Monday, August 10, 2020

Q&A with Jan Cherubin


Jan Cherubin is the author of the new novel The Orphan's Daughter. She is a journalist, playwright, and standup comic based in California.

Q: How much was The Orphan's Daughter based on your own father's life?

A: My father spent 10 years at The Hebrew National Orphan Home in Yonkers, New York, from 1924-1934, the same period as the character Clyde Aronson. But my father did not leave behind a manuscript about his experience, at least as far as I know. He spoke about the orphanage when I was growing up, but only in broad strokes. So I had to create Clyde’s story through imagination and research.

Some of the details about daily life in the Home come from archived issues of the orphanage newspaper, and some from two terrific collections of memories compiled by HNOH alumni, all of which is housed at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Clyde’s later life, seen through his daughter Joanna’s eyes, is fictional but based on my relationship with my father. The border between imagination and memory is porous. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s biographer, Caroline Fraser, described Wilder’s talent as “the ability to transform the raw material of the past into a work of art.” That was my goal--to make the past come alive again.

Q: How would you describe the relationship between your character Clyde and his daughter Joanna?

A: It’s complicated. Their relationship is fraught, but ultimately close. Clyde is a difficult man, and he has a tremendous amount of anger. But Joanna identifies with him, carrying his childhood abandonment and hurt inside of her.

In certain ways, Clyde and Joanna are alike. They have a similar curiosity, they size up the world in the same way, and this connection is valuable to Joanna, even though Clyde fails her in other serious ways.

Q: The novel takes place in New York and Baltimore--how important is setting to you in your writing?

A: Setting is very important--geography is destiny. A character’s attachment to place, or alienation from it, calls up issues of identity, home, belonging, and otherness, as well as situating the narrative historically.

I use description of the physical world to evoke emotion. Both Clyde and Joanna are nostalgic, and that feeling is not only about time, but also place. Of course, if the characters veer into sentimentality, I try to make sure it’s quickly punctured by the sting of reality.

For example, Clyde chides Baltimore for not being New York, although he claims their particular block in Baltimore is paradise: “If you didn’t know where it was, you’d come here for a vacation,” he says.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

A: I hope readers are given a respite from the troubled times we live in, not because The Orphan’s Daughter is light fare, although there’s plenty of humor in it, but because, I hope, I’ve created a fictional world a reader can live in for a while.

In addition, I would hope girls who read the novel feel empowered by a protagonist who regains the confidence she had in elementary school in the years before she was sexualized.

And finally, I would hope readers take away from the story the idea that families can be both happy and unhappy at the same time.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m working on a nonfiction book about tracking down my disappeared grandfather, making use of material I discovered while researching the novel. It’s a real detective story.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: The Orphan’s Daughter is a literary thriller. Readers have said it’s easy to get into and suspenseful all the way through. I can be reached at https://www.jancherubin.com/contact.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

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