Joanna Hershon and Adelle Waldman Grow in Brooklyn
Bridge Over Troubled Writers: Authors Joanna Hershon (left) and Adelle Waldman talk shop. Image by nate lavey
Two of the strongest novels published so far this year, Joanna Hershon’s “A Dual Inheritance” and Adelle Waldman’s “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” happen to be written by young, Brooklyn-based Jewish women writing smartly and wittily from the perspectives of men. This might not be a remarkable fact in and of itself: Look for a smart, witty novelist these days, and 50% of the time you’ll wind up seeing a Brooklyn address. And apart from some crossover in themes and signifiers, the books are markedly different in style and subject matter. “A Dual Inheritance” is a wonderfully and classically constructed old school novel spanning 50 years in the lives of two friends who met while they were undergraduates at Harvard. “Nathaniel P.” is a slimmer work but no less deft or ambitious as it delves into the mind of a sad, young literary cad from (where else?) Brooklyn. Nevertheless, the Forward took the opportunity to bring these two authors together in (where else?) Brooklyn. I met with them by the famed Jane’s Carousel on the waterfront to discuss their thoughts on their inspirations and on writing from the perspectives of men (Jewish and otherwise).
— Adam Langer
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
