Just back from a reading of Only Child upstate. Daph and I spoke to a group of 40 women in Chester, New York – the sisterhood of a synagogue out there on Sunday (thank you, Paula!). They were an incredibly warm and responsive audience. I kept looking out and seeing my mother, who, actually, was thousands of miles away in Istanbul that day. After reading out loud the part from my essay that paints her in a, well, somewhat critical light, I felt this overwhelming need to tell the sisters “I love my mother! I love my mother!”

Talk about Jewish guilt.