I haven't checked the weather yet, but I know it is the perfect day to chat about adult Jewish literature. I'm Sheryl Stahl, thanks for joining me here at Nice Jewish books. Talk about a page turner. I was up way past my bedtime reading the Main Character, and today I am happy to speak with the author, Jaclyn Goldis, welcome Jaclyn!.
Thank you so much. Thanks, Sheryl, for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
It is my pleasure. So would you please tell me about your book?
Yes, of course. So the Main Character is my latest thriller. It's about a girl named Rory who has just served as main character for a best selling author. So Geneva Ex is this best selling author who has this kind of unusual way of writing her big best selling thrillers, which is that she hires a real person to be her main character, and then she fixed she interviews them and then fictionalizes their lives. And so Rory has just been Geneva's main character, and as a leaving present, Geneva gifts her a trip on the newly refurbished Orient Express that's going down the western coast of Italy. And so Rory is very excited, and she boards the train, she's shocked, though, to see people she knows. So she sees her best friend, her brother and also her ex fiance, and she does not understand why they are all there. And then she's informed basically, that Geneva has orchestrated kind of this big trip for them, with a lot of surprises along the way. And you know, they're very excited to depart, but as they do, secrets and lies and deceptions start to unravel, and Rory isn't sure if she's the real life main character on this twisty trip orchestrated by Geneva with who knows what end in sight and then murder.
So it rotates between the narrative rotates between the characters. So we have Rory Caroline, the friend, Max, her brother, Nate, the ex fiance, and then Geneva pops in also. So you hear the story from everyone's point of view. So it's like, oh, this happened. But wait, no, we heard it from another person, and that isn't exactly what happened. So, you know, as I said, it was just one of the the page "turningist" books I've read in a while. So, so, oh, thank you.
Thank you for that.
So many things I want to ask. So let's start with the train trip. It's such an iconic setting for a mystery. You know, the especially the Orient Express train. And it's also, I forget the name of the term when a physical journey is also kind of a spiritual journey. So it's that for Rory also, as she learns delves into these secrets that are going on, Genevra had left her a note. She had done extensive research on Rory and her family, and then left her a note of three secrets that she had just three or four secrets that she had discovered which stun Rory. And then she finds that there's a lot more to them than what Geneva had known, and that was part of her discovery on this train. So can you talk about why you chose this setting?
Yeah, well, I'm always inspired by setting for books. I think because I live abroad, I've traveled a lot. I think it's really fun to write American characters abroad, which is what I am. I'm an American living abroad, and so I really like to lean on international settings. And I had read an article in a travel magazine about how they were refurbishing the Orient Express train so that they were modern, but they look like the trains from the 1920s that were, you know, crisscrossing Europe, and as you alluded to made famous in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. And I thought how fun it would be to reimagine kind of a murder mystery on the iconic train. You know, I took it in a very different direction than Christie's, but it was really fun to play with that setting, again, in the context of a murder mystery. So I was drawn to it. And in this book, I kind of decided to treat the train trip a little bit like a cruise ship. Instead of having a direct journey between just one destination to another, I have the, you know, the passengers can get off and explore, and that was really fun to craft, like my dream kind of journey along the Italian coast. So, yeah,
it was fun to travel along with them and experience all those places. So have you been up and down the coast of Italy?
I have. I've been to Cinque Terre. I've been to Rome. Cinque Terre and Rome are two of my favorite places. Starts in Monaco. I've been there. I haven't been to Positano, where the book ends, so that will have to be on a future itinerary.
So one of the many things I loved about the book is that there's a lot of Jewish representation that Rory's father is grew up in the Soviet Union, in an area which is now Ukraine. Geneva is from Italy, and Nate's grandmother was a Syrian Jew who taught him to speak Arabic. So why was it important for you to show such a diversity of Jewish backgrounds?
Um, you know, it's always important to me in my book, so all my books have Jewish characters and storylines. I'm Jewish. My dad is from Ukraine and the Soviet Union, so his story actually very much inspired this book in particular, and that was really meaningful for me. I live in Israel. I live in Tel Aviv. I'm around such a melting pot of Jews and the Jewish experience. And I feel really lucky that I get to show that in my books, and have publishers who publish, you know, the Jewish characters that I choose to write about. I feel really lucky that I get to write these kinds of stories.
Yeah, that's definitely been an issue in the publishing world right now, many Jewish authors are having a hard time getting published with Jewish content in their books.
Yes, it's true.
So it's wonderful that you were able to get this out in the world.
Yes, I agree.
So to go back to the characters. So Anatoly, Max and Rory's father grew up in the in the Soviet Union, and which, of course, was very repressive society, and in a lot of ways very violent. He grew up desperately poor and had to go kill rabbits for for food. He was bullied, and his response was to be violent in return to stop the bullying. But when he eventually gets to the United States and is raising his children, his older child, Max, is being bullied in school, and he had no idea what to do, he's like, Well, when that happened to me, I beat them up and, you know, and Rory says that won't work here. And he's like, Well, it'll all work out. And that was sort of his modus operandi, you know, it'll all work out. He seems to not have a lot of resilience, like it took such a big effort to get to the US, to build a life, and then that's that's all he can do. And so it's left to Rory to take care of her older brother. When she sees that their bills are unpaid, she sends her allowance in to make, to make a payment. You know, obviously it's not enough, but she thinks that she's helping to take care of the problem. Can you talk about kind of how that childhood set him up for life in the US, or didn't set him up?
Yeah, it's funny, because I really did. My father's story was a big inspiration for Anatoly. But then, of course, there's the place where I made it fictionalized. So you know, some people maybe who know my dad read the book and see a lot of him in that character. But also there's a lot of him that's not and I think for story reasons, the way Anatoly is as a father and the way he operates in his grown up life, I wanted to make very different from my father. And so I think that, I think that tragedy and hardship, you know, can take people to different directions. I think that, you know, it can, the resilience can carry on to an adulthood. And I think that also it can, um, your like, what had ability to deal with kind of more hardships can also be hampered. And so it that works for me for story reasons, because I wanted Rory to be the one who really had to take her brothers, had to feel a lot of responsibility in her young life for her family's kind of survival,
yeah, and so she becomes kind of the super responsible one, and in a way, it a little bit hinders Max, because he doesn't really learn fully how to take care of himself. And. Be responsible for his actions, to accept the consequences of his actions. So I won't go say more, because it'll be spoilery, but that plays a major part as the story goes on. Yeah,
yeah. I love that those like things that I felt like were subtle but important, like are getting across. So that's fun.
Great. So one small you had, like a little, small joke that was running through the book that I wanted to ask you about, I forgot to ask you how to pronounce it. Is it the Zhitomer salad?
Oh, yeah.
So Max loves this, this salad. And no matter what restaurant he goes to, he tries to order this salad. So what is a Zhitomer salad?
Yes, a Zhitomer salad. So my dad is from Zhitomer in Ukraine. It's a small town, three hours from Kyiv, and they, they have, like, very fresh, beautiful vegetables there. So radishes are very popular in Ukraine. Green onions, everything's chopped up very finely. So my dad always loves Zhitomer salad. So I had to, I had to have a kind of wink in the book to that.
sound a little like an Israeli salad, maybe with
it's like a little bit more punchy with the radishes and the onions, it's like a little bit more it's not as mild.
Geneva grew up in Italy, which has a fascinating Jewish history. Did you research the Jewish community there at all?
You know, I didn't as much because I knew that the bulk of my Jewish story was going to be the Ukrainian one in this book, I did a little bit, but it would be fun to do, you know, a full book where, like, I really mine the Italian Jewish history. I don't, I don't know that this was the book that I thought about doing it in, but, but yes, yeah.
And she also had childhood experiences that greatly affected the rest of her life. The main one is that she's a twin, and her twin, Orsula, and her father always called Orsula, the beautiful one and my beautiful girl, and this so deeply affected. Oh, and after their birth, their mother, their mother died at childbirth, and she overheard a conversation between Orsula and her father saying that it was Geneva's fault that her mother died, that she had killed their mother, and she absolutely took it to heart. She took those two things she was not the beautiful one, since her father always called her sister that and that it was her fault that their mother died, and so for her whole life, she felt kind of a deficit in herself. Can you talk about that?
Yeah, I think I'm always just so fascinated by, I mean, I guess I write psychological thrillers, so I'm always so fascinated by how our young experiences shape our adulthood and shape our reactions as adults like even in kind of subconscious ways. And I think things that our parents said to us as children and things that we felt shame around or responsibility for as children really play into our adulthood. And I think Geneva was such a fascinating character to write, maybe one of the most fascinating characters I've ever written, because, you know, part of the reason she she's so successful, but she, most writers are, you know, tapping into our own experiences in some regard. And she had such a traumatic childhood that she just doesn't want to go there. She doesn't want to have to jokes to stick all her pasts in a box and not have to tap in. And that's why she hires these people to be her main characters, and she can tap their traumas and not have to access her own. So I thought that was, yeah, I thought that her childhood experiences were very important to shape her so that we understand why she does what she does later, which she does some crazy things, we have to understand where it comes from.
Yeah, and then the childhood trauma leads to young adult trauma, which leads to, for sure, middle aged trauma, for sure. So many questions, but they're too spoilery, because something new happens every chapter, or redoes every chapter. So it's hard to trying to figure out what to ask you about actual plot to give people an idea of what's going on. Can you give more plot hints?
Yes, I can. I'm happy to to what happens? Well, you know, as they journey kind of, down the Italian coast, um, they're in Cinque Terre. And first of all, there's some like physical danger to Rory's life. And then also, there's this manuscripts that, um, that Geneva's written about kind of Rory's life, she's fictionalized. It's called the Cabin on the Lake. And at the beginning of the train journey, everyone on the train is given this manuscript, and it has characters that are sort of all based off of the people on the train and the people in the group. And they've all the the four of some have all kind of started reading the book, and are some have finished. Some have read parts of it, and then they're in Cinque Terre, and they leave their books to save their seats at the beach, and the books all disappear. So you know what is this? Is this Geneva kind of orchestrating something is, did one of them read something that they didn't want the others to read? So that plays a huge part as the kind of danger accelerates and the tension ramps up. And there's also, without giving spoilers, an affair that comes to light that no one knew about, and it's kind of spinning everything towards a dangerous conclusion.
Yeah. Thanks. One other thing that happens is, I think, right before Rory gets on the train, she wants to speak to Geneva, who turns out not to be home, and Rory knows where there's a spare key, so she ends up going in, and she does her own kind of research reconnaissance by snooping around Geneva's apartment, yes, and learns some partial truths about her life that are another puzzle in all of the events going on right now.
Yes, exactly.
So did you have to do a lot of research for the book
um, actually, for this one, I didn't have to do as much, because about 10 years ago, I decided to write a memoir about my dad's life. And so I spent three years interviewing him about his life in the Soviet Union, about how he escaped and and also went to Ukraine and Moscow, where he had lived,
oh, wow!
with my family. So I'd been there. I'd really heard the stories, not only his, but of like other Jewish experiences there. And so that all really helped me write this book. So when I came to writing the book, I had to do less less research, because otherwise, to write those three chapters set in the Soviet Union would have required a lot of research and and then I'd been to Italy, so so no, this book was less research heavy.
So one thing that struck me was I remember in the 70s, the refuseniks and the movement to free the Soviet Jews. And I guess I didn't realize how much of an international movement that was, that there was that movement in Italy, also that Geneva's father took her and her sister there as sort of a mission to help the Soviet Jews and make connections there.
Yeah, yeah, I think it was Jews from all over the world going there and trying to help.
Do you have any projects in the works that you would like to mention? Yeah,
I have a new book coming out May 20. It's called the Safari. It's another locked room murder mystery set in a luxury safari in South Africa in Kruger National Park, and it's about a family, the matriarch of whom is about to get married for the second time to a man who's 25 years her junior, close in age to her kids, and she brings her whole family to celebrate Their wedding in South Africa and then murder and mayhem.
All right, sounds great. I can't wait to read it.
Thank you. And it's another like Jewish story, their Jewish characters, the Jewish family and yeah, not always feels meaningful to be able to include that.
So if someone were to use your book as a call to action for tikkun olam, for repairing the world? What would it be?
I love that question. You know, I think that there's so many big things we can do, but I think the most important things are the little things we do in our own like small worlds and, you know, not gossiping like choosing to say the loving thing, saying I love you, and smiling at the people in our lives and the strangers. I think it starts there and and, yeah, I think that really helps to make the world a better place. So that would be my call to action.
Wonderful. Thank you for sharing. That. So if someone wants to contact you, what is the best way?
On my website, jaclyngoldis.com there's a contact form, contact information on Instagram at Jaclyn Goldis, which are probably the best ways?
Okay do you want to spell your name?
J, A, C, l, y, N, G, o, l, D, i, s,
lots of different ways to get to Jacqueline totally. All right. Well, thank you Jacqueline Goldis for speaking to me about the Main Character. It was fascinating book.
Thank you so much for it.
Thank you so much, Sheryl, it was a joy to talk to you.
I want to remind you that nice Jewish books, along with our sister podcast, the book of life, hosted by Heidi Rabinowitz, is hosting a drawing if you leave a review for any episode of either of our podcasts on any podcast platform or share it on your social media. You have a chance to win a tote bag with our podcast logos on either side. Simply take a screenshot of your share or review and email it to bookoflifepodcast gmail.com Send in your entries by the ultimate Jewish reading day, Simchat Torah, which this year corresponds to october 24 2024 multiple entries are accepted and encouraged you. If you are interested in any of the books we discuss today, you can find them at your favorite bordened brick or online bookstore or at your local library. Thanks to Die Yan Kee for use of his Freilich which definitely makes me happy. This podcast is a project of the Association of Jewish libraries, and you can find more about it at www.jewishlibraries.org/nice Jewish books. I would like to thank ajl and my podcast mentor, Heidi Rabinowitz, Keep listening for the promo for her latest episode.
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