Tonight's discussion with Beth Kander will proceed as scheduled. It is not impacted by The J's closure.

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Book: "I Made It Out Of Clay"
Moderator: Lindsay Fineman, community member

This event is part of the Acclaimed Author Series, presented by Jewish Experiences, A Collaboration of Jewish Federation and The J.

• "I Made It Out Of Clay" costs $30. Pre-order yours by Dec. 9 and save 15%. Limited copies will be available at the event at full price.

Book Summary:

Nothing’s going well for Eve: she’s sin­gle, turn­ing forty, her office is rolling out lay­offs, her dad died last year and her fam­i­ly won’t acknowl­edge their grief… and the whole world’s a dump­ster fire. 

She’s also dread­ing her lit­tle sister’s wed­ding, with all eyes on spin­ster-of-hon­or Eve. In spite of her best friend’s strange­ly intense warn­ings against it, Eve RSVP’d with a ​“plus one,” vow­ing to find the per­fect wed­ding date. Still date­less, Eve recalls a strange sto­ry her Ukrain­ian grand­moth­er once told. She ven­tures into the dank recess­es of her base­ment, where bags of foun­da­tion clay are stored…and builds a golem.

At first, everything’s great. The golem is hot, atten­tive, and very pro­tec­tive. But at the rur­al sum­mer camp where her sister’s wed­ding will be, old wounds lurk, new threats abound — and Eve’s light­heart­ed rom-com swift­ly mud­slides toward some­thing much dark­er.

"I Made it Out of Clay" is spicy, fright­en­ing, and fun­ny — with sur­pris­ing punch­es to the gut as Eve wres­tles with crush­ing grief, slay­ing her demons and maybe find­ing love along the way.

Beth Kan­der is a nov­el­ist and play­wright with tan­gled Midwestern/​Deep South roots. The grand­daugh­ter of immi­grants, her writ­ing explores how worlds old and new inter­twine — or col­lide. Her work’s been described as ​“riv­et­ing,” ​“expert­ly craft­ed,” and ​“habit-form­ing.” Per­son­al­i­ty: Shy the­atre kid. Edu­ca­tion: MFA/​Mississippi Uni­ver­si­ty for Women; MSW/​University of Michi­gan; BA/​Brandeis Uni­ver­si­ty. Favorite char­ac­ters: her hilar­i­ous hus­band and chil­dren. Cof­fee: please.