Note from the Author:

“I have no secrets from anyone.” I have heard people make that statement often enough to know it is untrue. This book was motivated by a sudden and very acute awareness that nothing is ever what it seems to be. For the most part, we know very little about each other. I am less and less surprised by secret lives—mine and others. In my twenties, I was helping my grandmother sort through some papers when I came upon an old photograph of my father with a woman who was clearly not my mother. It gave me pause only because my father and the woman were formally dressed and had posed for the camera. The photo disappeared as surprisingly as it had appeared. The next day, my father confessed that he had been briefly married before he was married to my mother. He said he had always meant to tell me, but that he had never found the right time. He was far more upset than I was. It had been one of those semi-arranged marriages that was over before it hardly began. I gave the matter very little thought. Then, years later, long after my father’s death, I discovered that I had a half-brother somewhere in the world. My father had not told me anything about that, so I chose to let my father’s secret life remain intact. There must have been a reason for his secrecy. People are often stunned when I say I have no interest in finding this half-brother, but I think some secrets are best left undisturbed. Of course, it was a revelation to learn that there was so much about my father that I didn’t know. It became quite clear to me then that we never really know everything about each other.

We assume a lot. It is human nature, perhaps, to keep secrets, to guard ourselves. And yet we often give away pieces of our pasts and ourselves to complete strangers. There are no rules, but there are always consequences. I want my readers to think about their secrets, the stories they never share, and the people who may ultimately become their confessors. I think about the most unlikely people I’ve exchanged secrets with in the most unlikely places. It’s strange to befriend someone on a train or plane, or waiting in line, or in a doctor’s office. Funny, the secrets we give away, and the secrets we keep.

After you read The Sinner’s Guide to Confession, I hope to hear many secrets from all of you. Perhaps you will guess some of mine after reading The Sinner’s Guide to Confession, or perhaps you will think you have and be wrong.

Biography:

The first great irony of my life was that I was born in a Catholic hospital. My parents, survivors of the Holocaust, had settled in the South Bronx among other new immigrants. My mother was apparently so nervous she barely slept the entire time she was in the hospital, fearing her fair-skinned, blue-eyed newborn would be switched with another baby. When my paternal grandfather, an observant Jew, came to see his newest granddaughter in the hospital, he was so uncertain of how to behave around the kindly nuns that he tipped his yarmulke to them each time one passed. It was in this haze of paranoia and neuroses, as well as black humor, that the makings of a writer were initiated.

In the mid-fifties, my family moved to Washington Heights, an enclave for German Jews, known as “Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson.” The area offered scenic views of the Hudson River and the Palisades, as well as access to Fort Tryon Park and the mysteries of the Cloisters. I graduated from George Washington High School. Among its famous graduates was Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State (my grandmother played cards with his mother at the YMWHA on Nagle Avenue).

I graduated from high school at  sixteen, went on to Bronx Community College, transferred to and graduated from Herbert H. Lehman College with a B.A. in English and a New York State license to teach English. I earned my M.A. in Literature from New York University and later my  M.S. as a developmental specialist from Yeshiva University. I have worked as a high school English teacher, a special education teacher, and as a learning disabilties specialist  in several college programs.

Reading was the first line of defense against anything I did not want to do. “I’m reading,” was an excuse my parents never challenged. Education was paramount in our home. There were weekly trips to the library, and the greatly anticipated Friday afternoon story hour. Everything about  words seemed interesting and important.. I could make sense of the world if I put it on paper. I could even make the world better; people could become smarter and more attractive, and I could make people laugh and cry at will. Writng was powerful. I thought in stories, answered questions in my head and added, “she said” at the end of a sentence. I still do.


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