(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)March 12, 2015

MAHWAH, NJ – Author and poet Victoria Redel discussed her recent book, The Border of Truth, on March 10 in a talk sponsored by The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Like so many children of survivors and refugees, Redel grew up in the shadows of her parents’ different escapes from war. Although certainly not her father’s story, The Border of Truth parallels his journey from the bombed city of Brussels through France and Spain and Portugal.

The Border of Truth starts with a single professor, Sara Leader, deciding to adopt achild. After the adoption agency asks for details about her background, Sara reluctantly probes her father’s secret history. This includes his flight as a 17-year-old Holocaust refugee aboard a ship denied entry into America. The more she learns about her father’s past, the more Sara feels the need to question him about what happened. She realizes how her father’s secrets have shaped her own life. Alternating between a teenage boy’s energetic letters to Eleanor Roosevelt and a daughter’s sifting through the fragments of her father’s traumatic wartime choices, Redel’s characters demonstrate bravery, strength and the humor to survive the pain of the past and the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

In the Q&A portion of the program, Redel emphasized the “creative borrowing” entailed in constructing the narrative of The Border of Truth. Although she knew women like the character of Sara Leader, as a married woman with two male children, she was not her. Certainly parts of her father’s story of escape from Belgium to the United states via France, Spain and Portugal were woven into the book, but the basic storyline was far removed from that of his life. However, not only did her parents provide a jumping-off point for her novel, but also knowing their background put her at ease in exploring the milieu and untold stories of the European refugee community of New York.

Born in New York of Belgian, Rumanian, Egyptian, Russian and Polish descent, Redel is the author of three books of poetry and four books of fiction. Her most recent work is a collection of stories, Make Me Do Things. Her book, Loverboy, received the 2001 S. Mariella Gable Novel Award, the 2002 Forward Silver Literary Fiction Prize and was selected as a Los Angeles Times Best Book. It was also adapted for a feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and journals including Granta.com. The Harvard Review, The Quarterly, The Literarian, The New York Times, The L.A. Times, O the Oprah Magazine, Elle, Bomb, More and NOON.

Redel is on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College and has taught at Columbia University, Vermont College, Davidson College and the New School. She has received fellowships from The Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for The Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. She attended Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Columbia University (M.F.A.).

Victoria Redel appeared at Ramapo with memoirist and poet Paisley Rekdal at a reading of their poetry in November 2014.

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