Collages
A Jewish Girl's Search for Self
by
Book Details
About the Book
Collages . . . A Jewish Girl's Search for Self
The principal action begins on Andi's first day in a mental institution where she is inappropriately given antipsychotic medicine and put into a strait jacket. Shortly after her release from restraint, Andi believes her only hope is to phone her now ex-boyfriend, Joe, who refuses to speak to her. Andi becomes violently enraged enabling Dr. Zemmel to perceive an undercurrent of agonizingly unresolved issues. He realizes she is vulnerable to panic attacks and proposes a regimen that is short on meds and long on therapy.
Parallel to Andi's healing is a subplot that reflects the Jewish American experience. Marty Zemmel has an uncanny ability to help Andi, but is actually emotionally impoverished himself. He attempts to escape his emptiness by pursuing Bliss Rothstein, a career woman and single parent, who is rebuilding her shattered personal life. Bliss has a strong physical attraction for him, but struggles against involvement with a married man. Anne Zemmel, Marty's wife, realizes their marriage is a failure and uses prescription drugs and scotch to numb her pain.
The major characters in Collages struggle around issues that help define them. Their Jewishness, often a painfully confusing enigma, also provides a channel to help synthesize meaning from seemingly intolerable events. Through a process of action and reflection, the novel offers hope for Andi, Bliss, Marty, and possibly Anne.
Therapy scenes in the novel were written under consultation with Dr. Mark Seglin, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist.
About the Author
Sharon Levine
Yedwab
holds a BA in Psychology from Boston University and an MAT in British and
American Literature from Rutgers University.
She teaches English and Reading in Passaic High School, Passaic, New
Jersey, where she has directed a Summer Theater Workshop and is advisor to the
Poetry/Reading Club. Mrs. Yedwab also
facilitates a series of Passaic High School Multicultural Poetry Workshops, and
has edited several collections of student poetry, entitled, Walking in Someone Else's Shoes Volumes I and
II and Multicultural Poetry for the
Millennium. She lives in West
Orange, New Jersey, with her husband and has three children.
Mark Seglin,
Ph.D.,
licensed psychologist and certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist, who was a
consultant for the therapy scenes in the novel, holds a private practice in
Newark, New Jersey.