Q&A with Kitty Zeldis

 

 

 

Kitty Zeldis is the author of the new novel One of Them. Her other books include the novel Not Our Kind. She is based in Brooklyn.

 

Q: What inspired you to write One of Them, and how did you create your characters Anne and Delia?

 

A: I have always been interested in what I call the Jewish/Gentile intersection, and how Jews have dealt with their historical “otherness,” even when they have tried to fit in and assimilate. 

 

Delia and Anne represent different responses to that sense of otherness—Delia has faced much worse and so the slights and snubs of her college classmates have less of a visible effect on her, while Anne has been so wounded that she decides to simply leave her Jewishness behind. 

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between them?

 

A: Anne is envious of how Delia is able to shrug off the insults and ignore the ostracism on campus; she herself is unable to do this. She admires Delia’s Parisian upbringing, her worldliness, her broader frame of reference—all these things attract and intrigue her.  

 

Delia senses something in Anne that’s different from the other girls around her, and she responds to that. And Anne is able to comfort her in a vulnerable moment, which is the beginning of a friendship between the two. But when Anne betrays Delia, all that possibility and potential appears to be lost. 

 

Q: Why do you think each character reacts the way she does to her Jewish identity?

 

A: For Delia, being Jewish had never been a problem or even an issue—until it was. But having fled France and surviving her mother’s disappearance, the cold shoulder from her classmates is nothing more than a minor annoyance; it doesn’t affect who she is or how she presents herself to the world.  

 

Anne’s feeling about her Jewish identity has been colored by the rejection she’s faced and she’s more determined to escape from it.  

 

Anne thinks being Jewish is the root of all her problems; Delia knows better. 

 

Q: Especially given the current rise in antisemitism, what do you hope readers take away from the novel?

 

A: I hope readers will understand the internalized anti-Semitism Anne feels because it’s a very common reaction and many of them may have felt it too. 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I do have plans for another novel, some of which will be set in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries. But that’s all I can say for now and at the moment, I’m involved with getting One of Them launched and out into the world.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Kitty Zeldis.