Resilience of a Nation
In Sheltered, you share experiences following the sudden death of your husband and a trip to Israel that turned into a dangerous and transformative journey. What inspired you to share your story with readers?
I was so grief-stricken when I left for Israel and didn’t believe it was possible to recover from so much loss. The loss of my husband, my home, my community, my caretaker, my friends, and our church, which had welcomed John and me with love and joy. The resilience of a nation healing from the October 7, 2023 nightmare, together with the love of family and strangers I encountered, demonstrated that healing is possible. I want readers to know that if healing can begin in a war zone, healing is possible anytime, anywhere.
Some of the memoir’s most moving moments are its quietest, particularly the scenes surrounding John’s final days. How difficult were those chapters to write?
As a writer, the only way I could process John’s passing and all the subsequent losses was to write about them. I wrote about John’s death in a gentle, perhaps detached way that conveys the deep shock I was in. In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes about her husband’s death using a similar detached style that conveyed her shock and inability to absorb her new reality. The voice and tone Didion employed in The Year of Magical Thinking resonated strongly with me. Someone in grief needs to feel less alone, and Didion’s book accomplished that for me. I hope Sheltered will do the same.
How did you decide when to include historical and political context without losing sight of the personal story?
My superb editor, Melanie Martin, was indispensable in determining how much background was needed and where it would be most effective.
What do you hope someone who is grieving will find in your memoir?
Recovery and purpose. Recovery came gently in whispered moments of grace. The message to find purpose was repeated and reinforced so many times that even my thick-headed noggin finally got the message!
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Five months after losing her husband to a sudden heart attack, Elisa Hertzan Schetrompf boarded a plane on an unexpected healing journey. She was a widow still numb with her loss, in danger of losing her eyesight, and utterly unsure of what came next, definitely not expecting to find herself stranded in the middle of war.
In this raw, vivid memoir, you will find:An unflinching portrait of grief: The isolation, the shock, and the slow, nonlinear work of healing
A firsthand account of modern war: Sirens at 3 am, the Iron Dome overhead, and the remarkable calm of a people who have learned to live inside uncertainty
The healing power of unexpected community: Strangers turned friends and distant relatives demonstrating what family really means
If you have lost someone and are wondering whether you will ever feel hopeful and happy again, Sheltered is an achingly honest account of what healing actually looks like, where grief and joy work together, and resilience and grace show up when you least expect them.
Posted on August 9, 2026, in Interviews and tagged author, book, book recommendations, book review, book reviews, book trailer, bookblogger, books, books to read, bookshelf, booktube, booktuber, Christian Death & Grief, Disability Biographies, ebook, Elisa Hertzan Schetrompf, goodreads, indie author, kindle, kobo, literature, memoir, nook, novel, read, reader, reading, Sheltered, story, trailer, Women & Judaism, writer, writing. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.
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