Erika Dreifus

There’s a new journal out, and it has definitely caught my interest. Lapham’s Quarterly, which describes itself as “the journal that enlists the counsel of the dead,” made its debut earlier this month. I haven’t seen a hard copy yet, but I’ve spent some time at the journal’s Web site. And I’m hooked. Almost–but not quite–hooked enough to shell out the $60 subscription cost (for a quarterly!).

How has this journal, the creation of former Harper‘s editor Lewis Lapham, managed to tempt me so? It’s all in the premise. “Four times a year the editors seize upon the most urgent question then current in the headlines – foreign war, financial panic, separation of church and state – and find answers to that question from authors whose writings have passed the test of time.” Truly a concept tailored to my pre-MFA academic background.

The current issue’s theme is “States of War.” Click here to see the amazing range of contents. You’ll notice among the writings some “further remarks” apparently penned just for the journal. (Alas, I don’t see any freelance guidelines on the site.) And if you happen to have seen the actual journal up close and personal, please share your impressions.

This just in: Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I just want to post a few words today about my Grandma Rose, who passed away on September 30, 1984. I was fifteen at the time, and her death marked my first experience of losing someone close to me.

Grandma Rose was my mother’s mother. She was born in Eastern Europe (she liked to say she was born in Vienna, but genealogical research–some by me and some by one of my mother’s cousins–suggests a Polish village is more likely). She came to this country as a seven-year-old who spoke no English and hadn’t seen her father in six years. She was the oldest of five sisters who survived to adulthood (another baby girl died at 13 months, and another was stillborn). She was a divorced mother raising two children at a time when that still raised eyebrows. She faced plenty of struggles in her life, yet took great joy in her family, her opera records, her Jewish heritage, and her painting. And she was an early and devoted fan of my writing (especially one story I wrote in fifth grade about the Mona Lisa).

If she were here today she’d be 94 (probably still looking far younger than she really was), and great-grandmother to nine beautiful children, ages 6 months to 7 years. I see bits of her in all of them.

This evening and tomorrow I will be celebrating (though “celebrating” doesn’t quite seem to capture the mood of what’s a very somber holiday) Yom Kippur. Especially for those practicing writers who may also be observing it, I recommend this lovely essay by Rachel Kadish.

See you back here on Monday.