As a lover of all things culture, I am so loving what I’m seeing on the big screen and small screen these days, as well as the stages. I’ve been spending the cold winter mainly under a blanket on the couch binge watching streaming TV shows, some network, while also getting myself back into the gym (New Year’s Resolution, what can I say?) and back into reading books again, something I lost sight of in 2016. Nonetheless, I am so in love with what I’ve been seeing that I think I shall start a new “Must-See” column. Here is the first of my monthly what not to miss on the big and small screen, on the stages and on the pages!

Must-See’s on the Small Screen

This is Us (NBC)

Search Party (FX)

Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon)

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW)

The Crown (Netflix)

Better Things (FX)

Must-See’s on the Big Screen

Hidden Figures

Lion

Jackie

La La Land,

Moonlight

Fences

A Monster Calls

Must-See’s on the Stages

Dear Evan Hansen (Broadway)

The Babylon Line at Lincoln Center (off-Broadway)

Must-See’s on the Pages

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

That’s a wrap! Until February.

Leave your picks in the comment section if you are so inclined. Not that I need anything more to do!

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My grandparents passed away at the same time on a terrible day in 1992. I can’t believe it’s been 24 years since I last held them in my arms. I was 22 when they died and probably too young to stop to think what they left behind or how I would memorialize them, but I’ll tell you one thing I do know. If I had a copy of PASSED and PRESENT Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive by my friend, Allison Gilbert, I would have known how to preserve their memories.

Passed and Present

This past Sunday, I attended her first official “Memory Bash” in a nearby town to celebrate the launch of her new book, which I devoured that night. The book is a celebration of life, with the hope that remembering promotes healing and will help people live longer, happier lives after the loss of a loved one. After the loss of both her parents, Gilbert set out to find ways to keep them in her life, so that her own children would somehow feel connected to the grandparents they never met.

She writes about how it’s important to honor loved ones – allowing them to remain present in our lives, rather then push their memories away. She offers a number of ways to do this, all very tangible, viable and approachable. She has thoroughly researched the topic and has compiled her findings neatly in an easy read, yet the book somehow features eighty-five ways to celebrate and honor family and friends we never want to forget.

At the “Memory Bash” I was introduced to several creative strategies on how to repurpose with purpose, and I have images of some easily made items that memorialize loved ones below. Gilbert took her dad’s tie collection and had a quilt made. She put her mother’s dishes together to create a serving tray (which can easily be used as a knick knack for decoration). She had a drawing made of a photo of her mom to frame in her office. She took her mom’s recipes and created a very special recipe box. All useful and all sentimental ideas.

Technology Integrates Loved Ones into Daily Life

Gilbert then goes into how existing methods of technology can integrate your loved ones into your daily life. There are so many tools at our disposal today (compared to when I lost my grandparents in 1992). From home videos to audio recordings to web sites built to memorialize loved ones to customized hash tags on Twitter to random acts of kindness promoted via social media, there are more opportunities than ever to remember our loved ones, which leads to increased support from friends and one’s community. It’s even possible to fabricate a loved one’s history by traveling and tracing their steps using software and technology.

Of course, there is also food, music and rituals – all cultural norms that help one remember loved ones. Gilbert provides a monthly guide full of “Forget Me Not’s” to help the planning of chances to honor loved ones, as it may feel overwhelming or many. This section is particularly useful to someone like me, who can feel overwhelmed by so many valuable options.

Travel Creates Opportunities to Make Connections with Loved Ones

The last section is about travel, obviously a section I paid close attention to, as a travel writer myself. A few years ago, Gilbert and her colleague, writer Hope Edelman, took a group of 16 of their readers on a trip to Machu Pichu, where they hiked and worked in an orphanage. (I had asked to go, but alas was turned down as I am not parentless, something I am grateful for.) It was there that Gilbert learned the true value of travel and its incredible contribution to honoring memories of loved ones. She takes us from Mexico to Japan to Israel and further around the world to tell us important events and landmarks that help us find our own connections to the past.

It’s also important to add that the book is beautifully illustrated with drawings by Jennifer Orkin Lewis. The pictures accentuate the book’s mission of celebrating life. The book is a great shiva gift or gift for someone who suffers a loss – maybe not right away but down the road.

Disclosure: I was provided with a complimentary copy of Passed and Present to facilitate this review. As always, all opinions are my own.

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2015 was such a good year for pop culture. From books to TV shows to movies, it was just very satisfying.

Streaming video and binging kind of took over my life, as I fell in love with shows like Grace & Frankie on Netflix, Casual on Hulu and Transparent on Amazon. Over on the networks, shows that I became addicted to were Jane the Virgin and Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, which I of course binged on Hulu and rarely watched live.

Books like The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, Paper Love by Sarah Wildman and Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox by Joanne Bamberger greatly inspired me and kept me going.

It was the year of women progressing in the film space, as we saw more and more women-written, produced and directed films like Suffragette and rich movies like Brooklyn. I was fortunate to work with Broad Street Pictures on the launch of their company early in the year and look forward to the release of their new film Equity at the Sundance Film Festival later this month.

The face of social media shifted, and now there are even more tools to learn. My kids have taught me a heck of a lot about SnapChat and YouTube, and my own appreciation and interest in Instagram grew, as did my following.

Oh, and need I say Hamilton? I saw it during its off-Broadway run and loved it. I knew I’d seen something special, but who knew it would turn into such a phenomenon on Broadway? Watching bi-weekly #Ham4Ham videos is my new hobby and meeting Lin-Manuel Miranda on a plane to Los Angeles was certainly a highlight of my year. I managed to work on one play called Let it Come Down by Eve Lederman at the Theater for the New City, which was a thrill. Coming into contact with the stage, writers, actors and producers still makes me happy.

And now it’s 2016. I’m another year older and just as pop-cultured centric as ever.

Here are some of my Pop Culture Resolutions in 2016:

To actually finish the shows I start streaming, particularly on Netflix. I need to finish House of Cards, Jessica Jones and I really need to start watching Making a Murder. I’m eagerly awaiting the March return of Grace & Frankie, Orange and the New Black and the imminent Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, but I don’t have any trouble watching them. On the contrary, I watch them too fast.

To watch more shows on Amazon Prime. Catastrophe and Transparent knocked everything else out of the water, especially the latter, and I want to watch Mozart in the Jungle and a bunch of their other new shows. I wrote about the channel on BlogHer last year in an article titled How Amazon is Changing the Ratio with Great Shows for Women, and they are proving that more and more with time, having just ordered three women-backed shows in December.

To read more. I have a zillion books on my list. I always read on plane, train rides and other modes of transportation but it’s time to get off Facebook and read. It’s one of my life-long passion, and I can’t let the digital age take its place. I also want to revisit classics by the likes of Jane Austin. I’ve been saying that for a long time, now’s the time.

To introduce my kids to more classic novels, TV shows, movies. During the holidays, my tween and I streamed Flashdance, Muriel’s Wedding and Ghost on Netflix, which gave me enormous pleasure.

To listen to more alternative radio and revisit much of the music from my childhood. I already have tickets to see Duran Duran and The Cure in 2016, and I vow to listen to 90.7 WFUV more often as Sirius XM Radio (I love their morning show with Jessica Shaw, an old friend, and Dalton Ross) has recently filled my radio listening time with other stations. I plan to support the arts, and more locally.

Theater-wise, I’m thinking more off-Broadway. I love plays over the Public Theater, the Signature, Playwright Horizons and MTC. I’ve seen many of the best shows off-Broadway, and I’ve even worked in it (on The Best of Everything based on the book by Rona Jaffe a few years ago). That’s where it all starts.

Film-wise, I want to see more female backed movies. I want to see more women directing, writing, producing and starring in roles that take their careers to the next level and blow me away with important themes and stories.

What are you looking forward to this year?

Disclosure: I am a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam but all opinions related to the network are my own.

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Year Of Yes: How To Dance It Out, Stand In The Sun And Be Your Own Person starts with a very powerful quote by Maya Angelou:

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

I knew this book would resonate given my fixation with women like Shonda Rhimes. She’s not only a creative force but a feminist – someone who speaks her mind and stands up for issues she believes in. She uses her Thursday night platform so carefully, telling stories that demand telling, exploring issues that demand exploration. She’s also a working mom, like me, and a trailblazer. These are two things I’ve had trouble putting together since the birth of my children, and I wanted to find out her trick to “doing it all”.

Well, she’s the first person to admit that no one can do it all. When she was succeeding in one area of life, particularly work, as the creator of the hottest shows on TV (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder – in case you didn’t already know that!), she was failing in motherhood. Her complacency allowed her weight to skyrocket and she wasn’t enjoying her life, shying away from every invitation and opportunity outside work. As a writer, she makes up stories and she was doing it so much that she was failing to consider her own life. She writes:

This is who I am.

Silent.

Quiet.

Interior.

More comfortable with books than with new situations.

Content to live within my imagination.

Until one day on Thanksgiving in 2013. She’s standing in the kitchen with her older sister, Delorse, chopping food and her sister used six words that changed everything: You never say yes to anything. It’s amazing how words from someone you respect more than anyone can change your life, and they changed hers.

She appeared on television in front of the camera, on Jimmy Kimmel and The Mindy Project. She losts 100 pounds. She broke up with her fiancé after realizing that like many of her heroines, she doesn’t want to get married. She gave the commencement speech at Dartmouth, her alma mater.

Aside from the fame stuff, she started to come home for dinner every night at 6pm to spend more time with her children. Weekends became time for them, not work.

The book is an inside track to Shondaland – you do hear about how great it is work with her partner, Betsy Beers, and about her relationship with Sandra Oh (whose character Cristina Yang is her everything), Entertainment Weekly photo shoots, awards, panels, glamour – lots of it. But it’s about a real person inside all this madness. Someone who created her destiny – she knew she wanted to be a writer from age 3 and still pinches herself for getting paid to do what she loves. Someone who adopted 3 kids on her own and has no intention of ever getting married because she likes her life the way it is. Someone who has paved the way for other females in her industry and credits much of her fame to the people she works with.

But deep down, she knows she’s a “badass” and there’s nothing wrong for believing that. Shonda’s writing is casual and honest. Reading this book is like sitting in a room alone with her, getting advice from someone the same age (I’m 45, just like her) on how to embrace life and not let anyone or anything stop you. After a year of saying “yes” and coming to terms with who she is (she accepts the fact that she really needs and loves her nanny, Jenny McCarthy, and that it’s okay to ask for help), she writes:

The one thing I have learned is that I don’t know ANYTHING. If someone had told me that Thanksgiving morning in 2013 that I would be an entirely person today, I would have laughed in their face. And yet…here I am. 

127 pounds thinner.

Several toxic people lighter.

Closer to my family.

A better mother.

A better friend.

A happier boss.

A stronger leader.

A more creative writer.

I’ve written about my own struggle being a mom, career and trying to do it all over on The Broad Side, PHD in Parenting and Scary Mommy, and plenty here on this blog. Two years ago after a struggle with Thyroid Cancer, my world opened up and I became less hard on myself. My work has taken a turn for the better, and I’m working with amazing people. I still haven’t figured out my life: I have a special needs child, I work from home and I really need to go to an office rather than work from home), but I’ll get there. It’s not like anyone gave me a motherhood manual to tell me how to navigate the waters. The bottom line is that my identity as a woman is just as important as my identity as a mom, and I try to balance the two worlds every freaking day.

Shonda Rhimes talks a lot about dancing in the sun and taking one year at a time. I like that advice, I’ll take it. Pick up a copy of her book here, lock your bedroom door, curl up in bed and just take it from there.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post.

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In 2004, Janis Heaphy Durham’s husband, Max Besler, died of esophageal cancer at age fifty-six. While coping with her grief, Heaphy Durham began encountering phenomena unlike anything she had ever experienced: lights flickering, doors opening and closing, clocks stopping at 12:44—the exact time Max died. But then something startling happened that changed Heaphy Durham’s life forever: a powdery handprint spontaneously appeared on her bathroom mirror on the first anniversary of Max’s death. Incredibly, a similar image appeared on the second and third anniversaries as well. Clearly, something otherworldly was occurring.

This launched Heaphy Durham on a journey that transformed her spiritually and altered her view of reality forever when she wrote The Hand on the Mirror. She interviewed scientists and spiritual practitioners along the way, discovering the fragility of the veil between this world and the next and the way the two are bridged by love.

I was recenlt given the opportunity to ask Durham a few questions about her upcoming book and here’s what I found out:

How did you come to believe your husband was trying to communicate with you after his death?

I wasn’t at all sure what was happening, but I saw a connection to Max and came to believe that he was sending messages to me because of the specific nature of those connections. Just a week after his death, the clocks stopping at 12:44 p.m., the exact time of his death, were the first signs. The most blatant were the handprints and other images on the mirror because they appeared on the anniversary of his death in the bathroom adjacent to the guest room where he spent his final months of life. So many other things, especially related to time and dates, pointed to a connection to Max– the Father’s Day card to Max that fell out of a randomly chosen book on Father’s Day after his death, or the receipt from a restaurant we loved from the same date exactly two years earlier falling out of another randomly chosen book. I had to consider as soon as these happened that they were messages from Max, but I didn’t know what the message was, except that they all tended to comfort me in my grief, to make me feel that he was letting me know he was okay and that there was more out there beyond death.

Had you been a believer in the afterlife prior to this time?

Yes, as a Christian and the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, I grew up believing that God had a place for us where we would go after we died. Before my experiences following Max’s death, I had not tried to dissect that idea, although I always remained open to new ideas and read many books suggested by my father that explored spirituality, faith and philosophy. But I had not experienced the kind of otherworldly events that happened after Max died.

What is your hope with this book and who do you hope to inspire?

My hope is that this book will bring comfort and understanding to those who have had experiences similar to mine and to those who have hesitated to share them for fear of stigma. I also hope that the book will bring attention to the researchers and scientists who are trying to investigate the survival of consciousness after death, so that they will be able to continue to bring a legitimate, valid foundation for a cultural and scientific discussion of an important human question: What happens when we die?

Disclosure: I was not compensated for writing this post. It is not sponsored.

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Is it possible to chase ghosts? One woman would say that it is.

It all started with just one letter. After consulting with her grandmother about it, she found out that the woman in the photographs had been her grandfather’s “true love”. With knowledge of his escape from Vienna during the Holocaust, Wildman wanted to know more about her and started to chase her ghost. No longer able to ask him, as he had passed away prior to her discovery, she would have to venture into the unknown, a chapter not discusssed much by her family.

Armed with a a cache full of letters to him from this unknown woman and Wildman’s existing journlistic, investigative skills, she set out to find out more about this woman, who was named Valerie Scheftel (or Valy). Her quest to find out Valy’s destiny becomes something very personal as she gets closer and closer to finding out what happened. It also unveils the part of her grandfather’s history Wildman knew little about and opened up several avenues to discovering more about the truth behind the atrocities that occurred during World War 2.

Wildman spent years unearthing Valy’s story, crossing continents and unfolding years of history. The result is her book, Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind. Valy was a doctor, having received her degree right before Jews were expelled from universities. She met Wildman’s grandfather in university. When he boarded a ship for the U.S. in September 1938, she never thought she would never see him again and writes to him incessantly before the inevitable occurs several years later. Valy never made it to America, but one could never say that efforts weren’t made to get her here. Her letters began optimistic yet became more desperate over time. Each one revealed changes about Jewish people’s existence prior to being taken to concentration camps. The signs of Jews stripped of all rights are there, and Valy subtly pointed them out to Wildman’s grandfather.

As her grandfather’s career and life took off in America, it was clear that things weren’t going as well in Eastern Europe, but it was impossible to get Jews out. Over a half century later, Wildman’s search is endless. As Valy’s letters become more desperate, so does her search. There are times when we believe she will never find out what happened to Valy – did she survive the camps? Did her grandfather try to bring her to America?

But Wildman is a skilled reporter and researcher and finds ways to delve deeper into the vault, and the result is a book I could not put down. Her search for ghosts long gone and giving them a voice is impeccable and simply beatiful. I wish her grandfather could have lived to read this book. It is not only a loving tribute to him and the woman he left behind, but all to all 6,000,000 Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind can be purchased on Amazon – click here.

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(This post is nearly three years old but I feel compelled to post it again, in light of the recent release of the film, as well as the most interesting comment I got at the end – so scroll down. I haven’t seen the film…yet.)

On a recent trip to London, I took a trip to my favorite UK bookstore, Waterstone’s, and roamed the shelves. As I searched for books to bring home that I can’t get in the U.S., a book caught my eye that I had been hearing a lot about.  Yes, Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James.  I had been following the talk about this book for some time and quickly swept up a copy of the book and brought it back to the U.S.

But I have a confession.  I had heard the words “porn” and “bondage” in passing but really didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  I’m a mom (obviously) and I’m always interested when women like EL James (who is really a Jewish mother like me living in London) writes her break-out novels and they sell 2,000,000 copies in one month.

For the first 70 pages or so, I absolutely was intrigued.  It starts rather innocently.  Anastasia Steele is a young English major in her last year of university.  When her valedictorian room mate is too sick to go interview business mogul Christian Grey for the school paper, she takes her place.  Sparks fly during the interview.  Then a somewhat normal courtship begins.  He shows up out of the blue at her job.  He gifts her with a set of Tess of the U’rbervilles, takes her on his private jet and they seem to have a quick and heavy connection.  They go for coffee, they go dancing, it’s sort of normal.

Okay, that part I liked.  There is some serious chemistry going on.  She’s never been in a relationship.  He’s a slightly older man.  Anastasia falls fast and furious for him and I had memories of my own first love and how fast I fell.  He warns her not to get involved with him, we don’t know why, and that’s interesting, too. It’s a fast read, I was curious to see where it was going.

Until page 98 when he presents his RED ROOM OF PAIN.  I kid you not.  It’s his own personal S&M room.  Then he presents his plan.  She’s to become the submissive to his dominant.  He presents a long contract and pleads with her to sign it and become  his slave every weekend.  This is where my intrigue ended and I started to shake my head.  The sex that ensues is to over the top graphic, involving whips, cable ties, spanking, sucking, tongue and so much more. I’m not a prude, and I do have fantasties, but ones like this?  No!

It was around this time that I was on a NYC train and was reading the book.  I had to shield the pages from my fellow passengers in fear of being thought as a pervert.  Seriously.

A few of these raunchy excerpts (these are spoilers if you haven’t read the book) that I’m talking about include:

“Before I know it, he’s got both of my hands in his viselike grip above my head, and he’s pinning me to the wall using his lips … His other hand grabs my hair and yanks down, bringing my face up, and his lips are on mine … My tongue tentatively strokes his and joins his in a slow, erotic dance … His erection is against my belly.”

“I pull him deeper into my mouth so I can feel him at the back of my throat and then to the front again. My tongue swirls around the end. He’s my very own Christian Grey-flavored popsicle. I suck harder and harder … Hmm … My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves.”

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Jonathan Tropper is on a roll. Not only did he watch his novel, This is Where I Leave You, shoot to the top of the best-selling charts, but he optioned it to a film studio. Then they asked him to write the screenplay and he got to keep the story and characters as faithful to its original concept as possible, a rarity these days in Hollywood. After seeing the film, which stars an ensemble that includes Jason Bateman and Tina Fey, I felt even closer to the characters he brought to life on celluloid so vividly, and I was eager to talk to him (along with a group of other bloggers by phone) about his writing process and going from book to screen. He was forthcoming and genuinely excited about the film’s upcoming release on Friday. Here’s what we found out.

Q: What can books do better than something on screen?

JT: A movie has the benefit of being able to transport for an hour and a half, two hours with no interruptions and give you the whole story and take you on the entire journey in a kind of encapsulated way. And you just sit back and watch it all unfold. And whereas a book, it’s something that you read over a period of time. And you get interrupted. And you know you have to you know go to sleep or go eat lunch or take care of your kids or go to work. So, the book kind of lingers. But you have to kind of refocus. So, that’s also the plus of the book is that you can live with the characters in the book over a period of weeks, whereas you know a movie you’re done in two hours.

Q: Was it easy to get the book optioned with the focus on the Jewish tradition of the family sitting shiva?

JT: The option happened very fast. The easy part is in getting the book optioned. It’s getting the movie made. That took five years. And the resistance wasn’t to the fact that there was a Shiva in it. I think the resistance was just to the fact that it was a character-driven comedic drama or dramatic comedy. And it was just a hard movie for any studio to fully see as a profitable movie to make until we sort of assembled all the pieces for them.

Q: Were there any scenes that you would have really liked to have put into the movie from the book that were just intrigued you?

You know I mean it’s such an organic process over a long period of time that there’s really such a tremendous amount of compression that has to happen when you move a book to film and when you adapt it. I felt like I really just concentrated on getting the essence of each character in there. I really enjoy a chapter in the book where Judd and his brother and Horry and Boner go outside to see if Paul can still strike out one of his you know buddies from the baseball team back in high school. But that’s sort of a fun scene, and I think in very early drafts I did have that in the movie. But you know ultimately the script just becomes too unwieldy, and you have to really compress it down to its essence, or we’d be looking at you know a Gandhi length movie.

Q: How were you able to influence the storytelling in the film so that it didn’t depart drastically?

JT: Well, the way I influenced that was by being the screenwriter. And the other thing that really I think is the reason that that was able to happen is because Shawn [Levy], who directed the movie, was such a standup and is such a purist in general and the fact that he’s a purist in all the work he does, including this movie. But he was just such a fan of the book that we were actually in this strangely reverse position where the director was actually pushing me to be truer to my own source material than I was being. We had a process where he actually brought me closer to the original source material than I had been with the draft that I had done when he first came on to direct it.

Q: How much input if any did you have in the casting process?

JT: The casting process really belongs to the director and the producers. And the screenwriter will just about never have that kind of input. I was lucky in that I had such a close working relationship with Shawn, having written two other projects for him, that he kept me very much in the loop.But ultimately, this is always going to be Shawn’s vision and Shawn’s ideas for these characters. And I just feel fortunate that his vision of the book hued so closely to my own. So, my role in casting was just to every few days get a very exciting e-mail from him telling me who had signed on, which was very surreal.

Q: How much time did you spend on the set and what was it like?

JT: I spent a lot of time on set. My television show was shooting at the same time. So, I was bouncing back and forth a little bit. But I would say I was on set for you know about 50/55% of the shoot. We shot in the house for 25 days. And because the house was so far from our base camp, normally actors would go back to base camp between setups. But if you have to be back again in an hour, you’re going to spend too much time traveling back and forth. So, everyone just hung out upstairs in this house. And you know these were a lot of actors who some of whom had worked together before and many of whom who hadn’t but were clearly aware of each other. And it sort of was like summer camp for the actors. They got to hang out with a lot of peers and colleagues that they may never have connected with before. They were all in their 30s and 40s. And they’ve got kids. And they’ve got a lot of the same issues that they deal with.

So, there was just a lot of bonding and a lot of hanging out. And it was really a very calm, relaxed atmosphere. I’m told I’ll never experience that on another movie again.

Jonathan is currently adapting One Last Thing Before I Go for Paramount.  He  is also the co-creator and executive producer of the television show Banshee, which premiered on Cinemax in January 2013 and is currently shooting its third season. He lives in Westchester, NY with his three children. Follow author Jonathan Tropper on Twitter.

This is Where I Leave You starts in theaters nationwide this Friday. 

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Little did I know that during the production of our show, Una was writing a novel called Five Summers. I also didn’t know that she would meet her agent as a result of being in our show and soon become a fabulous Young Adult writer. I relished every page of her first book and wrote about it right here on this blog. It was a homage to sleep away camp and it fed right into my soul. Her new book, Like No Other, did the same for me. It took me back to my youth, to my first crush, to my desire to break out of my shell.

Una writes with such detail and gives an investment to her characters like no other, and her book sucked me into a culture I wanted to know more about….actually two. Devorah is Hasidic; Jaxon is West Indian. They live on separate sides of Crown Heights (where there has historically been friction between the two groups) and by chance meet in a hospital elevator when it gets stuck during a hurricane. He’s with a friend who had a skateboarding accident; she’s helping her 18 year old sister give birth to her first child. Until now, the Hasidic culture and lifestyle is all she has ever known. She hasn’t really questioned it until she meets Jaxon. They are instantly attracted to each other and her life is forever changed after that one elevator ride. His is, too. They aren’t phased by their differences and truly believe they are the perfect match.

So they start a secret love affair, arranging meetings on Shabbat and near their places of work. Devorah takes out a fake Facebook account to converse with him; Jaxon takes extreme measures to deliver a cell phone to her so they can communicate. She decides, despite her upbringing, that they can be together but it is her family which takes the most drastic steps towards keeping them apart. Teenagers reading this book will relate to their differences in opinion with their parents and obstacles achieving what they want most in the world.

The story will also resonate with readers on other levels, too. It takes place just after Trayvon Martin was shot back in 2012 and Jaxon talks about how hard it is to be a black American. With the recent shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, young readers will connect to his character on a very realistic level. As for Devorah and her family’s ultra-religious values and demands on her future and lifestyle, it’s very telling about religious groups who think there is no life outside the walls of their community. Una packed a lot into this story – diversity, love, religion and a lot of plot twists.

This is the kind of book I want my daughter to read.

Since I adore Una and she happens to be a friend, I was lucky to score an interview with her. I wasn’t at all surprised to find out she’s already secretly cast the main characters in the film adaptation of this book (hopefully there will be one).

Interview with Una LaMarche

The Culture Mom: What inspired you to write this book? 

Una LaMarche: I’m new to novel-writing (well, unless you count the handwritten, 42-page “book,” Kidnapped, that I wrote in 1991—apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson, whose bibliography I was unaware of at the time), but I’m a hopeless romantic, so it was only a matter of time before I attempted a love story. I knew I wanted it to be set in present-day Brooklyn, and I knew I wanted both of the main characters to be very much of New York but also extremely different from each other, so much so that the stakes for their attraction would be high–not only in terms of personal sacrifice, but within their families and cultures on a larger scale. I grew up in a diverse community that was just a few blocks from Crown Heights, which is, on one side of Eastern Parkway, the center of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement; the other side is home to a lot of black families, many of them of West Indian descent. So in a way it was easy to set the stage for the high-stakes romance I wanted to write—I took two groups of people saw every day and brought them together. In the New York City of 2014 there aren’t too many things left that can really raise eyebrows, but a Hasidic girl taking up with a black boy is definitely still one of them.

TCM: Where did the idea come from to have your two main characters meet up in an elevator?

UL: It was hard for me to imagine a situation in which the two characters could not only conceivably meet, but also have time to get to know one another. Hasidic culture prohibits most interaction with outsiders, and for women the rules are extremely strict. Hasidic women can’t even speak privately with a Hasidic man unless that man is their husband or close blood relative, so to have a heart-to-heart with someone outside of the faith, of the opposite sex, is unheard of. I knew that they would have to be trapped together in some way, so an elevator made sense. And it’s kind of old school—it reminds me of meet-cutes in classic screwball comedies, and I like how that awkward, cliché sweetness balances out the darker, very real fear that they both feel.

TCM: Did you base the main characters on anyone you know or was there a tremendous amount of research involved? If there was research, how did you go about it?

UL: Neither character is based on anyone I know in real life, although I guess they both have a lot of me in them. I did do a lot of research before I started writing, mainly for Devorah. I read some books and did a lot of online searching, but I also interviewed women who grew up in Hasidic households, which was immeasurably helpful. I knew so little about Hasidic culture going in, I’m actually embarrassed. And while I knew that as an outsider there was no way I could get everything right, I wanted to give as much nuance and detail to her world, and inner life, as possible. Jaxon’s parents are from Trinidad, but since Devorah’s world is so insular I wanted him to be more of an avatar for the reader, a representation of choice and possibilities. He’s first and foremost a Brooklyn kid, the son of immigrants but not feeling that culture clash directly. I made a conscious choice not to make him so “other,” although I did speak to some friends for background.

TCM: How would you describe the process of writing this book, in comparison to your others?

Una: As of this moment I’ve written four books, three YA novels and a comic memoir, but when I wrote Like No Other I’d only written one. My first novel, Five Summers, was much breezier plot-wise and required less research, but the writing and revision process was brutal, just by virtue of the fact that it was my first. On that book I learned how much a first draft can change, and how painful it is—like breaking a bone to reset it. By comparison, Like No Other was actually a lot easier from a structural standpoint because I knew more going in. But it was more anxiety producing on a higher level. I was telling a more complex story, dealing with touchy subjects like race and religion, and writing characters from very different backgrounds than my own. In both life and writing, I tend to live in fear of offending other people, and I knew going in that there would be readers who would take issue with my choices. But the only alternative to taking those risks is to never write about anything you haven’t experienced firsthand, and then where would we be? We’d have no murder mysteries, no science fiction, no Moby Dick. Hopefully no Lolita. The world of literature would be a sad, banal place.

TCM: You really delve into the complexities of growing up Hasidic. How did you manage to do that?

Una: Through an organization called Footsteps, which helps people leaving ultra-Orthodox communities adjust to the secular world, I was put in contact with half a dozen women who generously offered to share their experiences with me. Not all were Chabad—there are a number of different Hasidic sects with different rules and customs—but all of them gave me invaluable insights into both what Devorah’s day to day life would be like as well as her inner struggle as she begins to question her faith. Obviously the end product is a work of fiction but I hope I made her come to life in a way that is if not 100% factually accurate, then at least authentic and real.

TCM: The story is truly a young love affair between two well-rounded, awesome teenagers. How did you put yourself in their shoes? 

Una: Since I didn’t have a romantic interest until I was twenty years old and in college, I actually have as little firsthand experience with teen love as I do with Hasidism. However, I did have an active inner life and deep, cruel, yearning for boys who never gave me a second glance. I think becoming a writer for young adults is one of the best ways to deal with your leftover high school angst, short of therapy. Maybe some people don’t feel eternally connected to their teen selves, but I do. I still can feel all of those awful, delicious feelings. I tried to channel my sense memory as best I could to fuel Jaxon and Devorah’s emotional progression.

TCM: What are your hopes with this book? Do you see other authors taking stabs at diverse communities who haven’t been focused on until now?

Una: Putting aside the obvious, unlikely hope that Like No Other becomes a runaway bestseller a la The Fault in Our Stars and sells millions of copies and becomes a movie starring Jaden Smith and Hailee Steinfeld, I just hope this book speaks to people, opens up some kind of world for them, and makes them feel something. I didn’t set out to write a purposefully diverse book, although if I can be any help in moving fiction in that direction I’ll be thrilled. I absolutely think that characters with more racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and sexual identity diversity are being represented in greater and greater numbers across more and more books, but we’re still so far from being anywhere close to reflecting society as it is in 2014. If anyone reading this is debating whether or not to make a character in their novel non-white, non-straight, disabled or otherwise underrepresented, I say with zero hesitation: do it. The only way to promote diverse fiction is to create it.

Be sure to pick up a copy of Like No Other online or at the book store.

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The post An Unkosher Love In “Like No Other” (+ Q&A with Author Una LaMarche & Book Giveaway) appeared first on The Culture Mom.

 

This is a sponsored post.

Are you like me and you love to read the book before the movie? In high school, I took a film adaptation class and we read books before we saw the film, analyzing The Great Gatsby to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. We discussed what was left in and what was left in, discerning the screen writer’s decisions and how literary elements are transported to the screen. Ever since then, I’ve always been interested in films that are adaptations and I look for faithful re-tellings of stories.

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper is one such book about to be released as a feature film featuring an ensemble cast including Golden Globe winner Jason Bateman (“Arrested Development”); Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Tina Fey (“30 Rock”); and two-time Oscar® winner, multiple Golden Globe honoree and 2013 Emmy Award nominee Jane Fonda (“Klute,” “Coming Home,” HBO’s “The Newsroom”). Tropper wrote the screenplay and he certainly knows his material better than anyone – so will that make this a great film? Check out a sneak peek here:

The story goes like this: When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

I plan on reading This is Where I Leave You and hosting a book club at my house and I plan to join the #TIWILY/ #TIWILYbookclub discussion on Twitter and on the film’s Facebook page, running every Wednesday. By taking part in the conversation, I’ll have a chance to win signed movie posters and a trip to the premiere in Hollywood. Not only that, but I was fortunate to receive a book club kit that includes copies of the novel by Jonathan Tropper, journals, and even a few wine glasses. I’m giving the books out now and we ‘ll be meeting around September 10th to talk about it, and then we’ll see the movie about a week later.

You have time to read it, too, and you can even stop back here in a few weeks and discuss the book with me before the film comes out. Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Warner Brothers.

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The post This is Where I Leave You Book Club appeared first on The Culture Mom.