INHERITING AN IDENTITY
A Conversation with Elizabeth Rosner
Wednesday, September 29
7:30 PM
Elizabeth Rosner
author of Blue Nude
in conversation with Linda Gray Sexton,
with opening remarks by Philippa Kelly
Acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Rosner asks: “Can we remember the past and move beyond it, creating art in the process?”
Her luminous second novel, Blue Nude, takes modern history’s greatest atrocity and expresses its consequences—and a hope for redemption—in the lives of two people thrown together by accident.
Born in the shadow of postwar Germany, Danzig is a once-prominent painter, now teaching at an art institute in San Francisco. Increasingly haunted by his dark inheritance, he finds himself unable to create. When Merav, the Israeli-born granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, becomes Danzig’s muse, both realize they must face the wounds of history that each of them carries. Bringing together the past and present lives of Merav and Danzig, the story moves forward and backward in time and place: from a California art studio to the ruins of Berlin and back again.
In subtle yet profound awakenings, both artist and model begin to transform themselves as well as one another. Blue Nude becomes the literary equivalent of a masterpiece of visual art: elegantly composed, vivid, a perfect object as well as a great and stirring drama.
A daughter of Holocaust survivors, Rosner spent several years involved in a project called Acts of Reconciliation. This exploration of the legacy shared by Second Generation Jews and Germans, descendants of victims and perpetrators, led to the writing of Blue Nude. Its powerful themes of inheritance and transformation are inspiring answers to a question haunting many of us: How do our ancestors' lives dictate and inform our own?
Joining Elizabeth Rosner in conversation will be Linda Gray Sexton, whose writing has been intricately shaped by the life and work of her mother, poet Anne Sexton.
"We watch, spellbound, as the story seems to levitate midair, as the characters seamlessly unfold a plot that is no less than fascinating. Using the rhythms of poetry, Elizabeth Rosner has created a lyrical tour de force." -- Linda Gray Sexton, author of Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide
“Rosner has a painter's eye and a poet's ear. BLUE NUDE is a luminous book about painful histories -- both private and global -- and how they stay with us even as they travel through to become something else - quite possibly art. A book both heady and tangible, both unflinching and generous, but always beautiful to read.” -- Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
“Through German artist, Danzig, and Israeli muse, Merav, Elizabeth Rosner builds a bridge from loss to reconciliation, from anger to understanding. Blue Nude is a lyrical exploration of how we -- as individuals and as a society -- move past our separate histories and toward a shared redemption. This is truly a lovely book.” -- Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Wednesday Sisters
“Blue Nude is a novel which spans time and continents, from post war Germany to California to Israeli kibbutzim, a novel which explores the big questions of history, fate, art, how we choose to live the lives we’re given–and yet it’s also wonderfully intimate as well in its exploration of the hearts of its individual characters. Elizabeth Rosner has written a thought provoking, moving and original book.” -- Dan Chaon, author of You Remind Me of Me
“Rosner takes on complexity with a brilliant poet’s insistence that the body can never surrender cultural legacy. Blue Nude is easy to pick up and, in its suspense, hard to put down. Its sensitivity to detail acts as a love letter to the world.” -- Edie Meidav, author of Crawl Space
Linda Gray Sexton, our interviewer this evening, has written four novels, and her first memoir, Searching for Mercy Street, was published to widespread acclaim. Linda Sexton’s new book, Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide, arrives in January.
Philippa Kelly is Resident Dramaturg at the California Shakespeare Theater.
$12 advance ($6 students with ID and Hillside Club members), $15 (for all) at the door, online at Brown Paper Tickets on 800-838-3006.
Hillside Club (2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley)
