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.
I’m pleased to announce that my short story, “Orphan Camp” has just been published in The Summerset Review, Winter 2019. Here’s the log line: “Orphan Camp” examines how the resilience that allowed Jewish children to survive during WWII made them resistant to adoption afterwards. Although set seventy years ago, the story speaks to today’s many war orphans. Read the story online at http://www.summersetreview.org/19winter/orphan.html.
In the mid-1950s, TIME, the weekly news magazine founded in 1923, featured covers devoted to the economy, Hollywood, psychiatry, Russia, labor, and fashion. Titles and photos inside its distinctive red border included the following: The Bull Market (a bull on Wall Street); Gentleman Prefer Ladies (Grace Kelly); Exploring the Soul – A Challenge to Freud (Carl Jung); Shakeup in the Kremlin (Nikita Khrushchev); AFL’s George Meany (smoking a cigar, bald-headed, with bad teeth); and The American Look (fashion designer Claire McCardell). Harlow Curtis, President of GM, was named Man of the Year. GM sold five million vehicles and became the first U.S. corporation to earn $1 billion in a single year.A copy of TIME in 1955 cost twenty cents. Today each weekly issue sells for five dollars. Read more about 1950s culture and TIME magazine in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS.
The 1910 Chicago Electrical Show was billed as the most elaborate exposition ever held, with “everything that’s new in light, heat and power for the home, office, store, factory and farm on display.” It was advertised as a “Veritable Fairyland of Electrical Wonders” with $40,000 spent on decorations (worth $950,000 today). Displays included a Wright airplane exhibited by the U.S. Government, wireless telegraphy, and telephony. Read more Chicago history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
Great audience turnout and lively Q & A for the Tazia and Gemma book reading at the Ann Arbor Jewish Community Center on December 4. I read narrative passages from the first Tazia section and my daughter Rebecca joined me to read the mother-daughter interview from the first Gemma section. We also showed a short documentary film about the Triangle Waist Company fire, which opens the book. Thanks to the Ann Arbor JCC for hosting and to all who attended the Tazia and Gemma event. For a complete list of my publication events see NEWS; to read more about my books see NOVELS.
The San Diego Naval Base was commissioned in 1922 as U.S. Destroyer Base, San Diego. It grew rapidly during its first years as a repair facility and torpedo & radio school. In 1931, then Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz assumed command and noted the “poor condition of decommissioned ships” in his report about the country’s readiness for war. During the Depression, the base survived with more than $2 million for dredging projects from the Public Works Administration (PWA). Then came WW II. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
The Beatles television appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, was watched by an estimated 74 million viewers, half the U.S. population. Their send-off two days earlier at Heathrow airport was riotous, as was their arrival at the newly re-christened JFK airport, where 3,000 screaming fans greeted them. The youthful exuberance and snarky humor of the Fab Four was the perfect antidote for a country still reeling from President Kennedy’s assassination less than three months earlier. Read more about the Beatles and their U.S. debut in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Mars Room (Rating 5) – No One is a Zero. Rachel Kushner’s novel The Mars Room, set in a bleak women’s prison, is unexpectedly life-affirming. The story of Romy Hall, serving a life sentence without parole, focuses less on external prison conditions, although Kushner paints a nitty-gritty portrait, than on the family created by the inmates. Inevitable animosities arise, but so does genuine affection between inmates in a sterile environment that nevertheless teems with hope. Sharing Romy’s regret that she didn’t appreciate small pleasures while she had the chance, readers vow not to take their own daily existence for granted. We thrill to Romy’s brief brush with freedom and inhale the awareness that neither she, nor we, are zero.
During the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, employees could not escape because managers locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. This was a common practice to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks or pilfering material. Supervisors checked women’s purses on their way out each day, and even when they went to the bathroom. Read more about inhumane sweatshop conditions in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
Remember when (really) “big” shoulders for women were fashionable in the 1980s, especially for those challenging the male-dominated corporate world? The trend was a revival of a style that flourished in the 1930s through the end of WWII. It began when Adrian Greenberg, costume designer for The Wizard of Oz, designed dresses with shoulder pads for MGM star Joan Crawford, who epitomized the hard-working and successful woman. Hollywood and fashion had a symbiotic relationship. Movie costumes influenced designers and the designer styles adopted by stars became popular with the general public. Read more about fashion trends and movie history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
Songs from Broadway musicals boosted American spirits during the Great Depression. Cole Porter’s 1934 score for Anything Goes, starring Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney and William Gaxton as Billy Crockett, was a popular source. However, when the show was made into a movie in 1936, featuring Merman and Bing Crosby, Production Code censors nixed the saucy lyrics of the stage production. The only remaining numbers were “Anything Goes,” “I Get A Kick Out of You,” “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair,” and “You’re the Top.” Read more music history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
