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Friday October 26, 2007

‘Small Beginnings’ a big debut for first-time novelist

by dan pine
staff writer

In her debut novel, “A Day of Small Beginnings,” Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum explores the long-vanished world of a Polish shtetl. She wanted to base the story on her own ancestors, but nobody in the family knew the history. So she borrowed memories from her husband.

He is Walter Lipsman, the son of Polish-born Holocaust survivors. They were the ones who filled in the blanks as Rosenbaum colored in the details of her novel.

“A Day of Small Beginnings” follows several generations from the village of Zokof to modern-day America, led by the ghost of Freidl Alterman — in life a learned Jewish woman, in death a frustrated, restless spirit. If there’s a Chagall-like cast to it all, it’s deliberate. Rosenbaum visited Poland with her in-laws some years ago, and out of that trip, her story took shape.

“I had started a short story about a man returning to his father’s hometown in Poland,” Rosenbaum recalls. “I had seen pictures of [Jewish] gravestones, but when you go into the Jewish graveyards in Poland, there are nothing but crows. All the stones were taken out and used as building material. As we drove out [of the town], the first line of the book came to me.”

That line reads: “When I went to my rest in 1905, I was 83 and childless, aggravated that life was done with me and that I was done with life.”

Rosenbaum is nowhere near such dreary pronouncements. She is a successful novelist, attorney and mother of two, as well as a former dancer and official at an Israeli consulate.

A New York native, Rosenbaum grew up in a secular household. Before she turned 20, however, she had developed a curiosity about her Jewish roots. That led to a year of study in Israel and, later, to a job with the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. She earned a law degree and had a career arguing First Amendment cases.

But she also had a passion for writing, and with the encouragement of her writing group, the novel evolved. She got lucky — she sent her manuscript to a prospective agent on a Thursday and was on her way to landing a publishing deal the following Monday.

“The most satisfying part has been meeting with book groups,” she says. “They read the book and want to discuss it, and often bring to it a wealth of their own experience.”

Rosenbaum serves as the president of Santa Monica Synagogue, a Reform congregation. Living Jewish is important to her, but as much as Jewish life adorns her novel, she wrote the book with the broadest audience in mind.

“It seems to have a great deal of appeal to a non-Jewish audience. It asks: ‘Who are we if we don’t know where our families came from?’ That’s a peculiarly American story.”

Lisa Rosenbaum will appear 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11, at the 4th annual Celebration of Jewish Authors, held at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center,

800 Foster City Blvd., Foster City. Admission is free. Information: (650) 212-7522.

“A Day of Small Beginnings” by Lisa Rosenbaum (368 pages, Little Brown, $24.99)

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