Cursing Columbus:
On Writing a Sequel to Double Crossing

I wrote Double Crossing out of a sense of mission: I wanted to tell a different kind of immigration story, one based on the true story of my grandfather’s rejection at Ellis Island and the supreme sacrifice he made in order to return to America a second time. While I was writing, ideas for a sequel were already forming in my mind, but I decided to wait and see what the reception would be for the first book.

The reception was overwhelmingly positive, both in terms of reviews, awards and reader reactions. I had left Raizel and Papa as they landed in America. Now I decided to continue their story in the New World.

But I had a problem: I didn’t want to write a sequel. In my reading experience, sequels are too often a disappointment. The initial inspiration of the author seems watered-down in comparison to the first book. Rather than simply following Raizel’s story, I decided to add new elements that would make Cursing Columbus stand on its own. I needed a new focus; I needed her brother, Lemmel.

Threads of Research

My Aunt Rose (Raizel)
at her high school (?)
graduation.

In order to write Double Crossing, I did research on the period: life in the shtetles of Eastern Europe, the process of immigration, arrival in the U.S.  For Cursing Columbus I continued my research, reading widely about life on the Lower East Side of New York City, including memoirs, history and research into different aspects of urban life in that period. I love research and never find it boring. [My problem is deciding when to stop!] During my initial research I let my curiosity lead me. I was not looking for specific facts. Rather, I was waiting for my story to surface from the abundance of new information that I was uncovering.

Slowly certain threads rose to the surface:

•  the sacrifice immigrant girls made to help their families
• teachers as role models for assimilation, and teaching as a path to economic freedom for immigrant girls
• crime among the Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side, a dark world I had known nothing about
• “Newsies,” the ubiquitous newsboys who lined the streets of urban America at the turn of the century. Young boys had a chance to earn money for their families and a social framework that might help them become independent…or suck them into a life of crime.

Dual Narrators                                                                

My Uncle Shalom
(Shloyme) at his
Bar Mitzvah Cermony

Cursing Columbus alternates between Raizel and Lemmel’s narration. I enjoyed letting the characters comment on the same situation from different points of view. When Raizel and Lemmel’s stories diverge after he runs away from home, the dual narration enables each story to be told independently. Skipping between points of view keeps the tension high.

I loved unfolding Raizel’s story, which developed her relationship with Reuben from Double Crossing into mutual love. But it was Lemmel’s story that provided me with the motivation and drive to write Cursing Columbus. Lemmel’s story is so powerful that Cursing Columbus turns from a sequel into a completely new book.

Shattering the Myth

In my reading I was struck by the sharp contrast between memoirs written by people who had actually lived on the Lower East Side and the way it is portrayed in contemporary fiction for children (and adults). A cloud of nostalgia hovers over portrayals of Jewish immigration at the turn of the last century: the warmth of family life, the vibrant cultural life of the immigrants, the preoccupation with food – all these serve to hide the grim facts that people were desperately poor, lived in crowded stifling cold water flats, sometimes went hungry, worked under deplorable working conditions, and too often sent their children to work rather than school. Schools were overcrowded and unable to handle children with special needs. Jewish gangsters, prostitutes, and criminals flourished. “Schools” for pick-pockets turned children into delinquents. Children died on the streets of disease, hunger and neglect.

The Altman Family:
[ Shalom, Hava, Binyumin, Lou 
Rose, Sima, Hannah]

All these are part of Cursing Columbus.

But ultimately, I was telling the story of my family. Double Crossing was based on my grandfather’s immigration story while Cursing Columbus is almost pure fiction. I have few details of my family’s life on the Lower East Side. But because my characters are based on people I knew (my aunts and uncles, the five children of Binyumin and Hava Balaban Altman), I included elements of their lives that rang true to me. My Aunt Rose (Raizel) graduated from Hunter College and briefly worked as a teacher. My Uncle Lou (Lemmel) was not dyslexic nor did he have Lemmel’s criminal career, but he was the only one of his siblings who didn’t attend college and remained a blue collar worker all his life. Shloyme, my Uncle Shalom, was dean of the music department at Gratz College, Philadelphia for many years. My mother, Hannah, remembered spending hours minding her baby sister Sima and told me stories of her life on the Lower East Side. The details of Papa’s job as a fat collector come from her.

Perhaps that is why I never considered letting Cursing Columbus end tragically. The scenes of the Altman family sitting around the holiday table at New Years and Passover parallel scenes from my own childhood. My mother’s house on Long Island was the magnet for family gatherings. Rose came from her apartment in Manhattan. Sima came with her family from Brooklyn. Lou and his wife drove from Hartford and stayed overnight, as did Shalom and his family from Philadelphia. I’m not sure anymore where everyone slept, but somehow there was always room, always a holiday table brimming with the taste and aromas of my mother’s cooking. Dinner was punctuated with singing and laughter followed by a more intimate breakfast the next morning for the out-of-state travelers.

When I think of my childhood, I remember those family holidays and smile through my tears.

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