Zelda Popkin The life and times of an American Jewish woman writer

In this ambitious mix of biography, historiography, and family memoir, historian Popkin (A New World Begins) pays tribute to his grandmother, novelist Zelda Popkin, née Feinberg. Born in Brooklyn in 1898, Zelda worked as a newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania before moving to New York City in 1916. She married Louis Popkin, her boss at the Jewish Welfare Board, in 1919, and the couple opened Planned Publicity Service, one of the earliest public relations firms. Zelda longed to be an author, however, and wrote freelance magazine pieces while raising two sons and placating her disapproving husband, who died suddenly in 1943. Popkin charts Zelda's decades-long, up-and-down writing career, focusing on her struggle with whether to focus on Jewish themes or on more universal "American" ones. Two of her most popular works--the Mary Carner detective series and the novel The Journey Home (which sold a million copies in 1945 and 1946)--highlighted issues of working women, while the third, Herman Had Two Daughters, blended fiction with autobiography to spotlight generational conflict between Jewish immigrant parents and their American-born children. Throughout, Popkin draws insightful comparisons between Zelda and other Jewish American writers and provides helpful synopses of her novels. This admiring profile restores a well-deserving author to the spotlight. Illus. (Feb.)

Popkin (history, Univ. of Kentucky; A New World Begins) examines the life of his grandmother, novelist Zelda Feinberg Popkin. Born in 1898 in Brooklyn, Zelda attended Columbia University and became a reporter for the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. Popkin demonstrates the ways in which Zelda moved in multiple milieus. The child of Jewish immigrants, who were part of an exodus from Eastern Europe, she distanced herself from customs and was among the first generation of women able to cast a ballot. After marrying her husband Louis Popkin, in 1919, they began a small public relations firm. Following Louis's sudden death in 1943, Zelda turned her attention to writing mysteries and novels. Popkin provides synopses and analyses of her work, the most successful of which was a novel titled The Journey Home, selling millions of copies in the late 1940s. Zelda endeavored to provide an alternative view of Jewish womanhood, a counterpoint to the "overbearing mother" stereotype. She also resisted Zionism, encouraging assimilation, but her own children rebelled against this ideology, embracing their Jewish heritage. VERDICT Popkin paints a discerning portrait of a complex matriarch, while adding nuance to the Jewish American experience in the 20th century. Recommended.--Barrie Olmstead