Acknowledgments

A few weeks before I submitted this manuscript, through some clever sleuthing and with Corbin Allardice’s help going through Miriam Karpilove’s papers, I found myself talking on the phone with Miriam Karpilove’s great-niece, Kate Karpilow, and her nephew, David Karpilow, and emailing with her great-niece, Miriam Karpilow (named for the author of this book). I was so delighted to find her family, to talk with them about her work and mine, and to hear their memories and family stories of their aunt. Hearing David talk about his aunt—who lived with her brother in Bridgeport—making him French toast and regaling him with stories of her adventurous life brought her to life for me beyond the world of this novel I’ve come to know so well. I was moved to tears when, several days after my phone call with David, I received a package in the mail containing photographs of Miriam that David had entrusted to me. What a blessing to see so many images of Miriam, glamorous, studious, confident, and beautiful, looking out at me from picture postcards. Thank you.

I am grateful to the Yiddish Book Center for supporting this translation through the 2017 Translation Fellowship, and to the instructors from the fellowship, whose criticism and encouragement greatly improved this translation. Many thanks to my translation mentors, Ken Frieden and Corine Tachtiris, for their expert advice and gentle criticism, and to Eitan Kensky and Sebastian Schulman for believing in and supporting the project. The enthusiasm and helpful feedback this manuscript received from my cohort of translation fellows at the Yiddish Book Center, as well as the supportive community we shared, was immeasurably helpful: Ze’ev Duckworth, Saul Hankin, Jordan Finkin, Allison Schachter, Beata Kasiarz, Anastasiya Lyubas, James Nadel, Sean Sidky, Andrew Sunshine, and Rachel Field—thank you all. I’d also like to thank Ayelet Brinn, who shares my love for Yiddish newspapers and generously offered to peek into Karpilove’s archives for me. Thanks also to Ellen Cassedy for her advice and support, and to Asya Schulman, Rose Waldman, Daniel Kennedy, Sholem Berger, Joel Berkowitz, Yelena Shmuelenson, and Judith Thissen for their help with sticky translation issues. I owe enormous, heartfelt gratitude to Allison Shachter, whose encouragement has meant so much to me at every stage of this project, and who taught a draft version of this translation and attested to its teachability. I can’t wait to add it to my own syllabi. I am also blessed to be a part of the Yiddish Book Group of Oak Park, Illinois, who, even before I met them, were the ideal readers I had in mind for this book. Their careful copyediting and lively discussion of my manuscript was extraordinarily helpful and brought me joy.

I am also indebted to the editors at In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, specifically Madeleine Cohen and Saul Noam Zaritt, who published my earliest translations of the first chapters of this novel before I had even decided to translate it in full. Excerpts of this translation have previously appeared in In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and Your Impossible Voice.

I am grateful to the peer reviewers of this manuscript for their helpful advice, and to Deborah Manion and the production team at Syracuse University Press for guiding this work to publication. I presented an early version of the introduction to this book at the 2017 Association for Jewish Studies conference, and I am grateful to the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute for awarding me the Rosalie Katchen Travel Grant that made it possible for me to attend. The 2018 Cashmere Subvention Grant, awarded by the Association for Jewish Studies Women’s Caucus, helped defray some of the costs of publishing. I am grateful to the selection committee for their faith in this project.

I would be remiss if I did not also thank the many teachers who, over the years, helped me to learn and love Yiddish language and literature, especially my PhD advisor, Jeremy Dauber. I am also grateful to my colleagues at the University of Chicago, who have received me so warmly into their scholarly community, including but not limited to David Wellberry, Catherine Baumann, Eric Santner, Anna Elena Torres, Na’ama Rokem, Sophie Salvo, Arthur Salvo, Matthew Johnson, and Nicole Burgoyne. I am also wholeheartedly indebted to my friends and colleagues at In geveb—Madeleine Cohen, Daniel Kennedy, Diana Clarke, Miranda Cooper, Saul Noam Zaritt, Sunny Yudkoff, Jonah Lubin, Eitan Kensky, LeiAnna Xenia Hamel, and Cassandra Euphrat Weston—for expanding the horizons of my Yiddish world, for believing in the work we do together, for all the times we’ve laughed together over Google Hangouts, and for their support of this project. And, of course, thanks to my parents, Sam and Debbie Kirzner, and my sister, Rebecca Kirzner, for encouraging my love of reading, believing in me, and never trying to dissuade me from pursuing an unconventional and deeply rewarding passion and career built around little-known Yiddish writers.

I especially want to thank Sonia Gollance, Rachel Beth Gross, and Daniel Kirzane for reading drafts of this manuscript and for enthusing with me over juicy bits of dialogue. When I think back on the translation process for this book, I think I will cherish most of all those late-night chats over Gmail in which I sent Rachel quotes from the text and she responded echoing the narrator’s exasperation and then urging me in all caps to finish the translation because it’s what the world needs today, and those cozy evenings after the kids were in bed when Daniel and I settled beside each other on the couch and he read my translation out loud to me. This is in no way a project that I accomplished alone, and I am profoundly grateful to have done it in the company of so many cherished friends.