MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
■ In the 1970s Florida suburbs, kids
ran free, riding bikes and disappear-
ing into the nearby woods for hours
at a time. One morning in 1973, Jon
Kushner biked through the forest to
a local convenience story for candy
and never came back. His younger
brother, David Kushner, an award-
winning contributor to Rolling Stone,
the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and more,
tells the story of his brother’s kidnap-
ing, murder — and how a family
survives an unthinkable tragedy — in
Alligator Candy: A Memoir (Simon &
Schuster).
■ Another title in the Jewish Lives
series, Barbra Streisand: Redefining
Beauty, Femininity and Power by
Neal Gabler (Yale University Press)
probes the life and career of the per-
former and cultural icon, the metaphor
of “Streisand” and the relationship of
Jewishness and popular culture.
■ Growing up in a tight-knit
Christian family, Alison Pick went to
church weekly. But as a teenager, she
discovered that her paternal grand-
parents fled from the Czechoslovakia
at the start of WWII because they
were Jewish and lived their new lives
as Christians; other family members
who hesitated to leave were deported
to Auschwitz. In Between Gods: A
Memoir (HarperPerennial), Pick
writes of her fall into depression and
emptiness, her draw to the Jewish
community and how entering the
conversion process opened old wounds
and nearly ripped apart her family.
■ A brief, unforgettable memoir

that was a bestseller in France, But
You Did Not Come Back (Atlantic
Monthly Press) by Marceline Lordan-
Ivens, translated by Sandra Smith, is
addressed to the author’s late father.
When she was 15, she and her father
were arrested in occupied France and
he managed to send her a note when
they were separated at concentration
camps. She survived, but he did not,
and she has said that his death over-
shadowed all of her life. The author,
an actress, screenwriter, director and
activist, can see the note and its slated
script, but doesn’t remember the exact
words, only that it probably spoke of
hope, and arrived too late.
■ In Casting Lots: Creating a
Family in a Beautiful, Broken World
(Da Capo), Susan Silverman begins
her memoir by chronicling her early
life with her parents and siblings
(she is the sister of comedian Sarah
Silverman), and goes on to describe
her own marriage and efforts to
expand her family with the adop-
tion of two children from Ethiopia. A
Jerusalem-based rabbi, Silverman is an
outspoken advocate for adoption.
■ The only British prime minister
of Jewish birth, Benjamin Disraeli was
lauded as a “great Jew” — he boasted
of Jewish achievements and argued
for Jewish civil rights. In Disraeli:
The Novel Politician (Yale University
Press), historian David Cesarani chal-
lenges whether Disraeli cared about
Jewish issues, instead creating a myth
of aristocratic Jewish origins to boost
his career while also contributing to
the consolidation of some of the most

fundamental stereotypes of modern
anti-Semitism.
■ Born and raised in Brooklyn,
George Braziller is among the leaders
of American independent publishing,
founding the house bearing his name
that specializes in literary fiction, poet-
ry and nonfiction. In Encounters: My
Life in Publishing (Braziller), Braziller
brings to life old Jewish East New York.
He takes readers though Depression-
era Brooklyn, his political awakening
and activism, friendships with Arthur
Miller and Marilyn Monroe, publisher
of Orhan Pamuk, Jean-Paul Sartre and
encounters with Marc Chagall, Pablo
Picasso and more.
■ Born in 1874 to Polish immi-
grants, Freeman Bernstein was a New
York-born Jew, a vaudeville manager,
boxing promoter, stock swindler,
card shark and self-proclaimed “Jade
King of China.” He was also arrested
by the LAPD outside Mae West’s
Hollywood apartment on charges of
grand larceny for cheating Adolph
Hitler and the Nazi government out
of 35 tons of embargoed Canadian
nickel. In Hustling Hitler! The Jewish
Vaudevillian Who Fooled the Fuhrer
(Blue Rider Press), journalist Walter
Shapiro writes in easy narrative that
naturally evokes Bernstein’s colorful
world about the Jew who may have
been responsible for a critical shortage
of Nazi resources.
■ When the war began, Irene Gut
was a 17-year-old nurse, a Polish
patriot, a good Catholic girl. Forced
to work in a German officers’ din-
ing hall, she eavesdropped on the
MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

continued on page 54

SPORTS
■ Brothers and NFL
players, former Detroit
Lion and Carolina
Panther Geoff Schwartz
and Kansas City Chief
Mitch Schwartz, know
that football and a good
kosher dish are the
perfect companions. In
Eat My Schwartz: Our
Story of NFL Football,
Food, Family and Faith
(St. Martin’s Press; due
out Sept. 2016), the star
offensive linemen, who
were the first Jewish
brothers to play in the
NFL at the same time since 1923, talk about
what has made them who they are: their
close-knit, supportive family, their Jewish
faith and their favorite foods. They share rec-
ipes of their Grandma’s Latkes, Mitch’s Pizza

Dough and Geoff ’s Perfect
Pre-Wedding Bagel. Eat My
Schwartz is a hilarious read
that neither football fans nor
foodies will want to miss.
■ An award-winning
journalist and pop culture
chronicler, Dan Epstein takes
readers through an amaz-
ing year for baseball and
America in Stars & Strikes:
Baseball and America in the
Bicentennial Summer of ’76
(Thomas Dunne Books). Tale
after tale tells of outsized per-
sonalities, inside stories and
cultural currents that would
change baseball forever. And,
for us Detroiters, recalling the year Tigers’
rookie Mark Fidrych electrified the city by
going 19-9 and starting the All-Star Game,
is a heckuva lot of fun — even if the Tigers
finished the year in the cellar.

POETRY
■ The precocious
golden boy of
American Jewish
letters in the
1930s, Delmore
Schwartz wrote
In Dreams Begin
Responsibilities
when he was just 21
and was immortal-
ized as the protago-
nist in Saul Bellow’s
Humboldt’s Gift. But
a life of alcoholism
and mental illness was ended when
he died in relative obscurity in a
Times Square flophouse at the age
of 52 in 1966. Now, with much
of Schwartz’s writing out of print
for decades, poet Craig Morgan
Teicher aims to restore Schwartz
to his proper place in the canon

of American litera-
ture with Once and
For All: The Best of
Delmore Schwartz
(New Directions).
■ Kids’ book legend
Judith Viorst began
publishing poetry
in New York maga-
zine in the 1960s.
In her 12th book
of poetry, Wait for
Me: The Irritations
and Consolations
of a Long Marriage
(Simon & Schuster), she explores
the peeves and pleasures of that
blessing — as well as a bold and
tender look at what lies beyond
— with inspiration from her own
55-year marriage to her husband,
Milton.

June 23 • 2016

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