arts&life

books

Time, Memory, Marriage

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Author Dani Shapiro

discusses her latest

memoir, a searing look at

PHOTO BY KWAKU ALSTON

life, love — and marriage.

Author Dani Shapiro

T

he life of memoirist and novel-
ist Dani Shapiro is pretty much
an open book. Exploring her
responses to events both profound and
mundane, Shapiro has written the best-
selling memoirs Still Writing, Devotion
and Slow Motion, and only last month
ended her blog of 11 years.
But her husband, screenwriter, direc-
tor and former Africa correspondent
Michael Maron, got Shapiro thinking
about a different perspective when he
came across the journal she kept on
their honeymoon, 18 years ago.
The result is her most recent mem-
oir, Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
(Knopf; 2017), an intimate, piercing and
life-affirming story about marriage and
memories. Drawing upon observations
from her happy marriage and jumping
around from past to present, the book
invites readers to confront with her
both the life she dreamed of and the life
she made, reconciling the girl she was
and the woman she’s become.
In Hourglass, Shapiro asks: “How do
memory and time shape your intimate
relationships?” To help answer, she
intertwines her musings with excerpts
from the journal as well as quotes
from authors, including Adrienne Rich,
Wendell Berry and Nietzsche.
“A searing, pared-down narrative,”
wrote a reviewer for Vogue. “Shapiro’s
retelling of her marriage is both dis-
tinctive and painfully relatable.”
Shapiro, who has appeared at the
Detroit Jewish Book Fair, will discuss
Hourglass, recently released in paper-
back, Monday, May 21, at the Metro
Detroit Book and Author Society’s 92nd
Author Luncheon in Livonia.
Based in rural Litchfield County,
Conn., Shapiro also has five novels to
her credit, including Black & White and
Family History. She’s been published in
the New Yorker, New York Times and Los
Angeles Times and appeared on Oprah’s
SuperSoul Sunday program and NPR’s
This American Life.
While Shapiro enjoys public speak-

ing, “writing books is my strongest
form of communication. My books are
about questions.”
Shapiro, 55, was born to Orthodox
Jewish parents, Irene and Paul, in New
York City.
“The way I was raised, it was all or
nothing — ‘us versus them,’” Shapiro
said.
Growing into a feminist, Shapiro
found it “confusing” that an Orthodox
woman couldn’t read from the Torah.
She eventually concluded “there was
no place for me in denominational reli-
gion” because she couldn’t relate to her
parents’ parochial view of the world.
Educated at Sarah Lawrence College
in Yonkers, N.Y., Shapiro wrote three
novels before receiving her first real
recognition as a writer for Slow Motion.
In an Elle magazine article, she
describes the memoir as “a coming-of-
age story about my Orthodox Jewish
upbringing and ensuing rebellion.” The
terrible car accident that killed her
father and badly injured her mother
when Shapiro was 23 was “life-altering
and forced me to grow up,” she said.
The tragedy spurred her to making
some positive changes.
Shapiro’s life changed most, she said,
from writing Devotion.
The impetus was her son, Jacob
Maron, now 19, asking Shapiro
questions about God as the time
approached to prepare for his bar mitz-
vah. Despite her “complicated relation-
ship to organized worship,” Shapiro
decided to find an authentic Jewish set-
ting for Jacob’s milestone.
When no synagogue within 50 miles
of Litchfield felt right for their family,
Shapiro put out a call to a rabbi for
someone to come once a month to
teach kids in her home.
The result was the Mishpocha Group,
comprised of families with children she
recruited.
Jacob’s bar mitzvah was “the happiest
day of my life,” Shapiro said. He wore
his father’s tallit and grandfather’s tallit

clip. Female rabbis officiated.
“I played piano, and my son played
ukulele. It was a combination of tradi-
tional and eclectic and inclusive and
modern,” she said. “It felt like a full
circle to me of what could be possible.
And it wouldn’t have happened if I
hadn’t written Devotion. I realized that
you didn’t have to be all or nothing.
“I am definitely more of a spiritually
connected person today.”
Shapiro worried initially that her
topic wouldn’t be relatable. Then notes
began arriving from people from all
walks of life, ages and religions.
“They said: ‘You’ve told my story.’ I
realized that when we tell the truth of
ourselves, we’re more alike than dif-
ferent. I’m just like you; you’re just like
me,” she said.
The busy Shapiro, “always work-
ing on my next project,” speaks at
bookstores and conferences. She’s
taught writing at the New School in
Manhattan and universities, including
Columbia, NYU and Wesleyan.
Shapiro leads a large writing retreat
in the Berkshires of Massachusetts
twice a year for beginning and sea-
soned writers, an opportunity to
attend “an intimate workshop, limited
to between six and eight women,” in
Salisbury, Conn.
Shapiro and Maron also co-founded
the Sirenland Conference for writers,
held in the seaside village of Positano,
Italy. No more than 30 students are
accepted — with guests, the group
swells to 50-60. Participants have
included Andre Aciman, whose novel
about a visiting writer in Italy, Call
Me by Your Name, became an Oscar-
nominated film last year.
“Twelve years ago, we met the own-
ers of the hotel at a dinner party in
Connecticut, and they invited us to
bring other writers to Italy,” Shapiro
recalled. Taking along their son, “we
realized we were good at creating a
community.” •

details

Dani Shapiro will speak at the Metro Detroit Book and Author Society’s 92nd Author Luncheon 11 a.m. Monday, May 21, at Burton Manor
Conference and Banquet Center in Livonia. Sharing the stage will be emcee/event organizer Alan Fisk and novelist Jessica Knoll (The
Favorite Sister) and nonfiction writers Michael Hodges (Albert Kahn in Detroit) and Tiya Miles (The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery
and Freedom in the City of the Straits). $40. (586) 685-5750; bookandauthor.info.

jn

May 17 • 2018

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