Word of the Day August 28

To my delight, today’s word-of-the-day from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “veridical.”

veridical\vuh-RID-ih-kul\

What pleased me most is the sentence the dictionary used to showcase the word:

“All psychotherapies are based on the fact that memory is not veridical, that unconscious desires and fantasies exert their force on us all…” (Henry Kaminer, Weekly Standard, July 31, 2000)

Same goes for memoir writing, which is entirely dependent upon memory and perception — two unreliable powers. A writer’s voice and memory is filtered by emotion. We insert facts and omit others, corrupting the form. Memoir writing is how we make ourselves up — shaping raw experience, identifying cause and effect in events, connecting the dots to conquer experience.

Not only do individuals create their own stories: whole communities, whole countries revise and rewrite their histories so that citizens can live with the country’s identity and historical legacy. “History is what people write down afterward,” one author said recently, “what really happened is something else.”

If perception and memory are so faulty, why write memoir? Because the telling can illuminate something in one’s own truths, it can transform experience into meaning — because how we remember determines who we are. What’s remembered becomes reality and identity.

We do not simply have an experience, William Maxwell wrote in So Long, See You Tomorrow, we are entrusted with it. “We must do something – make something with it. A story, we sense, is the only possible habitation for the burden of our witnessing.”

Memoir comforts us by bearing witness and creating meaning…even though memory is not veridical.

To listen to the interview, go to http://www.theauthorsshow.com/

My new web site showcasing my school presentations has gone live at AIVS (Authors and Illustrators who Visit Schools). Please visit: http://www.authorsillustrators.com/schumer_chapman/schumer_chapman.htm

In a dream last night, I stumbled upon an interesting image of my work. Each book I write is a footstep, marking where I am at that moment in my life.

As American lawyer, orator, and memoirist Rufus Choate once said, “A book is the only immortality.” Books are my way of announcing, “I was here.”

SLOW LOVE by Dominique Browning

I suspect I came to this dream/thought because yesterday I was reading Dominique Browning’s new memoir, Slow Love, an account of how she rediscovered herself after losing her high-powered job as a New York magazine editor. In it she writes: “I begin keeping notes about how I am feeling, what I am doing. Writing has always been my way to absorb things; I often write out my troubles.”

Me, too. And through that process, I define who I am.

Right now, I am trying to decide where to place my foot next.

Profile of FSC (second from left) from Make It Better/North Shore Magazine

It’s impossible for us to know who we truly are without knowing something of our mothers.

That’s why Fern Schumer Chapman, a former reporter for the Chicago Tribune and Forbes, has spent years unraveling the enigma that is her mother, who was orphaned by the Holocaust.

Fern’s first book, “Motherland: Beyond the Holocaust: A Mother-Daughter Journey to Reclaim the Past,” became a cult favorite with North Shore book clubs and was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards in 2000. The book tells the story of her mother-daughter trip to Germany to visit the town where her mother, Edith, lived until she was 12. In 1938, Edith’s parents sent her to the U.S. to live with relatives in Chicago. Four years later, Edith learned that her parents had died in a concentration camp.

“Much of my adult life has been this slow discovery of my mother’s life,” Fern says. “Trauma is transmitted through families. I was very defined by her experience. Writing was my attempt to understand what shaped her—what shaped me.”

After the publication of “Motherland,” Chapman learned that her mother came over with a small group of children as part of an American rescue effort now known as The One Thousand Children Project. Researching the 1,000 children and talking to her mom prompted Chapman to write a book of historical fiction for young adults, “Is It Night or Day?” She assumes her mother’s voice to tell Edith’s story of immigration and survival. The book, which was published this spring, was recognized as one of Booklist’s Top 10 Historical Fiction Books for Youth for 2010.

And, Fern’s writing brought her closer to her mom. “I am my mother’s voice,” she says. As part of their journey, Fern has talked openly with her mom about the difficulties in their relationship as a result of the trauma. Fern’s mother grew as a result, and Fern forgave her for some of her behavior.

Today, Fern regularly speaks about her mother’s Holocaust experience in schools, museums and for groups. She says of her mom, who attends all of her speaking engagements, “She hears me, she supports me, and she loves me more for speaking the truth.”

Author school visits

I am beginning to schedule school visits for 2010-2011. Here are my offerings:

A Child’s Immigration Story (Grades 4-12) What if your parents told you they are sending you all by yourself to live in a foreign country? I take students on her mother’s frightening immigration journey from Nazi Germany to America. (powerpoint)

The Legacy of the Holocaust (Grades 4-12) I explain how trauma is transmitted in families, fulfilling state requirements to teach the Holocaust.

Writers Workshop: (Grades 3-12) I teach the craft of writing, inspiring students to develop their own sense of identity through story.

Please email me at fernschumer@aim.com to make arrangements for presentations.

Adult? YA? Memoir? Chick Lit? Judaic? Spirituality?

Bookstores and publishers love categories — Holocaust, Judaism, Chick Lit, travel, memoir, biography, literary, etc. That’s understandable since booksellers have to organize their shelves somehow. The trouble is not all books fit neatly into one category.

My books are especially challenging. Both Motherland and Is It Night or Day? have been mis-categorized. Both are often labeled “Holocaust” books, though I would argue that neither one is a “Holocaust” book.

Motherland addresses mother-daughter relationships against the backdrop of the Holocaust and submerged past. It raises difficult questions: Exactly what knowledge does a parent owe a child? How does the past (or lack of a past) inform a child’s identity? Set against the backdrop of religious hatred and war, Is It Night or Day? tells the story of child immigration and raises a different set of questions: How does a refugee immigrant gain an American identity? To what extent does the trauma of leaving influence a child’s personality? What obligations does an open society have towards its newest members?

Adult? Young Adult?

The markets for my books pose another challenge since both are appropriate for “Adults” and “Young Adult” (YA). Popular with adult book clubs, Motherland was released as an “Adult” book. Is It Night or Day? has found an audience in libraries and schools since it was released as a “Young Adult” title. Age labels dictate where book reviews will appear, where the book will be placed in stores, and even who will discuss the book in blogs (YA or adult blogs), further limiting the exposure of the title. Consequently, my books largely attract readers in their designated markets.

Another example of this problem is Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, which was released in Australia as an “Adult” book and in the United States as a “Young Adult” book. Undoubtedly, those labels frustrate Zusak. “I didn’t set out to write a good young adult book or a good adult book, ” he said.

“I really tried to write someone’s favorite book.”

The Deutschland

Gertie Katz (from an unknown German town) and Edith Schumer (my mother) of Stockstadt am Rhein immigrated together on the Deutschland. The ship left Bremen, Germany on a cold, gray day, March 8, 1938 and arrived in New York City on a sun-splashed March 19, 1938. Gertie and Edith, who were both 12 years old, became inseparable on the ship.

“We had so much in common,” Edith says. “We both left our parents and we turned to each other for support during the passage. She immediately became my best friend since I didn’t have many friends left in Germany.”

Passport photos: Gertie Katz and Edith Westerfeld

When the two girls parted in New York, Gertie gave Edith this photo. On the back, she wrote 21 März 1938. Zur Erinnerung Deine Freudin, Gertie Katz. “March 21, 1938. For remembrance. Your friend, Gertie Katz.”

“Gertie didn’t know where she would be living,” Edith remembers. “All she knew was that she would be placed in a home with strangers in Seattle. I gave her my address, but I never heard from her again. I always wondered what happened to her.”

That was 72 years ago.

“Gertie?” Edith says, “I’ve thought about you all these years. I’d love to hear from you or your children.”

Edith’s email is edielar@aol.com.

Both books, Is It Night or Day? and Motherland, tell part of this story.

Author Tim O'Brien

“War is not strictly the province of those fighting it,” Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried once said. “The lives of all of us are changed forever. The aftershocks go on and on and on.”

For that matter, any significant event can have the same effect; the aftershocks rattle and shatter families.

Once, when I was explaining to a friend that one of the most defining events of my life happened long before I was born, he nodded in complete understanding.

“The same was true for me,” he said. “My mother lived through the Great Depression and, in a way, I feel like I lived through the Great Depression. Every loaf of bread raised the question of whether our family would have enough to eat tomorrow. She lived in constant fear.”