Description: An intimate memoir from a founding editor of Ms. magazine who grew up in a Jewish immigrant family mired in secrets, haunted by their dread of shame and stigma, determined to hide their every imperfection--and in denial or despair when they couldn't. The word "shanda" is defined as shame or disgrace in Yiddish. This book, Shanda, tells the story of three generations of complicated, intense twentieth-century Jews for whom the desire to fit in and the fear of public humiliation either drove their aspirations or crushed their spirit. In her deeply engaging, astonishingly candid memoir, author and activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin exposes the fiercely-guarded lies and intricate cover-ups woven by dozens of members of her extended family. Beginning with her own long-suppressed secret, the story spirals through the hidden lives of her parents and relatives--revealing the truth about their origins, personal traumas, marital misery, abandoned children, religious transgressions, sexual identity, radical politics, and supposedly embarrassing illnesses. While unmasking their charades and disguises, Pogrebin also showcases her family's remarkable talent for reinvention in a narrative that is, by turns, touching, searing, and surprisingly universal.
Brief description: Letty Cottin Pogrebin is a writer, activist, and national lecturer. A founding editor and writer for Ms. magazine, Pogrebin is also the author of numerous books, including the novel, Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate, the memoirs Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America and Getting Over Getting Older, the novel Three Daughters, and the groundbreaking How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick. She is also the editor of the anthology Stories for Free Children and consulting editor on Marlo Thomas's Free to Be . . . You and Me. Pogrebin's articles, op-eds, and columns have been published in a wide variety of print and online publications, including the New York Times, Time, The Nation, Ms., Huffington Post, Harpers Bazaar, Travel & Leisure, Moment, and the Forward.