A BJV column about Jewish books and authors
By Dr. Steve Rubin / Special to the BJV
Dear Readers,
June in the Berkshires is a wonderful time of year: warmer weather, flowers in bloom, and lots of cultural events. It’s also a good time to catch up on your reading, whether it’s sitting on your back porch or in your favorite living room chair. This month I am recommending two recently published, debut novels: Alice Austen's 33 Place Brugmann and Sarah Yahm's Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation.
Published in 2025 Alice Austen’s 33 Place Brugmann, short listed for this year’s National Jewish Book Award, is a Holocaust novel that takes a different approach from the many recent Holocaust-themed books. As the title indicates, 33 Place Brugmann (an actual address in Brussels) does not take place in a concentration camp, but follows the occupants of said apartment building at the time of Nazi occupation of Belgium. As individuals adjust to their new reality, lives become intertwined, and relations become complicated and potentially dangerous. Neighbors learn who can be trusted and who cannot. Each must choose how to respond to the Nazi occupation: collaborate with their occupiers, resist passively or actively, or flee. Austen, a British writer who lived at 33 Place Brugmann Street as part of her research for the novel, has in short created an intriguing study of character, love, resilience, and difficult choices.
Also published last year (and also a finalist for one of this year’s National Jewish Book awards), is Sarah Yahm’s Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation. Although the subject matter is often difficult (grief, family separation, hereditary disease) there is also love, devotion, and not a small amount of humor. The story follows the 40-year marriage of the Rosenbergs (Leon and Louise) as they navigate life from the time husband and wife meet, through their long marriage, the birth (and growth) of their daughter, and their eventual separation. The ethical core of the novel involves Louise’s decision to leave her family (a complicated decision that can be viewed as either self-serving or incredibly generous) and the ramifications of that decision. Why she decides to depart and what proceeds after that, readers will have to discover for themselves. Suffice it to say, Unfinished Acts, a novel The Forward called “devastating and unforgettable,” will engage even the most casual reader.
Steven J. Rubin, Ph.D. has written and lectured extensively both here and abroad on issues relating to Jewish culture and literature. He is professor emeritus and former dean at Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. He can be reached at [email protected] – or better yet, come to his Current Events Seminar on July 16 and August 20 at noon, a Connecting With Community program held at Knesset Israel in Pittsfield.