Jewgirls (Two Books)

Great Books with the Same Title Dept.: When I started working on the essays that eventually became Pintele, I read a lot of other people’s work on the subject of Jewish identity. Then, for a long time I was on a “no input” diet, while I worked to transform those notebooks into the audio series you’re about to hear (starting with Part 1, “Straight Outta Anatevka,” this Thursday). Once the seven episodes were basically complete (a recent development), I’ve again felt able to catch up with the work of other artists on this topic.

Considering the many things I’ve read in the last two years, two of my favorites have the same title. They also cover some of the same psychic ground, despite their great formal contrast: Charlene Fix’s Jewgirl is a collection of poems, and Marcie Maxfield’s JewGirl is a prose memoir. Both are sharp, moving, funny, compulsively readable, and profound in their explorations of the same themes I’m struggling with in Pintele. And both are model examples of the balancing act we practice when processing our personal experiences along with oceans of history and politics and overwhelming questions. I highly recommend both.