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.
“Camp life becomes normal. It’s easy to give up and say God wants it. Once you feel sorry for yourself, you’re a goner, a ‘Muselmann’ as we called the physically and mentally broken. But I was young; I wanted to live.” 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.
Young women determined to survive the camp
Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter
I adore chocolate and eat it very day. Yet I increasingly appreciate the taste of vanilla. Real vanilla (not artificial vanillin) is fruity and spicy-sweet with a mild floral aroma. So how did this complex flavor earn the epithet “plain vanilla,” synonymous with bland, boring, unadventurous, in short, blah? It wasn’t always so. In the 18th century, when vanilla was scarce, it was an incitement to lust. The Marquis de Sade purportedly spiked desserts with vanilla and Spanish fly. A German physician claimed to have turned “no fewer than 342 impotent men into astonishing lovers.” But when vanillin was synthesized in 1874, making it cheap and readily available, it lost its cache as a luxury. Fortunately, vanilla is undergoing a high-end revival, much like coffee and chocolate. Beans are now imported not only from Madagascar (source of 80 percent of the world’s vanilla), but also Hawaii, Mexico, Peru, India, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and elsewhere. Each terroir brings its own distinctive flavor(s). Vanilla is once again classy. Might the same happen to trite literary metaphors, taken out of retirement like old clothes and paraded as vintage treasures? I nominate “sweet as honey,” given that the decline of the bee population has made honey scarce. What banal metaphors would you like to see revived?
There’s nothing “plain” about these fragrant vanilla beans
My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Falcon, the Wolf, and the Hummingbird by Martha Engber (Rating 5) – Suspenseful and Spellbinding.The Falcon, the Wolf, and the Hummingbird by Martha Engber is a breathless adventure about two courageous Native American women warriors on opposite sides of a life-or-death conflict. Readers meet strong-willed Pino, determined to redeem herself and save her threatened tribe, and wily Meesha, eager to avenge her own murdered tribe and escape her subsequent enslavement. With mounting suspense and spellbinding writing, Engber steers the narrative through the young heroines’ journeys as they face hard choices and nearly insurmountable odds. Pino is plagued by guilt over her sister’s death. Meesha is entrapped in a love-hate relationship with her tormentor. When the women form an unlikely alliance, readers wonder whether defeating their common enemy will likewise allow them to vanquish their own inner demons. The novel is enriched by meticulously researched details of daily life among pre-colonial New England Native Americans. As writer of historical fiction myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Engber’s ability to include factual details, yet maintain the fast-moving plot. While set hundreds of years ago, this tale of sisterhood nevertheless speaks to today’s struggle for self-determination and survival among all beleaguered peoples. The Falcon, the Wolf, and the Hummingbird is entertaining, enlightening, and enormously inspiring.
Conflict, connection, revenge, redemption
Why writers read: “Books let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri
Mexican American Army medic Anthony Acevedo attended the wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. Captured and identified as “racially undesirable,” he suffered as a German POW. Yet he kept a diary of the medical details and deaths of fellow prisoners, which he donated to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum so they would not be nameless and forgotten. While the U.S. failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution, history shows some courageous Americans spoke out and saved lives. 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.
Army medic Anthony Acevedo recorded the deaths of fellow POWs in his diary
Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn before the Nazi slaughter begins
“The SS officer said they needed prisoners who knew how to feed pigs. Everybody wanted to get away from the hard labor in the camp and work on the farm. I said I was born on a pig farm (a lie), but the guard pushed me back. As the men chosen marched away, machine guns mowed them down. The officer came back and laughingly said, ‘Who else knows how to feed pigs?’” Read about two Holocaust survivors in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Prisoners labor at Nazi work camp
Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter
My essay, “Can Death Be Brought to Life?” was published in the August 2023 issue of SPILL IT! Based on my work as an end-of-life doula, the essay describes how death, once a daily fact of life, has become a “forbidden” subject of conversation and asks whether, and how, death might be reclaimed as a normal part of life. Read more at ESSAYS and learn about my work with those facing death at END-OF-LIFE DOULA.
“Nazi leaders began to persecute Jews as soon as Hitler took power in 1933. I was a college professor when they issued the Nuremberg Race Laws prohibiting Jews from teaching in or attending public schools. I gave private lessons, usually for no fee, until I was sent to Buchenwald. After we were liberated, I was offered a position at an American university. My colleagues sent a briefcase as a welcoming gift.” 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.
Nuremberg Race Laws banned Jewish teachers and students
Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter
My Amazon and Goodreads review of Take What You Need by Idra Novey (Rating 5) – It’s Complicated. I was hooked at the book’s first line: “This morning, I read that repeating the name of the deceased can quiet the mind when grieving for a complicated person.” Take What You Need by Idra Novey is the story of a difficult relationship, told from the alternating perspectives of Leah, a young woman, and her recently deceased stepmother Jean, who left when Leah was ten and from whom she is estranged. Jean is a magnetic character who inspires both admiration and distaste, an artist obsessed with sculpting massive towers (“manglements”) which she welds from scrap metal, old photos, and other salvaged materials. Jean literally dies for her art, falling from a ladder while reaching for the top of one of her towers. Leah travels to the tiny, decaying house and town in northern Appalachia where Jean was born and died, trying to come to terms with the disruption between that first decade of love followed by sudden abandonment. In Jean’s back story, readers hear her aching need to restore their connection and the multiple ways in which Jean, an artistic visionary with emotional blind spots, repeatedly screws up every attempt. We also discover, along with Leah, that in mourning those with whom we had an uneasy relationship, we can come to acknowledge the good without invalidating the bad. Jean had an open heart that invited everyone, even society’s castoffs, to take what they needed, while being insensitive to the person who needed her most. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I applaud Novey’s ability to draw characters who are at once unlikable and sympathetic. As one among many who have struggled with ambivalent feelings about those we’ve have lost, I appreciate how Take What You Need gives grieving readers permission to let conflicting emotions dwell alongside each other.
A journey to resolve conflicting feelings for the deceased
Why writers read: “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” – George R. R. Martin
As a woman and amputee, American Virginia Hall was not expected to succeed at espionage during WW2. Yet operating under 20 different code names, with an artificial leg, she gathered intelligence, rescued fellow agents, eluded double-crossing informants, and helped organized the French resistance. While the U.S. failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution, history shows some courageous Americans spoke out and saved lives. 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.
Virginia Hall’s feats as a WWII spy are only being belatedly recognized
Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn before the Nazi slaughter begins
More of my microfiction was published in 50 Give or Take. “Wrinkles of Disappointment” was prompted by a remark my daughter made about the “disappointed” face of a woman in a theater lobby where we were attending a performance. Sign up to receive and submit your own ultra-short stories, free, at 50 Give or Take.
