Florence Kraut
author of the How to Make a Life
Florence Reiss Kraut is a native New Yorker, raised and educated in four of the
five boroughs of New York City. She holds a BA in English and a master’s in
social work. She worked for thirty years as a clinician, a family therapist, and the CEO of a family service agency before retiring to write and travel widely. She has published personal essays for The New York Times and her fiction has appeared in journals including The Evening Street Press, SNReview, The Westchester Review, and others. How to Make a Life, is her first published novel. She has three married children and nine grandchildren and lives with her husband in New York.
Me: Tell us about How to Make a Life.
Florence: How to Make a Life is a historical novel that spans four generations over one hundred years. One reviewer said it is a book that begins with trauma and ends with hope. It starts when Ida and her daughter Bessie flee a catastrophic pogrom in Ukraine for America in 1905. They believe their immigration will ensure that their future children and grandchildren will be safe from harm. But choices and decisions made by one generation have ripple effects on those who come later—and in the decades that follow, family secrets, betrayals, and mistakes made in the name of love threaten the survival of the family.
Bessie and Abe Weissman’s children struggle with the shattering effects of daughter Ruby’s mental illness, of Jenny’s betrayal and of the disappearance of Ruby’s daughter as she flees her mother’s legacy.
A sweeping saga that follows three generations from the tenements of Brooklyn through WWII, from Woodstock to India, and from Spain to Israel, How to Make a Life is the story of a family who must learn to accept each other’s differences—or risk cutting ties with the very people who anchor their place in the world.
Me: What inspired you to write it?
Florence: I grew up in a huge extended family, with 31 first cousins and 24 aunts and uncles. Most of us lived in New York City and we spent Sundays, holidays, summers together. I used to sit and listen to my aunts gossip. They told my cousins and me stories–about our great grandparents in the old country and our uncles and aunts when they were growing up. I loved these stories, and also the whispered secrets I overheard one aunt sharing with another.
As an adult, I became a social worker and family therapist and learned from my clients the stories and secrets and fears of their own lives and families. I saw how the actions of one generation impacted the ones who came after.
I had been writing since I was a child, and always wanted to write a book about a family, about how the choices, mistakes and lucky decisions made by parents and grandparents impacted their children. And I wanted to write a book about family resilience and how despite pain and disastrous mistakes, love and family ties can make people whole.
How to Make a Life is that book. Since its publication I have Zoomed with numerous book clubs, having conversations with them about the characters and the story. I’ve been pleased to find that the audiences relate to the people in my novel and think of them as real people who remind them of their own families.
Me: Describe your writing life.
Florence: My writing life has been different at different stages of my life. When my children were little, I hired a babysitter for two hours a day so I could write in peace. Later, when I was working full time as a social worker, I woke at 5:30 before the rest of the family and wrote stories and essays, some of which were published and some of which languished in a drawer. I took classes and workshops on evenings and weekends. I belonged to a writing group for 12 years and we met weekly and exchanged stories and chapters of our novels for feedback. I always wrote.
Now that I am retired from my professional social work life, and stuck at home like everyone else, I am starting work on my next novel.
Me: What surprised you the most about your book’s journey?
Florence: In some ways I wrote How to Make a Life backwards. I started with a few characters in individual stories and then decided that they could be related, so I began to link the stories together. Because the novel is about a family and had multiple characters living such a long time it was very complicated to write. I rewrote the book four times (at least). I became attached to my characters and they were real people to me. And in the end, I loved them all. People ask me if I have a favorite character, and I reply, that to me it is like asking a parent which of their children they love the best. The answer is “None” and “All.”
Me: What are your future writing plans?
Florence: I am just starting another historical novel. But this time it won’t be quite so ambitious in terms of characters and time frame. I am looking forward to getting into telling a new story.
Website: www.florencereisskraut.com
To buy click here.
Want more author interviews? Check out this one with Julie Valerie, author of the Village of Primm series.