Susan Weissbach Friedman joins the Author Spotlight to chat about her novel, Klara’s Truth
Author Name: Susan Weissbach Friedman
Book Title: Klara’s Truth
Book Genre: Literary fiction
Release Date: June 11, 2024
Publisher: She Writes Press
Welcome, Susan! How would you describe Klara’s Truth?
Klara’s Truth is the story about a forty-nine-year-old archaeology professor, Klara Lieberman, who receives a letter from her estranged mother which prompts her to embark on a journey to Warsaw in search of answers about her long-ago-disappeared father, where she ultimately uncovers forgotten parts of herself, connects with extended family, meets a man with whom she begins a romantic relationship, and heals deeply buried wounds.
How long did it take you to write this book? Did you do any research?
It took me many years to write this book. I was working as a psychotherapist when I started by simply writing a story, and it kept going. I had no background in creative writing, other than from when I was a child, and had no idea how to write, never mind edit, a book. I also spent a lot of time writing a much longer story than the one in Klara’s Truth, such that I have large chunks of at least one if not two more books from that early material. Once I started sharing it in an adult writing class, and then with potential literary agents, I kept hearing that it was two separate stories, not one, so I took out about a hundred pages that were set in a very different location from Poland, in Mexico. Once I did that, I found much greater interest in the book.
My research primarily included taking a Jewish Heritage trip to Poland with my husband about ten years ago, which we were both interested in taking and lucky enough to do so, and then further reading about Polish Jewish culture and history primarily based on books I bought there, mostly from museums.
What do you hope readers will take away from the story?
Overall, I hope that readers will understand the repercussions of trauma on every level—individual, family, community, and even geopolitically through war.
On an individual level, I hope readers will understand more fully how childhood trauma can negatively impact a person as an adult, impairing their ability to reach out to others, and instead leading them to become more insular and disconnected from both themselves and others. While I received some very positive early responses to this book, some others were that the protagonist, Klara, seems like she’s thirteen years old, rather than forty-nine years old. That’s because she’s emotionally frozen or stuck in time by the abuse from a developmental perspective, although intellectually and physically, she appears as an adult, and a smart one at that. She uses her cognitive abilities to excel in life, but those abilities cannot make up for her lack of emotional maturity due to her past.
Are you working on a new project?
Yes, I am, but I need to get back to it. I have about a hundred pages of a prequel to Klara’s Truth that I wrote as a beginning to the original story of Klara’s Truth. It takes place in the Yucatán Peninsula where Klara is helping to co-lead an archaeological dig. A Mayan woman, Rosario, who ultimately befriends her, inquires as to why Klara’s so interested in everyone else’s culture and history, and why doesn’t she know more about her own family’s history. As an archaeologist, other people’s history is her business, but for her, much of her desire to learn more about ancient cultures stems from her need to belong. Holding millennial-old artifacts M in her hand, she feels like she is connecting to civilization as a whole, albeit in a conceptual way. When she subsequently receives the letter from her mother which will dramatically change her life forever, she is faced with the very real prospect of finding out more about her own family of origin.
Where can readers find you?
My website is Susanweissbachfriedman.com which includes blog posts. It will also be listing upcoming events. A few events I can share are one at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., on the evening of Wednesday, June 12th, a day after my pub date. I’m very lucky to have author Jenna Blum interviewing me at that event about my book. It also looks like I will have another book event the following week at Barnes & Noble book store in Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue. In addition, I’m planning to have events in Westchester County in June, including in Chappaqua and Pleasantville. I would invite my readers to please check my website. I’m on Instagram under SusanWeissbachFriedman, on Facebook as Susan Weissbach Friedman, and now on Tiktok as AuthorSusanWFriedman.
Thank you, Susan! Klara’s Truth is out now.
Klara’s Truth
It is May 2014, and Dr. Klara Lieberman–forty-nine, single, professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine, a contained person living a contained life–has just received a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, that will dramatically change her life. Her father, she learns–the man who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, and about whom she has long been desperate for information–is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII, and Bessie wants the money. Klara has little interest in the money–but she does want answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more.
In Poland, Klara begins to piece together her father’s, and her own, story. She also connects with extended family, begins a romantic relationship, and discovers her calling: repairing the hundreds of forgotten, and mostly destroyed, pre-War Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Along the way, she becomes a more integrated, embodied, and interpersonally connected individual–one with the tools to make peace with her past and, for the first time in her life, build purposefully toward a bigger future.
Author bio:
Susan Weissbach Friedman is a psychotherapist with a specialty in women’s issues, family therapy, and trauma-focused therapy. A graduate of Hamilton College, Boston University’s MSW/MPH program, and the Ackerman Institute for Couples and Families, she has also completed EMDR and Somatic Experiencing (SE) training in trauma therapy techniques and has been in a practicing clinician for more than twenty-five years. Klara’s Truth is her first novel. Susan has been married to her husband for thirty years and has two daughters in their twenties. Originally from Long Island, she now lives in Westchester County, New York, where she enjoys practicing yoga and mindfulness, going for walks in nature, listening to music, and spending time near the ocean.