was the woman’s best friend, can the dog becomes the woman’s best friend? The suicide comes as a shock to her. The dog, old and ailing, will soon die too. The difference is that the woman has time to prepare herself for the dog’s death. Some say authors write fiction in order to rewrite history, their own or society’s. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I find this motivation limiting; it chains imagination to the past. But in the novel, the woman does attempt to edit her relationship with the absent man through her connection with his dog. Given that her aim is to come to terms with her grief, she is only partially successful. She skirts around it. Avoidance is fine for a character, but I wish Nunez herself had been less reluctant to plumb how inexplicable grief writes on us with indelible ink.

Can a four-footed friend compensate for the loss of a two-footed one?

Why writers read: “Books taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who had ever been alive.” – James Baldwin

Learn History Through Fiction: Fighting Fascism on London’s Cable Street

In the 1936 Battle of Cable Street, people from London’s East End stopped the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through the city’s largely Jewish area. In the previous two years, BUF had recruited working class members. The day of the battle, BUF planned to gather on Royal Mint Street and then destroy shops and beat Jews. But Britain’s labor movement, unlike in the U.S. and other countries, opposed racism and fought the BUF. They borrowed a slogan from the Spanish Civil War’s anti-fascist movement: “No Parasan: They Shall Not Pass!” Read more about old London in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).