A Contemporary Jewish David and Bathsheba Story – Jeanne Blasberg

Episode 68.
Jeanne is an award-winning and bestselling author and essayist. Her most recent novel, Daughter of a Promise, was published recently. The third novel of a trilogy, it follows Eden, published in 2017 and The Nine, published in 2019. While not originally planned as a trilogy, the three novels weave stories of family privilege or struggle, love, desire, and social expectations especially of women. In today’s episode, Jeanne talks about the key issues in Daughter of a Promise a coming-of-age story set in contemporary America, and how it echoes the biblical story of David and Bathsheba. Jeanne also shares her personal faith path of conversion to Reform Judaism and how her engagement with Judaism informs her writing. 

In addition to her writing, Jeanne helps lead the Boston Book Festival and GrubStreet, one of the country’s preeminent creative writing centers.

Highlights:
·       Jeanne's personal faith path and conversion to Reform Judaism.

·       Themes in "Daughter of a Promise", a coming-of-age story.

·       Accidental development of the trilogy and connections between the three books.

·       How "Daughter of a Promise" echoes the biblical story of David and Bathsheba.

·       Societal progress and change.

Social Media links for Jeanne: 
Website – www.jeanneblasberg.com
Substack – https://jeanneblasberg.substack.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/jeanneblasbergauthor/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/jeanneblasbergauthor/


Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066435622271


Transcript:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/15120491


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Chapters

• 0:04 Introduction
• 2:23 Jeanne's background & conversion
• 6:49 Trilogy of novels
• 14:50 Learning from history
• 19:08 Daughter of a Promise
• 38:09 Reader take-aways
• 42:28 Affirmative Action

Transcript

Jeanne Blasberg transcript 

A Contemporary David and Bathsheba Story

Méli [00:00:04]:

Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more about that research and invite me to give a talk or workshop, go to my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. 

This is episode number 68, and my guest today is Jeanne Blasberg. Jeanne is an award winning and best-selling author and essayist. Her most recent novel, Daughter of a Promise, was published recently. The 3rd novel of a trilogy, it follows Eden published in 2017 and The Nine published in 2019. While not originally planned as a trilogy, the 3 novels weave stories of family privilege or struggle, love, desire, and social expectations, especially of women. In today's episode, Jeanne talks about the key issues in Daughter of a Promise, a coming-of-age story set in contemporary America and how it echoes the biblical story of David and Bathsheba. Jeanne also shares her personal faith path of conversion to Reform Judaism and how her engagement with Judaism informs her writing. In addition to her writing, Jeanne helps lead the Boston Book Festival and Grub Street, one of the country's preeminent creative writing centers. She lives in the Boston area with her family. Her social media links are listed in the show notes.

Méli [00:02:07]:

Hello, Jeanne. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm really pleased to have you on today.

Jeanne [00:02:13]:

Oh, I'm so excited to be here as well. Thank you for having me.

Méli [00:02:17]:

I'd like to begin with my usual first question. What is your religious and cultural identity?

Jeanne [00:02:23]:

I am an American Jew, belong to a Reform synagogue in Brookline, Massachusetts, mother of 3. I guess I say I'm a New Englander even though I've lived all over the country.

Méli [00:02:37]:

Were you raised as a Reform Jew?

Jeanne [00:02:40]:

No. I actually converted just about 20 years ago this month, married my husband 34 years ago who was a reformed Jew. And as we raised our 3 children and they became the age of bar and bat mitzvah, I was determined that we would all be the same faith officially in the eyes of, the temple. And I went through the process, and it was just incredible.

Méli [00:03:10]:

So you were converting kind of alongside the B'nai Mitzvot?

Jeanne [00:03:16]:

Correct. And, my rabbi encouraged my husband to take part in my education as well because he said often the converted spouse knows more than the spouse who was born into the religion and you kind of leave them behind. So my husband was not raised in a very, like, observant Jewish home, and his Jewish education was abbreviated for different reasons. So I'd say we really went on this journey together, dipped our toes in it when we first got married, but then when our children came along, you can no longer be ambivalent. They pick up on everything. So we all committed full bore to the study and to, yeah, to becoming Jews and to be converted and for him to kind of reclaim what he was born with.

Méli [00:04:15]:

So you converted really when your kids were going through their Bar or Bat Mitzvot, but it sounds like you raised them as Jews.

Jeanne [00:04:27]:

That's true. So my oldest son was 11 or 12. We would bring him to Hebrew school on Sundays and also attend, like, an adult learning session and I said to the rabbi one afternoon after that session, what's involved if somebody wants to convert to Judaism? And he said, well, you you know, there's all these steps and he described it. And then he said, well, why? Who wants to convert? And I said, well, I'm actually interested in converting. And he said, Jeannie, you're like the most dedicated Jewish mother we have at this temple. And he laughed and, so, yeah, I guess I could've fooled them all.

Méli [00:05:10]:

But it it sounds like it feels different to you. It sounds like you knew a lot. You were very engaged with the synagogue, but there was another aspect for you. Is that true?

Jeanne [00:05:21]:

It's totally true. It's I think I don't know if I'm making the right analogy, but you can live with a partner for a long time. But once you're married, there's a certain commitment. You've made a lifelong commitment. And I guess I can now say I am Jewish. We are a Jewish family. Before that, it was always, you know, we're an interfaith family. I was raised without any religion to tell you the truth and was drawn to the Jewish religion because a lot of my friends growing up were Jewish, and I really loved the family bonds and what I witnessed and then and spending holidays in their homes.

I I I guess this was bound to happen for me. That's what I'm trying to say. I've always been a seeker. I'm a spiritual person, but I found a home, especially at Temple Israel, and I think the community there, I just really wanted to be an official member.

Méli [00:06:14]:

Yeah. So interesting. And and I appreciate the nuances of your experience. And you're in, you're out. It's shift, interfaith family. Now you're really a Jewish family. And, yeah, and it is so true that people who convert to any religion do tend to know more than people who are raised in it, so it's a funny quirk of experience. Well, you are now officially a Jew, and you don't have to go on and on about how you were converted, but it's good it's good backstory.

Méli [00:06:49]:

Okay. So in addition to all of the family business and the conversion and all of that, you have been a writer. As I understand it, that's really been your main activity. Correct. And you certainly have a number of publications and accolades to your name. So congrats on all of that. And your latest book is Daughter of a Promise that was just released in early April of this year, 2024. So muscle tough on that.

Méli [00:07:24]:

It's exciting.

Jeanne [00:07:25]:

It's really exciting.

Méli [00:07:27]:

So this is the 3rd book of a trilogy. The first two being Eden put out in 2017 and the 9 in 2019. So I wanna really dive into the newest book, Daughter of a Promise. But first, I just wanna kind of take the broad view and understand why a trilogy and how that developed.

Jeanne [00:07:56]:

I love that you've described them as a trilogy and I do as well. I don't think I set out to write a trilogy. As you can tell, the spacing is so far apart, but a trilogy kind of came about in the writing process. And it's funny people are like, some of your characters are minor characters and you know them so well. And I'm like, well, I've been thinking about them for 10, 20 years, these women, I just need to keep including them. And this family seems to not want to go away. Each of the books stands alone, but if you enjoy my writing and you enjoy some of the underlying themes and want a little bit more, the stories go in different directions. There's this underlying theme of privilege.

The first book, Eden, is set in the summer community, which is like one of these enclaves that was created in the early part of 20th century by a railroad magnate and generations of his family. And then the second one is set in a boarding school, so there's kind of that, like, prestigious New England educational thing going on. And and now I'm on Wall Street with daughter of a promise and an investment banking training program, a job that had typically been reserved for white men. But in 2019, when the book opens, you know, there's opportunity for all. And so my young protagonist finds herself in a very unlikely first job.

Méli [00:09:24]:

Good to know that they stand alone. It sounds like you could actually read them maybe in reverse. Right? Start with the present and and go back into history, which is which is really how we read history. Right? We start with point a and we go back. I do just wanna say that I totally loved the book. It drew me right in. I found the characters engaging and interesting, and the dynamic of the different characters and this whole storyline arc was was powerful. And you write beautifully, so I'm sure the other 2 are wonderful as well.

Jeanne [00:10:00]:

Thank you. That makes me really happy.

Méli [00:10:02]:

I'm gonna ask you about the title, daughter of a promise.

Jeanne [00:10:06]:

Sure. That is the literal translation of the name Bathsheba, which you must know the story of David and Bathsheba, I'm sure. And my main character is not named Bathsheba, but she's named Beth Sabé, which is the Latina iteration of Bathsheba. And so my main character is a young woman whose grandmother immigrated or migrated to, Little Havana, South Florida, Miami right after the Cuban revolution. And so she had a husband, had a daughter of her own, and then this daughter had Betsy. So American born, but in a very strong Cuban community and a very strong tightly knit family fabric in Miami. In the first or second chapter, it's explained that her name means daughter of a promise, and I think what she adds as an addendum, in this case, a broken one. So you're kind of starting out with her own self-identity as the product of a unhappy relationship.

Méli [00:11:19]:

And why were you interested in using the David and Bathsheba biblical story as a as a launching pad?

Jeanne [00:11:30]:

Well, if we go back to my conversion and the beginning of my Jewish education, it's really continued to this day, especially in a class that I take every month at Temple Israel. It's a class in which we midrash. I think the title of the class over the last 20 years has changed. But, basically, we're given permission and invited to read the Torah with an eye towards what questions do we have and what isn't written, and where are these stories, like, actually begging questions as opposed to answering them. And I think from a female eye, there's also that question about why aren't these female characters whose lives are so greatly impacted, why aren't those fleshed out a little bit more? I'm I'm not saying all female characters aren't fleshed out in the text, but when we studied the story of David and Bathsheba where she goes from being summoned by David to laying with David to becoming pregnant and sending him a message all in the space of, like, 3 sentences. I was just like, woah. Woah. Woah.

This is like there's way too much. Well, let's, like, unpack this. Then her husband gets called back from the war and all sorts of tragic things happen, and I'm sure your readers know the whole story. The other thing that I was just so struck by when studying this story was that we were talking about David and Bathsheba's coming together and whether it was consensual. And over the centuries, it's been debated if it was or if it wasn't. And I was like, here we are in the year, I guess, at that time, 2015, 2016, and that's all we're worried about as well is consent. It felt so modern. It felt like I was reading a me too story set 2000 years ago, and we really are still talking about consent to this day.

Especially with the current generation, it's almost become I don't know. My kids were going through a lot of title 9 training in college. It was almost making flirtation, desire, interaction very scary for them. And I thought this is a really interesting topic. I wanna delve more into the idea of consent and how things are always in a gray area, and nothing's ever black or white when it comes to a relationship. It's never all perfect. There are compromises. There are moments when you wanna recoil and there's moments when you wanna lean in further.

And so I was really drawn to taking this ancient story and exploring a timeless topic. That's something I've done with all 3 of the novels. I'm setting them in a contemporary time, which is my way of emphasizing that the human experience, whether when it comes to relationships and our emotions, they really haven't changed much. The setting, our clothes, our professions, our modern conveniences, like, so much has changed, obviously. At the root of our human experience, not much has changed.

Méli [00:14:50]:

So the question that is begging for me is, have we learned? You know, because I quite agree with you, right, the timelessness of these stories. This is also why I attend synagogue and read the scriptures, but the way you phrase it is quite pointed. What do you think? Have we learned?

Jeanne [00:15:10]:

I find there to be two sides. I feel comforted in my imperfection and that maybe we haven't learned and we've continued to make these mistakes. And if I make certain mistakes, it's part of the human experience and I'm just trying to do better and I acknowledge my mistakes, but there's this comfort. But then there's also this frustration. Maybe we haven't come that far, and isn't that a shame, and why haven't we come that far? And, you know, maybe we work in cycles of 4. One generation has an issue, the next generation does better. And then kind of by the 4th or 5th generation, we're back to the beginning again. I think in all of our lives and in life in general, there's times when we're really getting it right.

And then there's times where we kinda get sent back to jail, like it's a monopoly board and you're going around again. I guess, you know, it's all of our lives as a journey, and we can each individually try to do better. But I would say as a society and as a group of people, we're probably in a static state. For a while there, it felt like with feminism and me too, we were making a lot of progress. But when I look around right now, it feels like we've kinda gotten shot back to start at the beginning again with different rights that we want. A lot of the progress and cases that you thought were making a difference have gotten thrown out. Now I think the legalities may have turned on their head as far as women's rights go, but I think the general zeitgeist is that we've made progress. But do you agree with me? Sometimes it feels comforting that we haven't made progress, and sometimes it just feels so frustrating. That's the tension.

Méli [00:17:04]:

Yeah. It's interesting to hear you describe it that way. I was I was a little, thrown off when you said comforting, and then you said, oh, but I'm just learning. And I just like but I get what you mean and I do think that progress, social, historical, personal progress. I'm doing air quotes here. It's a misnomer to think that progress is a linear process that only moves forward. In point of fact, I think it's much more like the stock market. Lots of jigs and jags, ups and downs, and they're, you know, general arcs of generally moving up and then maybe a huge crash like in 1929.

But you know, it depends on what's the scale, you know? Are you looking day to day? Are you looking year to year or century to century? That's where it matters. And in point of fact, the human experience has changed so much in so many ways. You know, you think about medicine and science and rights. Right? And yet there are these, backslides. And for me, it's about the push and pull between more conservative and more liberal perspectives. For every action, there is a reaction. Yeah. And that's what I think is actually at play. And I think it's really about fear. I think at, at base, you know, when there's these reactions, it's really about fear of loss, fear about change that's uncomfortable.

Jeanne [00:18:36]:

Yeah. I completely agree with what you said. I like what you said about fear of change. And one thing I was gonna say also, when you were talking about progress not being linear, it's just like the stories in the Torah aren't necessarily linear. Time is a human construct in some ways, but, yeah, sometimes the biggest setbacks are the catalyst for more progress. I like the way you asked that question and the way you are making me think about progress. It's you're spot on.

Méli [00:19:08]:

So let's delve a little deeper into the book. I'm curious about how you decide on which contemporary elements you expand on.

Jeanne [00:19:20]:

So with this 3rd novel, it's the first time I've written a 100% from the protagonist point of view. So I've written in the 1st person. The prior novels, I've written in the 3rd person with one character and a few chapters in the 9 in the first person. So this latest book, Daughter of a Promise, is the first that I've written entirely in the first person from the young woman, the protagonist point of view. In my previous novels, I've written in the 3rd person with a small exception that in the 9, I write a few chapters in the first person from Hannah's point of view. So in the brain of my character who's 23 during the bulk of this story, I really have to try to stay true to her character. And in addition to the plot points, what would make a big difference to her, what scenes seem true, and what experience seem true. Those are the ones that I use to structure the story.

However, doing a retelling of this story somewhat loosely, I did want to give people who studied Torah and were familiar with this story, both Jews and Christians, some of the key guideposts along the way. So there is this attraction between David and Bathsheba. She's actually thrown into a swimming pool and comes up wet and if and he's viewing her from a roof. So that's a little bit of a stand in for the initial David attraction in the Torah. She has an more age appropriate suitor who takes the place of Uriah the Hittite. Although instead of being sent off to war, he's sent to the Hong Kong office of this company, just as COVID is breaking out. So COVID is somewhat of a stand in for the dangers of war. David has a counsel, head counsel and very good friend at the firm named Nathan, who is somewhat of the prophet, and then Betsabé becomes pregnant.

And so there are certain parallels, but I was talking to my rabbi and that I really wanted this to be a female empowerment story. And how would readers feel because that Sabe will end up with David. And it's that the satisfying conclusion to a story of a young woman who has agency, and is that really where she would end up? And so I focus a lot on trying to end this novel or trying to conclude a lot of this at a point in time where she's really holding a lot of cards and has a lot of power in this relationship and also has a true love of herself and an a better understanding of herself and has any number of options she could choose. Now the entire novel is set as a letter to her unborn son, her next child, which is Solomon, and she calls him Sol. And she's writing this book as the recounting of this year that was absolutely crazy, but taught her so much and gave her some wisdom. And if you know king Solomon is holds the mantle of wisdom attributed to a gift from God giving him all this wisdom, my premise is that much of the wisdom came from the his mother and that she had a lot to teach him as well in the form of this letter. So as I mentioned earlier, I did really wanna focus on this love and this desire and this relationship and that's Savi's agency in it. But I did want to also loosely tie to the plot points, of the ancient story.

You know, novel writing is not an efficient process. There were a lot of things that were in that came out, and then modern readers who didn't have any connection to the biblical story, reading it with an eye towards, this is this doesn't fly for me. And so trying to strike the balance of a story that satisfies both a modern reader with no biblical interests and somebody who studied like I have and thinks that there are a lot of parallels to a relationship with a power dynamic. That's what we're introduced to in David and Bathsheba. I spend a lot of time on that power dynamic and also her trying to define what love is. And so those are 2 universal themes that transcend time, but also things that I found to be questions I had in the Torah story because she ends up with him. Like, there must be some reason she ended up with him. Economic status was kind of 0 unless you ended up with somebody, but I didn't wanna assume that. I see her with Nathan putting Solomon in that kingship position as her being quite smart and capable to do just about anything she wants to do. Long winded answer, but, it was a balancing act.

Méli [00:24:48]:

Fair enough, and and thanks for drawing out those threads of how the biblical story shows up in your contemporary novel. And those elements came through very clearly for me even without having gone back and rereading the David and Bathsheba story. Couple of questions about your experience as a as a writer of this novel. Were there uncomfortable aspects of the biblical story that you avoided or kind of papered over in some way?

Jeanne [00:25:24]:

I guess there are 2 things that come to mind right away. One is I really wanted Betsabé to also be attracted to David and for her to want this in some way. And so the psychology behind why she might want this had to do with her background of not having a father in the picture. That was one thing. Kind of wanting a mentor, wanting a teacher, feeling attracted to an older successful man. She had chemistry with him, but there was this psychic thing he did for her, this emotional void he filled for her, and that's not true to the story at all. She comes from a you know, I think her father's mentioned there. But, you know, I I really had to grapple with why would she want this and why would she be into this.

And, the other thing is, you know, in the biblical story, she's married already, and she's maybe a little bit older. I had to kind of use a proxy for her husband, you know, so I did take liberties creating her of a certain age. I always thought I'd write a book about a young woman in that first job where you're really it's like a pretty cool opportunity, but you're not feeling a 100% prepared and you're having to, like, just tread water and keep your head above and nobody knows how hard you're struggling. So that was also something that I was motivated to write about. So I think I somewhat squeezed that into her character. That's actually something I could remember feeling even 30 some odd years later with regard to my first job. So So I guess parts of her familial ties, wanting to be with David almost as much as he wanted to be with her, but she knows her friends would think it's awful. And she kinda knows it's maybe not the right thing to do, but she wants to do it anyway.

And I don't think there are many characters out there in literature, especially female characters, who get to think controversial things or make choices that maybe in the book, she definitely makes some bad choices. She makes other choices too. Just I wanted her to really be a real person.

Méli [00:27:41]:

Yeah. And this this issue of you wanting her to want David, that that would feel real. And I think that's so important because otherwise you lose the woman's power, her agency, especially given the age difference, the the power imbalance. That wanting strikes me as very important to creating some balance between them.

Jeanne [00:28:09]:

Totally. I I don't want your listeners to think that this is like a romance novel, but I was inspired by the fact that there isn't a lot of writing about female desire. And that female desire is almost a I don't know. It's pigeonholed as genre or not appropriate, and that sympathetic female characters are people pleasers. I really did want to experiment with writing a female character who had strong desires that she didn't quite know what to do with. Anyway, then as I alluded to, COVID happens, which created a really good device for me in which I could have these 2 human beings isolate away together and not be in the public eye or feel any scrutiny and give them time and space as people to kind of incubate this relationship. And that felt to me realistic because I think stuff like that really happened.

Méli [00:29:13]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I thought that was a kind of a convenient, ploy. I do wanna just take one step back to the issue of female desire and how it shows up in the, Betsabé character. The one discomfort that I had as a reader was placing that female desire in the character of a Latina. And I was a little uncomfortable with this, you know, okay, are we characterizing this trope of the sexy Latina? And I just wanted to ask you about that choice.

Jeanne [00:29:56]:

Well, that's a great question. And I struggled with whether I had I guess when it comes to cultural appropriation and choosing to write characters that don't resemble my own cultural background, that's, like, a real hot topic. And I, really worked hard to make Betsy Bay an individual. I'm not speaking for a group of people at all. I'm I'm writing a character who I think comes to the story with a lot of things that are important in terms of a strong connection with her mother and or her grandmother, especially, a strong connection with her home in Miami, a very spiritual grandmother coming from a community that also mirrors Jews in that their exiles and that they are do have tight family situations. I also like that this character who I was writing was a lot different from me, but had a foot in 2 worlds, and I thought that that was important. Betsabé has comes from a very strong and tight family, one that's very supportive, one that believes in upward mobility and education and helping each other. I didn't see her in being that different from David culturally in that way, but she has a foot in 2 worlds.

She has a foot in this small New England College, New York City experience, and she has a foot in a Latina community. So back to your question about, like, her sexuality and that relating to her culture, I can see that entirely. But a lot of 23-year-old women, regardless of race, feel some of the same questions she did. And I've tried to portray her as very intelligent, very hardworking, very thoughtful, and she is in a best friendship and has a roommate in Ray. And I try to show kind of that friendship when Betsabé has maybe ethical or moral struggles or questions. They come up not necessarily in conversation with Ray, but in her interiority as she's thinking about Ray. So I am dwelling on one desirous relationship. However, I think it comes through in her character that this is not the norm for her, that she is not promiscuous or anything.

I really do try hard. And I guess I was somewhat nervous on the topic that you just questioned me on. I had, Latina readers who are from Miami and editors read the draft and for sensitivity and and my publisher read the draft with an eye towards any sort of cultural sensitivity. I just hope that we're not in a day and age where you can't write about people of other backgrounds. And so I'm taking that on also because I think it's important. I could have easily written this book from Ray's point of view. That's the daughter born at the end of Eden, who is Betsabé’s roommate. I felt like it's important to show a relationship where people are different and come from different places, yet they compromise, come to terms, try to understand each other, work on the relationship, work on what triggers each other, and have that kind of love that you have in a true friendship.

I think I've danced around your story, but I think you have hit on something that I was concerned about. And I worked really hard to create a character who's an individual and not representative of any group.

Méli [00:33:52]:

Yeah. Fair enough. And I think you have done that. And I'm glad to hear that you had several people from that community or knowledgeable about that community to read through the drafts and give you some, some feedback. So clearly it passed muster with them and that's, you know, that's all that matters. This point about our ability to write about someone's experience that's not your own, I think is a really important one and one that I support. I'm not a novelist. I'm a researcher and a podcast host. But in a way, when I write about my research with Christians and Muslims, these are experiences I have not had. And I try to do it with honesty and integrity. I believe I succeed, but it is a point, and it is it can be challenging. Couple of more questions about, really, characters and scenes. I'm wondering if you have favorite or most despised characters.

Jeanne [00:34:58]:

Great question. I brought back some of the women of Eden. Rachel really was ended in Eden with she was headed off to kind of pull herself back together. And I felt like even though she's a minor character here, I really enjoyed writing about an older woman who kinda took Betsabé under her wing and looked out for her. Albeit, you know, with her own worldview, but she was someone I really looked forward to including again and following up with her 20 years later. So even though that's a minor character, that's actually something I really enjoyed doing. I guess we'd go back to this relationship thing again. I had to work really hard on making David not creepy, and that he was falling for this younger woman.

I must have written thousands and thousands of words, lots of drafts that involved scenes that would help to have the reader have some understanding and and give him a little slack of not being creepy. I guess that just was took a lot of hard work. And for some of that, I kinda resent David that he made me have to get into his head and think of all the good reasons we could sympathize with his potentially predatory inclinations. So that was hard work, but, you know, there are never really any villains. Everybody's complicated, and I think good writing that includes villains has to show the wound and has to show that inner hurt that may be cause that person to do what they do, and that makes it believable. So David required me to work really hard. I know as we read in the Torah, he's kind of on the downward slope of his reign and he's making a series of questionable decisions including the one in this story. But I still needed to make him, somewhat of a nice guy that you would believe that she would wanna be with him.

I don't hate him, but I just he made me work really hard, had to think really hard. Not necessarily why they'd wanna be together, but how to show it on the page so that the reader would stick with him and not just be like, this is creepy. This guy's weird. Why would he be doing this? I needed to have these tender moments and figure out, ways to portray him that would have you keep reading.

Méli [00:37:39]:

I hear you. His type of character is so easily creepy. I mean, there is such a long history of a human history and history of literature. I mean, honestly, one of the books that immediately pops into my head is Lolita.

Jeanne [00:37:56]:

Exactly.

Méli [00:37:58]:

Creepy old guy. You know? Alright. We're moving away from the creepy old guy idea. Boy, that lingers. What do you want the reader to take away?

Jeanne [00:38:09]:

I would love to have readers come away with the idea that satisfaction and contentment are easily achieved with, like, very non resume related experiences. I think the young person right out of college at one of these prestigious firms are a little bit on a hamster wheel of thinking what they're accumulating are the things that a successful or happy life are based on. And when everything falls apart for Betsabé, and she finds some inner peace or comes to terms with, like, the real important things that are gonna get her through. Some of that has to do with motherhood, but it also just gives her kind of this glimpse into life and family and strength and courage and healing. It really opens up this opportunity to get to know herself better. She spends time with herself and has a clear picture of who she is and and how she wants to live. Like, taking the time to do that is actually really rare these days. We do a lot of things that we know are gonna impress people and that we're encouraged to do.

And hopefully, it doesn't take a life of 60 years like me to realize the happiness didn't really come from those jobs or those accolades or things that impressed people. It comes from having a sense of true north and choosing things that are maybe just so simple but so authentic to who you are. Those are the things that are gonna propel you forward.

Méli [00:40:04]:

Yeah. I hear you. I really hear you. But, again, I think you've skated very close to a risky cultural edge in that this tension in our American culture, and it's not also in European and other parts of the world, regarding what are the appropriate roles for women. This tension that lots of women, I think most women, feel between a professional life and being a wife and mother. What concerns me in how the book ends and perhaps in your next book, you will pick this up is we don't know what happens with her. And again, I don't want to give too much away. I think we've given a lot away about the book. But one can leave the book with this sense that Betsabé has forsaken the work world and now sees her redemption and joy in motherhood, which I think is really I'll be honest. I think it's a dangerous trope.

Jeanne [00:41:18]:

I totally agree with you. I feel like I was trying to express that she was finding personal satisfaction in an artistic career, a more artistic career. You know, she'd always been in the theater and in college had been in the theater, decides to go to this job on Wall Street because she gets this opportunity. But I think the illusion is that even though it was a crazy time during COVID and almost every theater in the world is shutting down, that is a area she's going to pursue. I did not want my reader to come away with the impression that you did, so I may have made it too subtle. But, yeah, I did not mean for her to make that choice of work versus motherhood. I do see her working and and still involved in her pers artistic pursuit. It's not necessarily she's an actress, but she's aligned with the theatrical world somehow.

Méli [00:42:16]:

Yeah. And, fair enough. I read the book several weeks ago, and and I now realize that that bit of the ending fell out of my head.

Jeanne [00:42:27]:

That's okay.

Méli [00:42:28]:

That's interesting that that didn't stay with me. I want to touch on just 2 more little things and then we really have to wrap up. Another contemporary issue that I think there are echoes, in your book is this whole issue of affirmative action and what's happening on college campuses regarding admissions. And I was wondering if those things were were in your mind in in writing the book.

Jeanne [00:42:55]:

Oh, absolutely. Betsabé even has this internal thought that that I think some of her colleagues are reminiscing on kind of this go go era, a few crashes before she came on to Wall Street where bonuses were huge and people were getting paid even more obscene obscene salaries for what they were doing. And she said, I'm happy with where I am now because if it wasn't for this era of affirmative action and DEI and an HR department that was charged with recruiting a workforce that was more representative of the world at large, I might not even have this job. So she's aware that that exists. I think it's like this undercurrent of somewhat insecurity, feeling like other people are looking at her like she's the token higher. That's a terrible feeling to walk around with. You're trying to prove yourself already feeling like this is a new industry. I had not studied in order to go into investment banking.

I've gotta brush up on all of these skills with regard to analysis and math and using discounting cash flows. And then so it's not only would any person have struggles. Now I have to worry that people are looking at me side eyes like I don't really deserve to be here. There's definitely a theme of entitlement and privilege that she ends up being at the top of her class, I think, is really important because she is a really hard worker, and she can put some of that insecurity behind her when she gets named to be in the most sought after position at the end of the summer. But I definitely like to write about privilege and the tension between people who truly have privilege, like Ray and her family, and how it really irks to see Ray's maybe taking for granted or just the way her growing up was so much different because there was a sense of security and money. I write about that in all of my novels. I think that that's a really important tension in our day and age to write about. And when it gets into, like, admissions at schools, The Nine is where you should go to hear my rant on that topic because it's all set in a boarding school, and there's actually a scene with the college counselor telling all of these parents who won't sleep at night if their kids don't go to the Ivy League to just, like, chill, and that's probably not gonna happen.

And they're all like, yeah. It's gonna happen. It's just a recipe for insanity. Again, I'm got 3 kids in their twenties, thirties, and a lot of this comes from the feelings that I had sitting in those seats and watching and also feeling my own feelings. I'm not, above admitting that I write about, like, the uncomfortable feelings that I experience for better or worse, acknowledging that I had the tiger mom feels myself and acknowledging that I might have been more like a Ray who didn't that well. And in writing, I'm trying trying to understand what both parties in a friendship need to peel back in order to connect as humans. We come with a lot of prior experience, privilege, and education being 2 easy ones that sit right on the surface and we gotta peel those back.

Méli [00:46:30]:

Okay. Closing question. I wanna circle back to the beginning in terms of your Jewish identity. Clearly, this book and perhaps the the 2 before draw on biblical ideas. I understand, you know, how you were inspired to to write these things from your class at Temple Israel, which sounds like a great class. I'm curious now that you're finished writing and it's out and you're getting some response and you're moving on to whatever is next. How is it now affecting your Jewish journey?

Jeanne [00:47:10]:

You know, this class of people is really part of the core community at Temple Israel. I think I say in the acknowledgments that I'm writing this and dedicating it to our work together and our study. So in a very close to the best way, it's an offering to a group that's meant so much to me and a place that's given me a home and to a teacher in Rabbi Zechar who's given me permission to kind of own this text. I love the stories. I mean, as a storyteller, I do see so much intention in what is written and then also what is not written and what's left out and what order these stories are told in, and I'm a layperson. I'm not a scholar. Some people are coming to me as if I have some authority to talk about how I did it. And so to the extent like Judaism is about studying together and connecting with people around these stories, around Torah, I'm talking to a lot of people about these things.

It feels sacred in a way. It feels also sacred that I'm introducing people to a story. They may go back to the second book of Samuel and, like, read it for themselves. That feels like an encouragement that means something to me. With regard to my writing, I have a lot of humility. I have Rabbi Zechar read it. Am I gonna get struck by lightning? Is this okay to write? The writing has strengthened my love of Torah and my desire to read and analyze and and connect with people over these stories. I've always been that way, but maybe it makes that desire stronger or continue.

Méli [00:49:05]:

Thank you for those words. And those are good words to end on, Jeanne. I so appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I've really enjoyed this conversation and digging into both your journey as well as this wonderful novel and the 2 that preceded it. Thank you so much.

Jeanne [00:49:27]:

Thank you, Meli. I really enjoyed it too. Thanks for challenging me too.

Méli [00:49:36]:

Thank you so much for listening. This Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. In that research, I explore how Jews, Christians and Muslims live their faith, including their sense of God, prayer practice and how faith is present in daily life. If you'd like to keep up to date about the project, subscribe to my twice monthly newsletter at www.talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.