MBJCC Author Up Close: Elayne Klasson

Meet Elayne Klasson, author of Love is a Rebellious Bird

In Conversation with Pauline Fisher

This tale of a six­ty-year love affair exam­ines the age-old ques­tion of why we love the peo­ple we do. A beau­ti­ful, charis­mat­ic and wild­ly suc­cess­ful man is adored by a woman. Even as chil­dren grow­ing up togeth­er in Chicago’s Jew­ish north side neigh­bor­hoods, attend­ing Jew­ish youth groups and sum­mer camps, he held the pow­er. Nev­er mar­ried to each oth­er, but bound through­out their lives by tragedy and friend­ship, Elliot defined the terms of their rela­tion­ship, until final­ly, in old age, the pow­er shifts. Look­ing at the roles of beau­ty, insan­i­ty, mag­ic, deceit, con­so­la­tion, sen­so­ry ful­fill­ment, and, final­ly, being seen, Judith Sher­man explores why she loved Elliot Pine — a rela­tion­ship that impinged on every oth­er in her life. In old age, after mar­riages to oth­ers, chil­dren, moves to oppo­site coasts, Judith reflects on how the pat­tern estab­lished in sixth grade was one that per­sist­ed their whole lives: a rela­tion­ship that was a cock­tail mix of rival­ry and loy­al­ty — shak­en with a strong dose of resent­ment and passion.

Elayne Klas­son was born in Chica­go and now lives on the cen­tral coast of Cal­i­for­nia. Love is a Rebel­lious Bird is her debut nov­el. She has had a long career in acad­e­mia and jour­nal­ism both in Cal­i­for­nia and in the Caribbean. In her sev­en­ties, she has pub­lished her first nov­el to excel­lent crit­i­cal review — win­ning and being short-list­ed for sev­er­al prizes for con­tem­po­rary and debut fic­tion (includ­ing being a final­ist for The Gold­berg Prize for Debut Fic­tion from the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards).

To purchase your copy of Love is a Rebellious Bird, visit Books & Books here.