arts & entertainment Page Turners from page 59 analysis to take us into their thought pro- cesses and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively and more rationally. Theoretical physicist Alan Lightman contemplates science, the cosmos and why we must sometimes "believe in what we can- not prove" in his new book, The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew (Pantheon), a series of seven essays that elucidate complex scientific thought in the context of everyday experiences and concerns. In Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness (Seal Press), Melanie Notkin, a spokesperson for the nearly 50 percent of women who are child- less, reveals her own story as well as the poi- gnant, humorous and sometimes heartbreak- ing stories of the women of her generation who expected love, marriage and parenthood but instead found themselves facing a differ- ent reality 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany (HarperCollins), .4..,•______7 .1_ ‘A'' by Steven Pressman, is based on the acclaimed HBO documentary of the same name and expands on the film to tell the story of the single largest group of unaccom- panied refugee children allowed into the U.S. in 1939. The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World (Other Press), by George Prochnik, is a biography of the celebrated Jewish Viennese author who, in the 1930s, was the toast of the literary world, a world changed by Hitler, forcing Zweig into exile and finally, in 1942, a double suicide com- mitted with his wife, Lotte. Zweig's stories, as well as the author himself, helped inspire the recent Wes Anderson film, The Grand Budapest Hotel. In The Shelfi Adventures in Extreme Reading (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Phyllis Rose reads the novels on a random library shelf (fiction authors LEQ-LES), searching for greatness, and observes how we read today. Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater (Oxford), by journalist Eddie Shapiro, is a collection of exclusive interviews with 20 of the greatest leading women of Broadway, including Jewish performers Judy Kaye, Bebe Neuwirth and Idina Menzel. Jerry Bruckheimer: When Lightning Strikes — Four Decades of Filmmaking (Disney Editions), by Michael Singer, cov- ers the Detroit-raised uber-producer's entire body of film and television work, from The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972) to The Lone Ranger (2013). Gary Zola, a rabbi and historian of American Jewry, explores the storied rela- tionship between Abraham Lincoln and American Jewry in We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History (Southern Illinois University Press). The newest titles in the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press include Lillian Hellman: An Imperious Life, by Dorothy Gallagher, who sorts through the facts and the myths surrounding the American dramatist; Jabotinsky: A Life, by Hillel Halkin, about the celebrated journalist and novelist, political thinker and founder of the branch of Zionism now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu; Ray Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution, by Yehudah Mirsky, about the first chief rabbi of 20th-century Jewish Palestine and the founding theologian of religious Zionism; and Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst, by Adam Silver, a British psychotherapist and expert on Freud, who writes of Freud's early life as the favored son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. ❑ r- "Book lust forever!" — Nancy Pearl ,=== 11141 1 Real-Life Rom-Com A standup portrayal of abortion. Michael Fox Special to the Jewish News G oing back at least as far as Moses, Jews have taken public positions at personal risk. Jenny Slate and Gillian Robespierre's inspiration comes from more recent role models: Larry Fine, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. The star and writer-director of the brac- ingly honest indie comedy Obvious Child embrace their Jewish comic influences — and their Jewish upbringings. But they don't view the frankness of Slate's character — New York standup comedian Donna Stern, who (for better and worse) draws her act from her personal life, including an unex- pected pregnancy — as uniquely Jewish. "When I think about why the humor is so open, it's just Donna's nature from birth:' Slate says during a recent interview "Maybe she's been encouraged by her dad to be out- ward, but it doesn't have anything to do with religion. Also, you know, we live in a world where a certain cultural Judaism includes the goys' now" The young women share a laugh, and Slate describes a phenomenon she encountered when she moved to Los Angeles a couple years ago and met other transplants. "The seders and the Rosh Hashanah par- ties become less typically religious and more cultural, and social becomes familiar Slate explains. "Whatever the modern Jewish sort 60 June 26 • 2014 sums 1111:111 NUR 121101 Gillian Robespierre, left, and Jenny Slate embrace their Jewish comic influ- ences in Obvious Child. of social environment is, that cultural envi- ronment, you don't have to be Jewish to be a part of it:' Robespierre and two other writers caught Slate's standup act some five years ago and cast her in their short film, Obvious Child. Robespierre expanded the story to feature length and was able to raise the small bud- get thanks to Slate's visibility on Saturday Night Live (one season) and recent recurring television roles in House of Lies, Parks and Recreation and Bob's Burgers. A boisterous yet heartfelt hunk of twenty- something angst, populated by self-aware, hyper-verbal characters still seeking their place in the world, Obvious Child opens on Friday, June 27. Although it involves revealing a major plot turn, it should be noted that the film pivots on Donna's decision to have an abortion. A conversation with her mother (played by Polly Draper) provides a key scene, not least because Obvious Child is that rare movie in which parents and adult children communi- cate with and understand one another. But that neat touch will likely be over- looked amid Donna's brutally candid and self-critical quips and the film's willingness to deal directly with abortion. "It's not an agenda movie in any way," Robespierre asserts. "It's a romantic comedy with a modern look at a modern woman's experience: one woman whom we love:' Robespierre grew up in New York City. Both her parents are Jewish, but she didn't have a bat mitzvah because, she says, "I had dyslexia when I was little so my mother thought I needed to tackle English before Hebrew:' It may seem like a joke, but it's not. Slate, who is originally from Milton, Mass., supplies the humor with her childhood memories of Passover. "We had really, really big seders:' she recalls. "My grandfather would read them, and it was the best; and I would get super, super scared waiting for Elijah. When people would sing 'Eliyahu: I would have a straight- up meltdown under the table crying so hard:' That sounds more traumatic than amus- ing, admittedly. But Slate has a tough side, perhaps developed from growing up watch- ing the Three Stooges with her father — a poet who apparently encouraged his daugh- ter to be outward. "I remember thinking they're so violent and loud and just so ludicrous, and I related to that more than anything else," Slate says. "I always relate to the things that are just the most human. And the highest energy. That's what I go for, I think:' Our conversation, not unlike Obvious Child, merges irreverence with serious sub- jects. Needless to say, Robespierre and Slate want their movie to provoke laughs as well as discussion. "We are excited for any conversations that it ignites," Robespierre says, "whether about the right to choose and women's reproductive rights, or whether it's about our Jewishness, our heritage. "But so far we haven't been cornered on either of those yet, so we've been living in a comfortable world:' ❑ Obvious Child, rated R, is scheduled to open on Friday, June 27.