REVIEWS

appear to have looked the other way. Fiction than you can handle. This Jewish Not so in northern France, says family with six adventurous children McDougall. “They were in the wake Men Beware Women lives up to its name, which—accord- of the Hundred Years’ War, between Gwen Thompson (GRS’99) ing to the book’s convenient glos- England and France, and they were Miami University Press sary—derives from the Yiddish trying to make God happy with !"#$ %"&'( )"*# word shmutsik, meaning them,” she says. So officials were ignite the study of “dirty.” But dirty doesn’t on the lookout for moral wrong- literature or sabotage do justice to the level doing to prosecute. it? Written with a light, of filth the Schmutzy A century later, bigamy prosecu- deftly comic touch, this children enjoy most tions were commonplace through- novella follows a pivotal days of the week, all out Europe. In fact, McDougall argues year in the life of native while Mama Schmutzy that illegal remarriage eventually New Yorker and rower completely ignores, or became such a great concern to the Malcolm Forrester, who even facilitates, her little Church that it was responsible for arrives at Oxford to study ones’ messy business. radical changes in marriage law, Shakespeare and learns The book, and the including the requirements that as much about himself as he does family’s week, begins on Sunday, marriages be publicized in advance about the Bard. As he navigates a when the entire Schmutzy brood and presided over by a priest. strange new habitat of warm beer, treks barefoot through the “malo- Earlier in the Middle Ages, the dodgy plumbing, blood pudding, dorous Feldman Swamp” in search Church had permitted a practice and HP sauce, the witty, personable of turtles, frogs, and cattails, some known as “clandestine marriage.” This Malcolm charms nearly everyone in of which find their way back home. meant that “if two people, even young his path. But he is unable to wrangle Monday means mud pies in people without their parents’ consent, the ambitious actress Emma, who the kitchen, and the week contin- say, ‘I marry you,’ that’s it. You’re adores him, but refuses to have her ues until Friday morning, when married forever,” McDougall says. ambitions hijacked. When Emma, the children play Leap over the But it was the popular practice of leaving only a breezy note, abruptly Cow Pie in a neighbor’s pasture bigamy, and not clandestine marriage, heads to New York for an off-off- and Mama Schmutzy awakes from that concerned the courts in northern Broadway stage role, Malcolm hops her apparent stupor. She stares France, she argues. As her book shows, on a plane to track her down. in amazement at her five elder, people often went to great lengths to It doesn’t go well. But whatever mud-caked children, and cries, remarry: Bertrand, a barrelmaker, the earnest Malcolm endures, from “Oy! Look at this dirt! You’re pretended his first wife had died from Emma’s elusiveness to his parents’ FARSHTUNKEN, all of you! And the plague. Antoine Bonnart changed bitter divorce to breaking a few ribs it’s nearly SHABBOS. We can’t his name. Barthélèmy Bouvier bribed in a rowing mishap, we know he’ll bring in the Sabbath smelling chaplains with cheese, wine, and a be fine. In Thompson’s world, from like COWS!” gold coin. Then, when confronted by Osney Town to the East Village, if All clean breaks loose. The the wife he’d abandoned, he tried to people hurt each other, it’s more out children scrub the house, relocate bribe her to pretend she was actually of clumsiness or preoccupation than amphibians outside, and soap his maid. malicious intent. It’s a sweet world, themselves squeaky clean for Friday They did it because “marriage mat- populated by characters we’d like night’s dinner, prayers, and songs tered to them,” McDougall says. By to sit with over a pint. And for its welcoming the Sabbath. The next the 15th century, married saints were younger inhabitants, it is a universe day they parade in their finest to venerated in sermons and marriage of possibility, this being one of those the synagogue, where no one would was being embraced as a way to become novels that leaves the have guessed they’d been a good Christian. “So if you had been reader with a faint pang of mud-splattered a mere 24 unhappily married the first time, or if hunger to know what will hours earlier. a spouse vanished and you didn’t know become of its characters. While life in the if they were alive or dead, it was a way Susan Seligson Schmutzy household to find the kind of companionship that seems to violate every I think almost all of us prefer to have The Schmutzy Family parental rule ever estab- in life,” she says. It was “also a way to Madelyn Rosenberg lished, Mama knows reintegrate into society.” (GRS’02) her priorities. Dirt isn’t a big deal; For her next book McDougall is Holiday House, Inc. family, faith, and tradition are. lingering in medieval France, this +# ,"-#./-'#0, "1$#$$2*#- And that’s a lesson we could time to investigate how society han- 3"45&)$2*# parents, Rosenberg’s all learn, Schmutzy or not. dled adultery. The Schmutzy Family may be more Leslie Friday

Winter–Spring 2013 BOSTONIA !"

552-55_BostoniaWinter13.indd2-55_BostoniaWinter13.indd 5533 22/1/13/1/13 55:47:47 PPMM Visiting Hours personal nursemaid, ordering example, the value of mammography Jennifer Anne Moses you around, complaining all screening or the possible risks of (GRS’83) the time….The ones who don’t hormone replacement therapy. “We Fomite even know they’re sick….The are simply more likely to poke holes in !"#$#’ %"&$' (# a folksy junkies—both those who want and to reject anything that disagrees tapestry of life, loss, love, to live right, those who say, with what we think we know,” writes and faith that unfolds okay, Jesus, take me...the ones Zilberberg, who is on the editorial almost completely within who lie around in bed all day board of several medical journals. the modest confines of refusing to get up...the ones Zilberberg has divided her book into Hope House, a Baton Rouge who look around and decide two parts, “Context” and “Evaluation.” home for people dying of AIDS. The that Hope House isn’t so bad...” Annie The first part introduces the scientific daily dramas at Hope House are played sees herself as the one whose job it is method as it applies to clinical research out by a group of characters of all races, to teach them that no matter what, in medicine and opens readers’ minds ages, and circumstances. There’s young “God is good. Once they understood to the notion that “uncertainty is Lucy, the “skinny little white girl” that…they were able to pass quietly, the only certain feature of science.” wrestling with a heroin habit. There’s and at peace.” SS The second section offers readers Gordon, wise, battered, born-again, a set of tools to examine research and a little in love with Lucy. We meet Nonfiction statistics the media cite, day in and Bunny, the still beautiful, but dying day out, to numbing effect. Zilberberg drag queen, and Veronica, who’d been Between the Lines: Finding the doesn’t patronize the novice reader, dumped outside Hope House four Truth in Medical Literature and she doesn’t gloss over the more years earlier “like a sack of dog food” Marya Zilberberg (MED’92) demanding fundamentals of statistics and left to die. We are privy to their EviMed Research Press and experimental design. Written in deathbed reveries, regrets, and bursts )"* +,%- ". us, rarely a day goes a warm, conversational tone, with of self-awareness. by without hearing casual mention generous use of anecdotes and specific Not everyone at Hope House is of a “new study showing—” (fill in the examples, the book remains accessible likeable. But in Moses’ hands, all are blank). When we or our loved ones throughout. In an age of dumbing- blameless, redeemed in death if not in become gravely ill, we plod forth into down and rampant headline-grabbing life. Hope House is a refuge of sorts, the alternative universe of Google in hyperbole, the book is a call to embrace not just for the sick, but for those a desperate search for answers in the nuance, to be aware of all the subjective who keep the place going. There is form of studies, and more studies. But and logistical factors involved in volunteer Suzette, atoning for her those untrained as scientists set off on presenting and reporting research. Southern belle mother’s these missions unarmed and “Self-determination is predicated sense of entitlement, and vulnerable, and are not much upon knowledge and understanding,” custodian James, who is better served by the reporters she writes. “Don’t be a puppet. We “one of the people who who do the plodding for us. are all born scientists. Embrace your understands.” Like the Zilberberg has written a curiosity.” SS fictional microcosms of guide to remedy the prob- country manors or ships at lem, which she sees as a D!rty Yiddish: Everyday Slang from sea, Hope House embraces public health crisis. An epi- “What’s Up?” to “F*%# Off!” (Dirty the whole bittersweet demiologist with degrees in Everyday Slang) human pageant. Its stor- medicine and public health, Adrienne Gusoff (DGE’73, COM’75) ies are mostly quiet, not she believes that the public’s Ulysses Press earth-shattering, but strung together increasingly adversarial relationship /$."*$ 0"*'1 0,* 22, Yiddish by a compelling, perhaps the most with the medical establishment is a was the daily language of more than compelling, force: imminent death. result in large part of the bending, 11 million European Jews. These days, And although many of Hope House’s misunderstanding, exaggeration, or although still spoken among some bedridden have been abandoned by outright false representation of science orthodox sects, Yiddish is mined their parents, partners, and children, in the lay media. Preconceived notions mainly for its ability to inject a dose the ties they form here have an also taint the lens through which we of soul, irony, and/or onomatopoeia intimacy that can be inspiring. assimilate and interpret data, a big when our native tongue fails us. Annie, the aide, tough on the problem she illustrates by examining You don’t have to be Jewish to love outside and tender within, who “has consumers’ conclusions about, for D!rty Yiddish, a guide to Yiddish slang seen them come and go,” delivers one that is far broader than its title implies. of the book’s most pointed descriptions The transliterated words and phrases WEB EXTRA Through March, Marya of Hope House, and by extension, of Zilberberg will answer your questions are grouped in chapters, including humans at large: “The ones who are about medical studies that appear in the “Howdy Yiddish,” “Snappy Yiddish,” all belligerent, wanting you to be their press at bu.edu/bostonia. and kayna hora, “Hungry Yiddish.”

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552-55_BostoniaWinter13.indd2-55_BostoniaWinter13.indd 5544 22/1/13/1/13 55:48:48 PPMM Gusoff offers a concise grammar Maloney makes clear that Bell’s real days of unsuccessfully trying to reach and pronunciation guide, and there’s contribution to daytime television was Lowell, Spivack finally cornered him even a bistle Yiddish for the new the creation, with his wife, Lee Phillip in his office, where he told her he had millennium—those who tweet, for Bell, of two of the most successful “no recollection of having agreed to example, are dubbed twitniks. Whether soaps of all time—The Young and the work with her.” Worse still, he said he you’re a schlemiel, a shlimazel, an Restless (Y&R), in 1973, and The Bold never took on any student under the umglick, or God forbid, a schmuck, and the Beautiful, in 1987. The author age of 30. Spivack would learn much you’ll still navigate the verbal universe recounts the couple later that Lowell was in the with an extra bounce in your step, zayn famously sketching out midst of recovering from gezunt, so to speak, armed with the the story line and charac- one of his numerous ner- following: Chill out, man! (Zorg dikh ters for Y&R on cocktail vous breakdowns. nish!) or Crazy bastard! (Meshuggeneh napkins in the Beverly Fortunately for Spivack, momzer!). The 171-page guide, pep- Hills Hotel. Lowell grudgingly agreed to pered with cartoonish illustrations, Bell had an unerring let her audit his poetry class. is at its most inspired when it offers a sense of what audiences Thus began a friendship that string of Yiddish curses, which, clunky wanted. He assiduously would endure until his death, as they seem in translation, are the read fan-mail reports at age 60, in 1977. Later a poet stuff of poetry when yelled, say, out summarizing viewers’ and teacher, Spivack found the window at the driver reaction to story lines and characters, herself among such literary super - who just cut you off. How and he showed extraordinary dexterity stars as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, about letting loose with in developing new characters and and Elizabeth Bishop. She draws on Zoltz verrum praven a plotlines when an actor wanted out of her recollections and observations khassanah in deyn boykh his contract. He knew how to keep an of those years in her book. un aynlaydn alle zayereh audience on the edge of their sofas: by Some of the most fascinating anec- kroyvim—fun Yehupetz keeping lovers apart as long as possible. dotes are of Bishop, who arrived at biz Slabodka! Which He also introduced provocative sex Harvard in the mid 1960s at the urg- translates to: “Worms scenes before many of his competitors ing of Lowell, who was teaching there should make a wedding in and was among the first soap producers by that time. He asked Spivack to your stomach and invite to tackle social issues like rape, HIV, befriend Bishop, who “had a soft, en- all their relatives—from Yehupetz to and alcoholism. dearing quality.” She was also a chain- Slabodka!” And thanks to the irre- One wonders what Bell would have smoking asthmatic, who drank heavily pressible Gusoff, there’s plenty more made of the current state of the genre and had a preference for leather pants. where that came from. SS he helped pioneer. Where once there Presiding over this cast of charac- were more than 20 soaps ters is Lowell himself. In The Young and Restless Life of competing for viewers’ Spivack’s telling, he is a William J. Bell: Creator of The Young and attention each afternoon, man heavy on contradic- the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful today there are only 4. tions: on the one hand, Michael Maloney (COM’84), It is a testament to Bell’s a generous teacher who with Lee Phillip Bell considerable talent and would do everything in his Sourcebooks vision that two of the power to get a stu dent’s !"#$ %& '"()*+, soap opera will survivors are the shows he poem published if he liked enjoy this biography of William Bell, an created. Y&R remains the it; on the other, someone innovator in the beloved, fading genre. number-one rated daytime who could be “almost unin- Bell grew up listening to radio soap soap; The Bold and the telligible.” And he was sexist operas during the 1930s and ’40s. He Beautiful is second. John O’Rourke in a way almost unimaginable today. began his career writing for an early At Harvard, he would accept male stu- local television show in Chicago before With Robert Lowell and His Circle: Sylvia dents into his classes on the strength decamping to an advertising agency Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, of their written work. He confessed to during the Mad Men era. But his real Stanley Kunitz & Others Spivack that the women he selected ambition, Maloney notes, was to write Kathleen Spivack (CAS’65) were accepted “primarily on looks.” for daytime serials. He convinced me- Northeastern University Press/University There is an elegiac tone to Spivack’s dium pioneer Irna Phillips to take him Press of New England memoir. Alcoholism, mental illness, on as a writer in 1956. Phillips, creator -.*/"01 2"$ 34$) 20 and a senior and suicide were endemic to these of As the World Turns, proved an exact- at Oberlin College when she was poets’ lives. Despite this, the book ing mentor. Together the two created awarded a fellowship to study with the brilliantly captures the sense of excite- the popular soap Another World before renowned poet and teacher Robert ment and possibility that marked Bell broke out on his own to become Lowell at BU. Their first encounter, Boston’s literary scene in the 1950s head writer on Days of Our Lives. in January 1959, was a disaster. After and ’60s. JO p

Winter–Spring 2013 BOSTONIA !!

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