Join the Book Cellar in celebrating Brooke Randel's debut memoir, in conversation with Anca L. Szilágyi! RSVP here.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust--just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: "You should write about my life. What happened in the war."

What results is a fascinating memoir--about one woman's harrowing survival, and another's struggle to excavate the story from under the sands of time, and her grandma's illiteracy. Chronicling the darkness of the past and the difficult (and occasionally comic) challenges of bringing it to life in a sunny Florida condo, this book offers an insightful look into the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, and the impossible pull of both silence and remembrance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brooke Randel is a writer, editor, and associate creative director in Chicago. Her writing has been published in Hippocampus, Hypertext Magazine, Jewish Fiction, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, she writes on issues of memory, trauma, family and history. Find more of her work at www.brookerandel.com.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER:

Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut from a writer to watch” and Dreams Under Glass, which Buzzfeed Books called “a novel for our modern times.” Her writing appears in Orion Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Newsweek, among other publications. She is the recipient of awards from Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), among others. Originally from Brooklyn, she has lived in Montreal, Seattle, and now Chicago. Find her at ancawrites.com.

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