The Puzzle King, page 30
I also hope to shed light on people like Morris and Flora Einson who used their money, power, and courage to get hundreds of people out of Germany and ensure a future for the generations who came after.
Q. Are you obsessed with crosses the way Seema is in the novel?
A. Not really, though I’ve always been impressed by the beauty and simplicity of their design. So much in Seema’s life was fleeting and belonged to other people. I felt she needed something of her own to hold onto. Crosses seemed the perfect thing.
Q. You wrote a memoir in 2002 called Nothing to Fall Back On, yet you barely mentioned this part of your history in the book. Were you hiding it or did you just not know about it then?
A. Growing up, I hated being “different.” My parents had accents, our house was crammed with dark and heavy European furniture, and my parents very much kept to themselves and their German Jewish friends. Consequently, I set out to be as American as possible. I became a majorette, was voted “The All American Girl” for our high school yearbook, and only went out with boys named Hunter or Todd. By the time my memoir came out, both of my parents had passed away. I began reading more about the Holocaust and about World War II and tried to imagine what it was like for them, newlyweds in their early twenties, to be uprooted to a new country with no money and no future. Foolishly, I had never interviewed them about their past, so I began researching to try and put it together on my own.
Q. Aside from historical facts, what’s the most significant thing you learned from writing The Puzzle King?
A. My memoir, Nothing to Fall Back On, was about the life I lead as a magazine editor in New York. Professionally, it was glamorous and exciting; privately, my world was falling apart. In a run of bad luck I had a serious car accident; my house burned down; I had emergency surgery; my marriage broke up precipitously; I got breast cancer; and my parents passed away. My intent in writing the memoir was, partly, to exorcise some bad memories. After I wrote The Puzzle King, I realized that I came from people who had endured so much more than I could imagine. And while I don’t want to minimize my string of bad luck, it felt trivial compared with the life-threatening and terrifying years they had all lived before me. It certainly renewed my respect for them and gave me strength, knowing that this was my legacy.
Q. Which scene was the most difficult for you to write?
A. Without a doubt, the final scene. I’ll say no more about it other than when I wrote it, I was giving a speech out of town. I was staying in a B&B with no heat. The morning of the speech, it was so cold and rainy outside that the only warm place to be was in bed. I sat under the covers and wrote the entire last scene. Had the weather been milder that morning, I think that scene might have been less wrenching.
Questions for Discussion
1. Talk about what it was like for nine-year-old Simon Phelps—or what it would be like for any young child—to leave his family and immigrate to a land on the opposite side of the world. Talk also about the reasons Simon was sent away by his mother. What was he leaving behind, and what did she hope for him?
2. Consider Flora’s and Seema’s experiences in immigrating: how similar were theirs to Simon’s?
3. In what ways are Flora and Seema different from each other? Why does Seema form a relationship with an American who evinces anti-Semitism?
4. Simon and Flora have differing personalities: he is artistic and serious—intense in his convictions; she is more lighthearted and conventional. What makes their marriage work?
5. When the two sisters return to Germany on their mother’s death, they have completely different reactions to their country. Why does Germany draw Seema and not Flora? What is life like for their younger sister, Margot, in post–World War I Germany?
6. Why did so many German Jews choose not to leave Europe at the onset of the Nazi takeover? Why did they not comprehend what was happening in their country? Was it lack of foresight or simply part of human nature?
7. Discuss what motivates the heroism on the part of Simon and Flora as they travel to Germany in 1936 in an attempt to save the lives of family members.
8. What other books have you read about either the immigrant experience in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries or the experience of European Jews during the Holocaust? Does your knowledge from any of those works have bearing on your reading or understanding of The Puzzle King?
9. Has anyone from your family immigrated to the United States? If so, compare their experience to Flora’s and Simon’s.
10. Discuss whether you think it’s possible for people who immigrate to this country these days to achieve the kind of success Simon did.
11. In the novel, Simon in particular is sensitive about the growing and far-reaching anti-Semitism around him. How does the presence of racial or ethnic prejudice in our country today compare with what you read in The Puzzle King?
12. Seema and Edith are drawn to one another. What is it that bonds them and makes them trust one another?
13. What do you imagine happened to Seema after the book ended? What was her life like in Germany and did she and Karl stay together? Did they survive? If so, how and why?
14. What gave Flora the courage and energy to do what she did after Simon’s death? How did she change during the course of the book?
15. Seema finds comfort in crosses, even though they have no religious significance to her. What about them attracted and reassured her?
16. In her lifetime, after the war, would Flora have ever returned to Germany? What would her life in the United States have been like?
Some of these questions have appeared previously
on www.litlovers.com.
Betsy Carter is the author of Swim to Me and The Orange Blossom Special. Her memoir, Nothing to Fall Back On, was a national bestseller. She is a contributing editor for O: The Oprah Magazine and writes for Good Housekeeping, New York, and AARP, among others. Carter formerly served as an editor of Esquire, Newsweek, and Harper’s Bazaar and was the founding editor of New York Woman. She lives in New York City.
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Betsy Carter, The Puzzle King
