New York Times columnist Roger Cohen chased a lot of ghosts while writing his memoir, The Girl From Human Street. The book follows his family’s emigration from Lithuania to South Africa, England, the United States and Israel. It also follows the story of his mother, the titular “girl,” who suffered from deep depression.
“Behind that family story there was a broader story of displacement, of upheaval, of leaving home behind in every generation,” he told attendees at a book night Jan. 14 at Club Quarters.
Inspiration for the book started with the discovery of a box in his parents’ attic in Wales, U.K., which contained two suicide notes that she had written before unsuccessful attempts to end her life. The box also included notes from his father, a physician, as he monitored her ups and downs.
Cohen wrote that his mother had been institutionalized and subjected to insulin shock therapy and electro-shock therapy, after which she seemed “hollowed out, like a tree struck by lightning.”
Cohen saw a connection between the constant displacement of his family and the mental pain that afflicted her, and set out to tell what he called “a Jewish Oddyseey of the 20th Century.”
The book night took place only a week after the Charlie Hebdo shootings and attacks at a Kosher supermarket in Paris. Cohen said he’s alarmed by rising anti-Semitism across Europe and increasng fear among Jews. He said reports that Jews in the Netherlands had removed Mezuzahs from their doorways “made me feel so sick.”
“I think Europe’s pretty combustible right now. It’s dangerous. I’m troubled.”
Former OPC President Allan Dodds Frank, who moderated the discussion, asked Cohen what he hoped his children would gain from reading the book.
“I think it’s important to know where you come from. And it’s important for things to be open. It may be tempting to hide things, painful things, and there have been many painful things in my family, but I think in the end, I don’t think silence is good. My hope is that it will be a foundation for my children to build their lives and their happiness.”
You can watch the entire hour-long event in the window below:
In the following clip, Cohen discusses an anecdote from the book in which a bird lands on a relative and remains there for several days, causing superstitious neighbors to regard him as a saint.
In the clip below, Cohen shares his thoughts on the murders of Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris and rising anti-Semitism in France.