Discussion of Becoming Alice at the Gables

Yesterday was a great day for me. I had been asked to speak to the occupants of an assisted-living facility. I accepted, of course, thinking the presentation and discussion would be different from any of the others I’d done in the past. I’ve talked to book clubs, libraries, social groups, temple groups, children’s classrooms, country clubs, book fairs, and the list goes on. But I’ve not spoke to a senior group that reside in an assisted-living home.

I anticipated that some participants would be walking into the room with the help of canes or an attendant’s arm, or even in wheelchairs. I was pleased to see that wasn’t necessary for my group. I also anticipated that once I began to speak, that a good number of my audiance would nod off for a little afternoon nap. Another preconceived notion I had was regarding the sale of any Becoming Alice books. I was asked the the home’s Activity Director to bring a few copies … just in case. I was wrong on all accounts.

With the exception of one lady who nodded off here and there, everyone was with me, attentively listening to me telling them my story, the story of a holocaust survivor. At the end of my presentation, I asked if anyone had an questions. They did. And they were questions that opened up whole new avenues about WWII history, anti-semitism, life as refugees, and fitting into the American way of life. Many had stories of their own to offer.
I was so impressed.The lesson to learn is to never “judge a book by its cover.” I had such a good time with this group of remarkable people.

My final surprise came when several of them asked to purchase my Becoming Alice.

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The Presentation, Mine and Theirs

Last Monday night, I had one of those experiences in which I expected very little and was surprised by receiving much more. That happens to me often. For example, I like to watch my statistics on my Amazon site, or on my blog site. It seems when I think no one out there is at all interested … when the count of visitors is low … and I begin to think that I should redirect my energies elsewhere, I will find a so large a bump up on my stats that I glow inside.

Last Monday night I had one of those experiences. I was asked to speak about Becoming Alice to an evening meeting of a social group at a local temple. I was not to bring copies of my book since they did not want the meeting to be commercial in any way. I packed up thinking I’d put a few books in my car, just in case.

The minute I entered the social hall I was approached by two women who greeted me with, “Did you bring books?” Luckily I was able to say yes. They ordered me to bring them inside and immediately set up a table for me, explaining, “This is where you’ll be signing your books.” They took complete charge of me.

I went on to do my talk and found the audience to be totally attentive … no one hunched over in a short nap … and completely involved with the account of my personal history in the Holocaust. At the end of my presentation, I always open the meeting to questions. There were many. After each answer, I often got a short statement about how their own family history was either the same, or different, from mine.

But it was during the signing that many of those people stopped to give me a full presentation of thier own, or some member of their family’s history during WWII.

The evening was full of presentations, mine and theirs.’ I loved that.

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The Sequal

I often address various sized groups of people who are interested in hearing me speak about my memoir, Becoming Alice. They want to know what inspired me to write write my book, how long it took to complete, how I went about getting it published, etc. etc. Then the groups I address can be split in two, those who have read my book and those who haven’t. I leave the haven’t group on the back burner, hoping they will buy my book on the way out the door, and focus on the group that has read my book.

Depending on the interests of the group, I will speak about WWII and Hitler’s takeover of Vienna; I may speak about the immigrant years in Portland, Oregon and the position our little group of refugees found ourselves in; I might speak about the unique personalities of my family members and how that effected our assimilation. I most often give more backgraound material than is to be found in my book.

What interests me most is what happens when I end my discourse and open the meeting up for questions. Many are on the subjects I’ve mentioned. People want to share with me their own family histories, especially as they pertain to members who have personalities similar to those I wrote about. And finally, I always get questions about what happened next ?, what happened ever to your brother?, are you still friends with Trudy? and are you writing a sequal?

I thought about the second works of some very successful books and also about sequals to their memoirs. My experience has been that very often, these sequals are not so successful. One example is Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes which I thought was an excellent piece of writing. It was followed by ‘Tis which in my opinion was not equal to his first work. Oh, I think it sold a lot of copies, probably because people expected the same sort of reading experience. It wasn’t. How could it be? It was about an entirely different subject, lived by an adult and not by a little boy, and in a America and not Ireland.

So when people ask me about my next work, I tell them I am not writing a sequal. Actually the working title of what I’m currently writing is Episodes. They do take place in the period following the close of Becoming Alice but as happens in all sequals, most other variables are different. In my case you will be reading about a young American girl and her relationships with others, including men, and not a European refugee who feels like a fish out of water in her new culture.

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Educating with Alice

Somehow several events have bunched themselves up together this spring and so my attention has been focused on Becoming Alice more intensely lately. I’d decided to talk more about the meaning of what happened to the young child, Ilse, than the story itself. Although the story is interesting, sometimes dramatic and full of tension, sometimes sad, and sometimes even humorous, it is what one comes away with that is the value of the book.

Often I open my speaking engagements by telling the audience that Alice is about a little girl caught in the trap of being Jewish in Europe during the time of WWII. Then as I look at the audience again, I realize that only the very elderly will know the history of that dreadful period in history. I look at the next generation down at those in midlife and know that even for them, they may only know how that history by how it has effected some member of their family, a father or mother, aunt or uncle, or perhaps a close friend. They may know little else. And of course, those that are young adults or adolescents will know that history only if they’ve had it taught to them in some class at school. To them, that history is as distant as if it had occured in the Dark Ages. The only exception there is for the younger Jewish population who are forever reminded of the Holocaust, especially now that we have passed Holocaust Remembrance Day. That is how it should be.

There is more to be learned from Alice than just the history of WWII. It is to see how an early trauma can effect the life and personality of a growing child and adolescent. The story studies the personalities of the family members and how they mold and influence the behaviors of one another. And it asks the question of why one child might grow up with different characteristics than another, both having been raised in the same family. The story is not just a personal history of WWII, but a study in the psycho-dynamics of one family and the different paths they eventually follow.

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How To Be a Successful Speaker

Over the last three years I’ve learned a lot about speaking to an audience. I’ve spoken to as little as four people and as many as seventy-five people. My first gig was with a group of seventy-five. It was the one which happened shortly after my memoir, Becoming Alice, was published almost three years ago. And a large part of that audience was comprised of writers, readers, literary people of all sorts interested in all the arts including good books.

I had to overcome two problems. I’d not had much experience in public speaking; I’d only done it once before in San Francisco when I presented a very complicated case to Dr. Franz Alexander, who was then recognized as the father of psychosomatic medicine. My boss had gotten cold feet and simply turned to me and said, “I can’t do this. Here Alice,” she handed me the file, “you do it.”

I had no choice and got up in front of a packed auditorium of San Francisco’s elite medical community and simply spoke. I did have the advantage of being quite pretty then and Dr. Alexander was fascinated by either what I was saying, or maybe by me. In any case, he did not take his eyes off me and I did the same. Lesson learned: don’t speak to the hundreds of people out there. Focus on just one person and speak to him/her as if no one else is in the room. That lesson stood me in good stead when I presented Becoming Alice to the group of  seventy-five literary people.

Having never done a presentation as an author before, I decided to make some notes regarding what I would say when that sea of eyes turned in my direction.  I made some crib notes and took them with me to the event. Or, so I thought. When I got up to the podium and leafed through my book to find them, I realized that I had forgotten them at home. A shiver went through me. What was I going to do? It was like being thrown into the water without being able to swim.

“Okay,” I said to myself.  I picked up my book and after giving a very brief introduction, I started to read a few short excerpts from the book. I guess they must have liked those pages fairly well because we sold quite a good number of books that day.

I’ve done many more presentations and speaking gigs since then and have moved forward from that format. First, my knees don’t knock any more when I get up to the podium. And I don’t read from my book any more. I have discovered that people want only a very brief knowledge about the story. After all, they will want to be surprised by what happens as they read the book. People are far more interested if I talk about the meaning behind some of the specific occurances that happened. They like to hear more about the characters in the book and want to understand why they acted the way they did. They like to hear more backstory explaining circumstances and behaviors and feelings that I’d written about. It is the kind of approach, I believe, that awakens in the audience questions they have about similar experiences in their lives. And it prompts them to want to tell me about people they know and happenings that have have taken place in their lives. Furthermore, it makes for a very successful give and take in the question and answer period that follows any presentation.

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