Red Anemones follows a woman’s search for her buried Jewish heritage, unfolding into a multi-generational story of love, resilience, and moral awakening across 20th-century Germany and America. What inspired you to explore your genealogy, and how did that journey shape Red Anemones?

Since I come from a small family, I’ve never been particularly interested in genealogy. There aren’t that many of us that I know about, especially on my mother’s side. Both my parents were the youngest in their families by nearly a generation, so I never met my grandparents or very many extended family members personally on either side, and in most cases, have never seen pictures of them, so I’ve never given any of them much thought.

Then, one cold and rainy Sunday afternoon in late winter of the second year of the COVID crisis, for reasons that involve boredom but otherwise remain a mystery to me, I decided to search my maternal grandmother’s name on a genealogy site, and one thing led to another. I learned that her mother, Bertha Michael, immigrated from Germany, passing through Ellis Island late in the 19th century. Finding that her surname was of Jewish origin, I learned that 446 records containing that surname end in Holocaust death records. Further investigation suggested that 49 of these individuals were likely either directly or indirectly related to my great-grandmother and, by extension, to me. I sat with the emotional chaos and horrifying realization that I had family members who died in Nazi death camps, induced for more than a month, allowing it free rein to sort itself out.

Discovering I was a matrilineal Jew confirmed something I’d long suspected, had hard evidence to support, and was thrilled to know is true. But this was all I knew, because throughout her life, each time I tried to talk to my mother about it, she was struck deaf and refused to acknowledge this reality in her life – and in mine.

Meanwhile, Bertha has taken up rent-free residence in my head and refuses to leave. Ultimately, I determined I had no choice except to write her story as best I could imagine it, given I knew almost nothing about her.

The novel balances historical scope with intimate emotional depth. How did you find that balance in your writing process?

Once I decided to write Bertha’s story, it took on a life of its own, and I just followed the characters wherever they wanted to go, letting them do what they wanted to do and say what they wanted to say. I was merely the vehicle through which they expressed themselves, and I encouraged them to write their own story with the least amount of interference possible from me. They were all very articulate, which made my job much easier.

Nathalie’s internal struggle between duty and freedom feels personal. Was she drawn from your own experiences or someone in your family’s history?

Good question! My best guess is that on some level, nearly every woman of Nathalie’s generation struggled with the conflict between what they wanted for themselves and what society, culture, family, and religion demanded of them. It seems to me this struggle is historical, universal across generations, and endemic to the female experience, and in that sense, there is a personal component to Nathalie’s struggle. However, I made different choices than she felt she could make.

While women today have more freedom, choices, and opportunities than Nathalie did, many continue to face the challenge of balancing what they want for their lives with what others expect of them. What’s very interesting to me on a personal level is that my mother, her sister, and her brother all graduated from major colleges/universities, which was almost unheard of for women, and for many men, in early 20th-century America, and was an expectation that was passed down to me.

The prose feels deliberate and lyrical. Which writers or works most influenced your style and storytelling voice?

This is a hard question to answer because my characters define the style and voice of the story themselves. I focus my efforts on character development, then put the characters in charge of the story, get out of their way, and let them tell it however they want to. If I disagree with where they’re going, I invite them to take a walk so we can discuss it, with a view toward finding common ground we can both live with. My intention always is to create characters who, one way or another, are good storytellers, then let them do what they do best.

In terms of non-fiction, David Marraniss is one of the most beautiful writers I’ve ever read in terms of both style and storytelling ability. His descriptions bring a story to life in ways most non-fiction writers don’t.

Fiction, however, is a little different in that there is much more room for creativity and imagination, and no two authors are alike in terms of how much control over the story and their characters they exert, how much they surrender to their characters, and how much they retain for themselves.

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