Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15515406.Anna_Fishbeyn * http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5471724/ * http://motherhoodlater.com/posts/meet-later-mom-anna-fishbeyn/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017004074
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017004074
HEADING: Fishbeyn, Anna
000 01513cz a2200145n 450
001 10360851
005 20170127080536.0
008 170126n| azannaabn |n aaa
010 __ |a n 2017004074
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC
053 _0 |a PS3606.I76845
100 1_ |a Fishbeyn, Anna
670 __ |a The matrimonial flirtations of Emma Kaulfield, 2017: |b CIP title page (Anna Fishbeyn) data view (“Anna Fishbeyn is an actress, comedian, writer, producer, and the founder of XOFeminist Productions. She is also the writer and producer of web-series Happy Hour Feminism and acclaimed plays Sex in Mommyville and My Stubborn Tongue , a one-person show which had its London premiere on the West End. Fishbeyn holds an MFA in fiction from The New School, a PhD from Columbia, and has been featured in The Huffington Post , NBC.com, Today.com and others”)
670 __ |a google search 2017-01-27, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5471724/publicity?ref%5E=nmbio%5Esa%5E2: |b IMDB website mini biography: Anna Fishbeyn was born in Moscow, Russia, behind the Iron Curtain. Her family fled the former Soviet Union as political refugees when Anna was a small child, and found a home in Chicago. Anna quickly became fluent in English and began to pass as an American. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and her MFA in fiction writing from New School University. She wrote and starred in her first play, Sex in Mommyville, at the Flea Theater in NYC in August, 2010. . . . )
953 __ |a xk20
PERSONAL
Born in Moscow, Russia; children: two.
EDUCATION:University of Chicago, B.A.; Columbia University, Ph.D., 2002; New School University, M.F.A., 2004.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Actor, comedian, writer, and producer. Founder and creative director of XOFeminist Productions. Has produced a comedy cabaret show, Anna on Fire and Uncensored.
WRITINGS
Has written a web series, “Happy Hour Feminism,” and the plays Sex in Mommyville and My Stubborn Tongue.
SIDELIGHTS
Anna Fishbeyn is an actor, comedian, writer, and producer. She holds a master of fine arts in fiction writing and a doctorate in literature, philosophy, and education. She is also the founder and creative director of XOFeminist Productions, a multimedia company that is “dedicated to creating original cutting-edge content through theater, film, literature, and the web . . . that is progressively feminist, fearlessly innovative,” and “culturally diverse,” as she describes it on her LinkedIn page. Fishbeyn wrote and starred in a web series, “Happy Hour Feminism”; penned and produced two plays, Sex in Mommyville and My Stubborn Tongue; and produced and performed in a one-woman comedy cabaret show, Anna on Fire and Uncensored.
Fishbeyn’s first novel is The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield. In an interview on the Motherhood Later Than Sooner website, she commented on the influence of late-life motherhood on her creativity: “Motherhood was an unanticipated catalyst for my writing. . . . When I finally understood how little time I had, I stopped procrastinating, I became more effective. . . . I thanked my daughter for sparking so much creativity and productivity, and completed my first novel . . . six months after her birth.” The novel’s protagonist, like Fishbeyn, is a Russian Jewish immigrant to America. Emma’s grandmother has plans for her; they involve higher education in a productive field (statistics) and marriage to Alex Bagdanovich, a fellow immigrant her grandmother has chosen. Emma’s own idea of her future includes painting and a casual affair with a Gentile, Eddie Beltrafio.
A reviewer at Publishers Weekly commented: “Occasional laugh-out-loud moments provide respite from the avalanche of angsty, guilt-heavy, conscience-cleansing prose.” In Kirkus Reviews, a commentator noted that “what elevates this above the standard rom-com is the language, idiosyncratic, inventive, and ornate” and pronounced Fishbeyn a “cacophonous but compelling new voice.” Mark Dundas Wood, writing at the Clyde Fitch Report, found it a “darkly satirical comedy of manners,” full of “discordant styles and moods [that] come together deftly.” He concluded that The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield is a “brash, flamboyant and highly impressive debut.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2017, review of The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield.
Publishers Weekly, March 27, 2017, review of The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield, p. 89.
ONLINE
Clyde Fitch Report, http://www.clydefitchreport.com/ (July 5, 2017), Mark Dundas Wood, review of The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield.
Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (November 1, 2017), author profile.
JTA Jewish Telegraphic Agency, https://www.jta.org/ (June 30, 2017), review of The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield.
Motherhood Later than Sooner, http://motherhoodlater.com/ (November 1, 2017), author interview.
Anna Fishbeyn was born in Moscow, Russia, behind the Iron Curtain. Her family fled the former Soviet Union as political refugees when Anna was a small child, and found a home in Chicago. Anna quickly became fluent in English and began to pass as an American. She received her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and her MFA in fiction writing from New School University. She wrote and starred in her first play, Sex in Mommyville, at the Flea Theater in NYC in August, 2010. Bloomberg News recommended the play, WCBS Radio called Anna "a comic genius," and Jewish Week compared the play to Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Anna studied acting at HB Studio under Austin Pendleton, and voice with Ingrid Zeldin and Anya Fidelia, Her second play, My Stubborn Tongue, opened off-Broadway at the New Ohio Theatre, NYC, and went on to play at the United Solo Festival on Theatre Row, NYC, and on West End in London at the Soho Theatre. She wrote and starred in the web series, Happy Hour Feminism, which has been nominated and officially selected at numerous film festivals, including The Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards, Ocktober Film Festival, Miami Independent Film Festival, Action on Film International Film Festival, the IndieFest Film Awards and many others. Anna won An Award of Recognition for Leading Actress for her work as Anna, the hostess of Happy Hour Feminism. Anna is the founder of XOFeminist Productions, a multi-media company dedicated to producing original, innovative feminist content in film and theater.
Meet Later Mom: Anna Fishbeyn
RESIDENCE: New York
Children: Tamrian 5, Eliana 11
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Divorced
I’m a writer, actress, director and filmmaker. Recently, my first novel, The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield, was published by Arcade Publishing. I’ve also written two plays, Sex in Mommyville, which opened at the Flea Theater and played at other New York theaters, and My Stubborn Tongue, which played off-Broadway at the New Ohio Theater and at Soho Theatre in London. I love performing on stage and recently performed in my new one-woman comedy cabaret show, Anna on Fire and Uncensored at the Metropolitan Room in NYC. In film, I’ve created and starred in a web series called Happy Hour Feminism, which has won numerous awards in film festivals. Recently, I directed two short films, Invisible Alice, and The Love Bathroom, both of which have been officially selected at film festivals. My current pursuits include creating a TV pilot called Love is an Invention about single moms and online dating, and my first feature film, entitled How To Seduce Your Dinner Guest about an uptight dinner party that devolves into hilarious seductions, misunderstandings and New York-style networking gone wild. Visit https://www.annafishbeynofficial.com/.
What was your road to parenthood like? Very quick. As I was completing my Ph.D and my MFA in Creative Writing, my ex-husband and I decided to try getting pregnant, assuming it would take another six months. Instead, we conceived that very day.
How does being a mom influence your work? Before I had children, I was in a rush to establish an intellectual career – I was completing my Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education at Columbia University, and working on a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at New School University. I wanted to graduate from both programs and finish the novel I had just begun before starting a family, but I got pregnant with my daughter and after her birth, I was transformed, not only physically, but also emotionally and ideologically. Motherhood moved me, touched me, filled me with love and extraordinary empathy, changed my view of the world. I became more aware of the deep-seated inequalities between men and women in the home, and in the way society treated our parenting roles. Motherhood was an unanticipated catalyst for my writing as well: when I finally understood how little time I had, I stopped procrastinating, I became more effective, I wrote without stopping, even if on some days it was only for ten minutes. I understood at last the importance of consistency and dogged persistence. I thanked my daughter for sparking so much creativity and productivity, and completed my first novel, The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield, six months after her birth.
The birth of my son gave yet another twist to my career. I was in the midst of an emergency C-section, when my pulse started to go down. I was supposed to be awake but I felt as if an elephant was sitting on top of my chest and I knew in that moment that I was dying. I couldn’t bear the pain in my heart. I told my husband: “I love you – take care of our two children. I’m dying. Goodbye.” I lost consciousness. I remember floating and chaos. I was told later that my pulse dropped below 30 until at some point it stopped altogether. They had to revive me. When I finally woke up and held my son in my arms, I said to him, “If not now, then never,” by which I meant if I had just died and had never performed on stage.
I had been a child actress in Russia, but like many immigrants in America, my family discouraged me from pursuing this career. Yet when I woke up in that hospital with my son in my arms, it no longer mattered that I would be starting this career after I had children – I just knew that I needed to perform. While breastfeeding my son, I wrote a collection of stories called Conversations With My Breasts. I called a well-known New York venue in the village, called Cornelia Street Café, where I knew musicians and writers performed, and said, “would it be ok, if I performed like 10 min on your stage – I have these essays; one is called Conversations With My Breasts, another is called the Bad Parents’ Guide to Sanity and the third is called, The nuts and bolts of Espionage, i.e., Sex in Mommyville.” The man on the phone said, “with titles like these I’ll give you your own solo show.” My ex-husband videotaped that show, sent it around to small NYC theaters, and suddenly I started getting responses. Sex in Mommyville opened at the Flea Theater – and a new life unfolded before me. Sex in Mommyville was inspired by my children – it was an ode to my children. They spurred my creativity, they awakened my new sense of humor, they were my muses and my bouncing boards. I remember practicing Sex in Mommyville in front of my toothless infant son, and saying to him, thank God you don’t know any swear words yet because this play has language.
What inspired you to focus on feminist projects? Motherhood was the number one reason that I became a loud, proud, unrepentant feminist. When I became a mother, I started to realize that New York’s married women with children were some of the most beleaguered women in the world, juggling husbands, children, schedules, Manhattan expectations, and unreasonable standards of perfection. The moms I knew from preschools and kindergarten commiserated about the same problem: no matter what we were trying to do in our professional lives, women were still expected to do all the caretaking for their children and their homes. Parenthood brought out a pronounced feeling of inequality between the genders. Women were not having it “all,” not simply because “all” required a superhuman ability to multitask, but also because men were not expected or raised by society to become equal partners in the caretaking of our young – to be in essence hands-on-dads.
Articles on the Internet and in the media were daily hammering about the war between stay-at-home moms and working moms, inciting blame and finger-pointing, leaving women to battle it out amongst themselves. Yet no one was talking about dads; no one was asking the dads how they felt about their new roles. No one witnessed high-powered banker or attorney dads with Harvard degrees dropping out of the workforce in order to take care of their children; these new dads were not “deciding” – their answers were predetermined. Yet that is exactly what was happening to women – women with degrees and promising careers were deciding to drop out to stay at home with their children. Sex in Mommyville is comedy about a mother artist who attempts to have sex with her husband and fails over and over again, but in the process she goes off on feminist diatribes about the social pressures on women to look good, be perfect mothers, and have sex in order to upkeep their marriages.
For my next feminist-inspired project, I created a comedy webseries, called, Happy Hour Feminism. I wanted to experiment with completely reversing gender roles. So I created a futurist world in Happy Hour Feminism, where women sit on top of a bar, and men come in with problems such aging, gaining too much weight, or suffering from their Wolf Periods. Women wield high-powered positions, rule the media, the Internet and how men view themselves. In an episode entitled, Lipo-Draining Beer, we offered a diet beer to an overweight man and although he is instantly transformed into a lean hunk, there are brutal side effects. In our most popular episode, War of the Dads, a stay-at-home dad battles a working dad – to decide who is “more” accomplished, and who is a “better” father. Although the episode is thoroughly comedic – it won for best comedy short film at the World Cinema Film Festival Berlin – at the end, viewers are confronted with actual statistics about the low percentages of women in such fields as science, business and entertainment.
What advice would you offer to multi-tasking overwhelmed moms? Keep at it, keep multi-tasking, stay focused on your goals, keep fighting for your dreams, keep following your passions, don’t let anyone tell you to rest or slow down. If you have to do it all, do it! We women don’t have the luxury of rest. We simply do more, by virtue of our biology, social expectations and ingrained inequity between the sexes. Because of that, it is so much harder for mothers to pursue their careers and to still feel that they are “good” mothers. Guilt is constantly fueled within us; guilt is the number one reason why we are overwhelmed and eternally multi-tasking. Yet I cannot say to any mother, “do not feel guilty” because I feel guilty all the time, and I will never stop feeling guilty. I always want to spend more time with my children, and yet I also want to pursue this career and if I can’t make it to my kids’ event or show at school, I feel the sharp burn of guilt in my chest. Yet if mothers leave the playing field altogether, if we all choose to simply stay at home and drop out of the workforce, we will disappear from positions of political power, from cultural conversations, from the competitive world of banking, law, medicine, from the entertainment fields where there are currently so few women directing and producing. We need to press on, to find communities and villages that will support us and find creative ways to establish eco-systems to help raise our young and maintain our presence in the professional world.
I am a great believer in the idea that happiness only exists in the process of living out our passions, not in the process of seeking out happiness in and of itself. Happiness in my profession has always revolved around the creation of art. The path to that particular brand of happiness has been filled with struggle and obstacles and herculean determination to not lay down and close my eyes and just sleep when I’ve wanted to – but I wrote a five hundred page novel and a play while nursing one infant, and taking care of a toddler in diapers, and I never looked back. I’ve never gotten that sleep back, it sits as a frown line on my forehead and I’m proud of it.
How do you achieve balance? Who do you turn to for support? I achieve balance through meditation and yoga. I practice hot-powered yoga, Kundalini yoga, Vinyasa yoga, a form of empowering dance called Intensati, and I meditate every night before I fall asleep. My parents are extraordinary, and they’ve supported my career and moved to NYC to help me out so that I would be able to perform on stage.
Has anything about being a mother surprised you? What do you love the most about it, and what is the most challenging? I was surprised by the flow of unmitigated love for my children, surprised by my own sense of devotion to them and fear for them, and the sense that my life began with them – that I was in essence reborn together with them. I’ve lived two lives: the period before children, and the period after, and the period after has definitely been my most significant one – the time when I discovered myself, my courage, my inner strength. After I had my children, I acquired the courage to get on stage and perform, something I could have never done before my children.
What do you most want to teach your children? What have you learned from them thus far? To know what it means to truly love other people – to be compassionate, considerate, loving, caring human beings, to see themselves as part of an intricate multicultural community and to be able to truly see and listen to the world around them.
I’ve learned that there’s no real difference between adults and children – just time and experience. Children are brilliant, insightful, and incredibly intuitive, and they are capable of tackling any problem or issue. The only thing adults have over children is more years of schooling, which can sometimes mean we overthink things while children respond naturally, spontaneously, instinctively. I’ve learned that I can talk to my children about difficult issues such as divorce, and that they can grasp it in ways I never imagined, and sometimes their insight is illuminating and healing. I’ve learned from both my daughter and my son that children have an infinite capacity for forgiveness, and they have taught me to be more forgiving to myself.
(A young Anna with family.)
Do you have any particular memories from your own childhood that inspire you to make memories with your children? I was born in another country, in Russia, under the Soviet Regime, and when I was a small child, we fled to America as political refugees. My stories of my childhood stun my children – stories of escaping the KGB, surviving in America when we had no money, being mocked and bullied as a child for being different and not being able to speak English. I tell my children stories about their own births, and make memories for them through storytelling. My grandmother always told me stories about surviving World War II, Stalin, starvation, about her difficult youth, and she would always somehow interweave her past with my childhood in magical ways. And even though we were born on different continents, I try to do the same for my children – draw a thread from their lives to my own to the lives of their grandparents and great-grandparents, in order to help them feel connected to their heritage and to give them a historical context for who they are in this world.
What words of wisdom would you like to share for someone contemplating motherhood over age 35? Do it, it will change your life. Your age will help you be wiser. Your body will be tougher to navigate, so focus on keeping your body healthier than you did when you were younger, and you will look better and feel better and have more energy for your kids. Most importantly, forget your chronological age: think in terms of how you feel, communicate with your own body, listen to its needs, energize it – energy is youth.
Anna Fishbeyn is an actress, comedian, writer, producer, and the founder of XOFeminist Productions. She is also the writer and producer of web-series Happy Hour Feminism and acclaimed plays Sex in Mommyville and My Stubborn Tongue , a one-person show which had its London premiere on the West End. Fishbeyn holds an MFA in fiction from The New School, a PhD from Columbia, and has been featured in The Huffington Post , NBC.com, Today.com and others.
Anna Fishbeyn
Anna Fishbeyn
3rd degree connection3rd
FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR at XOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
XO Feminist Productions New School University
New York, New York 277 277 connections
Send InMail Send an InMail to Anna Fishbeyn More actions
Anna Fishbeyn is an actor, writer, director and filmmaker.
Anna wrote and starred in Happy Hour Feminism, directed by Adrian Roman. For her work on Happy Hour Feminism, Anna has won for Best Leading Actress, Best Screen Writer, Best Web Series, and Women Filmmakers. The series has been officially selected at over 17 festivals. Wolf Period, the second episode, won for best web series at the Ocktober Film Festival, NYC. War of the Dads, fourth episode, has won for best web series at the Moondance International Film Festival and won for best comedy short film at the International Film Fest Berlin. Bald No More, a music video Anna starred in, won for best musical parody at the Action On Film Festival, LA.
Most recently, Anna directed and starred in Invisible Alice, a short bilingual film with musical performances, and Swallow Your Money which was part of the 48 Hour Film Festival. Anna also directed a short film, The Love Bathroom, an official selection at the Big Apple Film Festival and The Action on Film Festival.
Her play, My Stubborn Tongue, has played off-Broadway at the New Ohio Theatre, NY, and on West End at Soho Theatre, London. The Huffington Post called My Stubborn Tongue a “wild ride…an insightful entertaining show” and said "Anna has triumphed.” The play was recommended by The London Evening Standard, and described as “brilliant…4 Stars” by the Female Arts, UK. Anna Fishbeyn’s first play, Sex in Mommyville, was called “comic genius,” by WCBS Radio, recommended by Bloomberg News, and compared to Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” by Jewish Week.
Her novel, The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield, will be published by Skyhorse Publishing (Arcade/Perseus Books) in May 2017.
annafishbeynofficial.com
Media (1)This position has 1 media
WAR OF THE DADS TRAILER
WAR OF THE DADS
TRAILER
This media is a video
See less See less of Anna’s summary
Highlights
Columbia University in the City of New York
You both studied at Columbia University in the City of New York
Anna studied at Columbia University in the City of New York after you started
Experience
XO Feminist Productions
My Stubborn Tongue
Company NameXO Feminist Productions
Dates EmployedJun 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 6 mos
LocationThe New Ohio Theater, NYC; SOHO Theatre, London; Triad Theater, NYC.
Experience the heartbreak and hilarity of being an immigrant at the height of the Cold War when Reagan calls Russia the Evil Empire. My Stubborn Tongue Cabaret is the true story of a girl and her family, who escape the KGB and arrive America only to realize they have a thick Russian accent! My Stubborn Tongue Cabaret exposes hard hilarious truths about how we reinvent our identities, and sing and dance our way into the American Dream!
http://mystubborntongue.com/
Media (1)This position has 1 media
https://www.facebook.com/mystubborntongue
https://www.facebook.com/mystubborntongue
This media is a link
XOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
FOUNDER
Company NameXOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
Dates EmployedJun 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 6 mos
Media (1)This position has 1 media
The Love Bathroom
The Love Bathroom
This media is a link
XOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Company NameXOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
Dates EmployedJun 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 6 mos
LocationNYC
XOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS is amulti-media company, dedicated to creating original cutting-edge content through theater, film, literature, and the web.We hope to create art that is progressively feminist, fearlessly innovative, culturally diverse, and unafraid to shine a mirror at ourselves. We will tackle popular culture, social trends, fancy hypocrisy and media’s double-standards and we will do this with humor, wit and biting sarcasm.
XOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
Play: My Stubborn Tongue
Company NameXOFEMINIST PRODUCTIONS
Dates EmployedMar 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 9 mos
LocationTADA! Theater
My Stubborn Tongue will be performed as part of Emerging Artists Theater One-Woman Standing Festival on MARCH 27TH AT TADA! THEATER AT 7PM!
My Stubborn Tongue is a story about a girl who refuses to be de6ined by her ORIGINS: Russian in America, Jew in Russia, Alien from the Iron Curtain. The only way out is the English language – and so begins a journey into the wild antics of the letter “u,” the spit-‐6iring enunciations of the famous combo, “th,” and America’s unquenchable thirst for idioms. Experience the peculiar hilarity and poignant heartbreak of speaking two languages and navigating two worlds at the same time.
AF Productions
Play: Sex in Mommyville
Company NameAF Productions
Dates EmployedJul 2011 – Present Employment Duration6 yrs 5 mos
LocationNew York, NY
Sex in Mommyville, the play, had a sold out run at Manhattan Repertory Theatre in July 2011 and was extended for further performances in September 2011. The show was invited to play at the new Museum of Motherhood in October 2011. Ted Merwin from The Jewish Week called the show “a lusty, unbridled…updating of Henrik Ibsen's ‘A Doll's House.’” Jeremy Gerard from Bloomberg News tweeted, “See ‘Sex in Mommyville’! Just two more chances!” Sex in Mommyville has played in numerous venues, including the Ars Nova, Snapple Theater, The Peter Jay Sharp Theater, and Pearl Theater. Old School/New School Mom Blogger called the show “brutally honest, raw and hilarious!” The Huffington Post said that Sex in Mommyville is "shattering all the myths around women, motherhood and modern relationships."
Media (1)This position has 1 media
http://sexinmommyville.com/
http://sexinmommyville.com/
This media is a link
See more positions
Education
New School University
New School University
Degree NameM.F.A. Field Of StudyFiction Writing
Dates attended or expected graduation 2002 – 2004
Activities and Societies: Thesis: The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield
Columbia University in the City of New York
Columbia University in the City of New York
Degree NamePh.D. Field Of StudyLiterature, Philosophy and Education
Dates attended or expected graduation 1997 – 2002
Activities and Societies: Doctoral Thesis: Evil in the Novel and Its Implications for Moral Education; Publication: A Philosophical Inquiry into Literary Texts: An Interpretation of Martha Nussbaum and Love's Quest for Self-improvement in the Phaedrus.
University of Chicago
University of Chicago
Degree NameBachelor of Arts (BA) Field Of StudyPsychology Activities and Societies: Improv, Honor's Society, Founder and President of The University of Chicago Committee on Soviet Jewry
The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield
Publishers Weekly.
264.13 (Mar. 27, 2017): p89. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Matrimonial Flirtations of
Emma Kaulfield
Anna Fishbeyn. Arcade, $16.99 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-62872-758-6
It's difficult to determine whether Fishbeyn's doorstop debut is intended to be a diverting contemporary romance or a melodramatic polemic against anti-Semitism. The first-person narrative of Russian Jewish emigre Emma reveals a self-indulgent navel-gazer who is both grandiloquent and romantic. The romantic part withers a bit when her interfering grandmother sets her up with the ostensibly perfect match: Alexei Bagdanovich, who's a Russian Jew, a Princeton man, and determined to remain chaste until marriage. That's not exactly ideal for this newly minted American feminist who shed her birth name, Lena Kabelmacher, quicker than you could say "Emma Kaulfield." Liberated as she professes to be, behind Emma's American face lurk Lena's roots. As she indulges in a no strings affair with dashing gentile Eddie Beltrafio, the voices of her ancestors nibble away at her so-called liberated resolve. Occasional laugh-out-loud moments provide respite from the avalanche of angsty, guilt-heavy, conscience-cleansing prose. Agent: Don Fehr, Trident Media Group. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield." Publishers Weekly, 27 Mar. 2017, p. 89.
PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1& id=GALE%7CA487928160&it=r&asid=10e479082da8c5dc3ba816135ea0f53e. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.
1 of 4 10/17/17, 9:25 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487928160
2 of 4 10/17/17, 9:25 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Fishbeyn, Anna: THE MATRIMONIAL
FLIRTATIONS OF EMMA
KAULFIELD
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Fishbeyn, Anna THE MATRIMONIAL FLIRTATIONS OF EMMA KAULFIELD Arcade (Adult Fiction) $16.99 5, 23 ISBN: 978-1-62872-758-6
A Russian-Jewish immigrant has a tempestuous and life-altering fling with an American investment banker in Fishbeyn's debut.Russian native Elena "Lenochka" Kabelmacher changed her name to Emma Kaulfield because it sounded more American. Her parents and grandmother, Russian Jews who, after a struggle with the KGB, were able to emigrate with Emma and her sister to the U.S., are now, in the late 1990s, wealthy Chicago suburbanites. Emma's grandmother, the undisputed family tyrant and sage, has decreed that 20-something Emma will pursue a high- achievement career track, studying statistics at N.Y.U. rather than following her true passion, painting. Emma is terrible at statistics, both in academe (she's flunking) and real life, where she fails to appreciate the odds against finding true love in the ladies' room of La Cote Basque. Ineffably drawn to a complete stranger with whom she makes out in that very bathroom, Emma assumes that will be the end of it. Then, on an outing with her fiance, fellow emigre Alex (a match made by Grandmother), she re-encounters the stranger: he is Eddie, Alex's colleague. As she and Alex plan an elaborate Chicago wedding, she and Eddie fall inexorably back into one another's arms. What's a girl to do? Eddie promises to support her and let her paint to her heart's content, but Emma wants to be financially independent; she just isn't sure how. The most interesting sections of the novel depict family encounters, both in Moscow flashbacks and in '90s Winnetka, wherein the Kabelmachers and their friends one-up each other, overshare, and squabble in two languages, never failing to demonstrate fierce loyalty and unconditional if domineering love. Contrast this with Eddie's family, which is dysfunctional in a different way (a la Tolstoy?), withholding, undermining, and uncommunicative. What elevates this above the standard rom-com is the language, idiosyncratic, inventive, and ornate, although Fishbeyn's word choices, overworked and/or a little off, often read like a slightly out-of-kilter translation. A cacophonous but compelling new voice.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fishbeyn, Anna: THE MATRIMONIAL FLIRTATIONS OF EMMA KAULFIELD." Kirkus
Reviews, 15 Mar. 2017. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w& u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485105317&it=r& asid=82c4371ca852a447190792c49edcb8df. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.
3 of 4 10/17/17, 9:25 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Gale Document Number: GALE|A485105317
4 of 4 10/17/17, 9:25 PM
Summer Read: Hot-Blooded Saga of a New York Immigrant
By Mark Dundas Wood Jul 5 2017 Identity + Literary
immigrant
Anna Fishbeyn. Photo: Luba Fayngersh.
Anna Fishbeyn’s debut novel, The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield (Arcade Publishing, 2017), is a seriocomic tale of romantic passion told by a Russian-Jewish immigrant to America. While a work of fiction, the story clearly has roots in real-life international politics, as well as in the author’s own life. (Note: Some spoilers follow.)
Emma (born Elena “Lenochka” Kabelmacher), the book’s titular heroine, would not exist if not for a shift in American policy toward the Soviet Union back in the 1970s — specifically the introduction of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington state and Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio (both Democrats) fashioned the legislation. The amendment ended American trade relations with countries in the Soviet Bloc that restricted emigration of religious minorities — especially Jews. Emma, who moved with her family to Chicago from Russia in 1982, sums up the policy with wry succinctness: “Russian Jews were traded for grain.”
Story continues below.
Fishbeyn’s sprawling, entertaining book also has an autobiographical dimension. In recent weeks, the author performed her cabaret act, Anna on Fire and Uncensored at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Room, where she told a version of her life story that mirrors Emma Kaulfield’s in many respects. Like her fictional creation, Fishbeyn emigrated from Russia to the US as a girl. She was drawn to the arts while pursuing training as a statistician and adopted a sex-positive brand of feminism at odds with her Russian-American upbringing. Emma and Fishbeyn also clearly share the same maternal grandmother — an outspoken character, who is continually warning Emma about becoming an “eternal whore.”
Emma is an every-girl Rom-Com protagonist — a Bridget Jones, perhaps
immigrant
Fishbeyn has also written for and performed on the stage and in a Web series.
Most of the action takes place in the late 1990s — when Emma moves to New York City from Chicago to study statistics at New York University (and to furtively study painting on the side). Back in Chicago, Grandmother selects a suitable young Jewish/Russian swain, Alexei (Alex) Bagdanovich, to woo Emma. On a visit to New York, Alex proposes marriage at the fashionable La Côte Basque restaurant (the same establishment where Truman Capote famously sabotaged the latter part of his career). Excusing herself to run to the ladies’ room, Emma instead winds up in the men’s — where she has a quickie sexual encounter with a handsome stranger named Ignatius (Eddie) Beltrafio. Emma and Eddie’s act of passion eventually pulls Emma into a romantic triangle that Fishbeyn teases out for a large portion of the novel. Engaged to Alex, Emma secretly embarks on an extended fling with Eddie that becomes increasingly torrid and fraught with danger.
On one level, Emma’s saga is that of an every-girl Rom-Com protagonist — a Bridget Jones, perhaps. But it’s also the tale of an immigrant trying to sort out her identity. Should she — or, for that matter, can she — become completely assimilated and thoroughly Americanized? Despite being an immigrant, Emma has fully mastered the English language, and then some — she also embraces Broadway show tunes and dates American men. Even so, she is still tightly bound to a family that is Russian to the core. Her desire to hold on both to fellow immigrant Alex and exotically American Eddie (a rising star at a major Manhattan bank) becomes emblematic of her larger personal struggle. Compounding the conflict is the fact that not only is she a Russian immigrant — but also Jewish. As a child in the old country, she became familiar with the scorpion stings of anti-Semitism. Emma, however, welcomes facing the bigots head-on. She believes this will give her life significance:
I felt my own life quaking with a silent mutiny against its current uselessness; the simple rituals of going to class, speaking on the phone to my family, musing over dinner, flirting, dating, chasing love – all stank of ordinariness and meaninglessness. And I longed for it again—the loud explosion of anti-Semitism to sear my flesh, to re-ignite my childhood pain.
Story continues below.
Fishbeyn succeeds in large part because of her striking command of language.
At points, Emma Kaulfield is a darkly satirical comedy of manners — especially when people in Emma’s New York circle come in contact with the bumptious Kabelmacher clan. The comedic zenith arrives when Emma’s family prepares a dinner party for Eddie and his parents. The haughty and disdainful Mrs. Beltrafio squirms as Mr. Kabelmacher displays his “perfect ears”; Emma and her sister Bella launch their vocal rendition of “Sunrise, Sunset”; Emma’s niece Sirofima straps on tap shoes and Grandmother serves up her most exquisite delicacy: Cow-Brain Stew. Offsetting such comedic passages are flashbacks to some horrific moments from Emma’s (or, rather, Elena’s) childhood in Russia. Fishbeyn often presents these memories as poetic depictions of the paintings Emma creates as a young adult. There is great power in some of these sequences, especially one involving another Jewish girl who is sexually brutalized at a camp for children of Russian intellectuals. In addition to the contrasting scenes of comedy and horror, there is one sequence that is, perhaps, best described as audacious surrealism: A mortally ill iguana joins forces with our heroine to do battle with a would-be rapist who nicknamed his penis “Spiderman.” Seriously.
immigrant
In her Metropolitan Room show, Fishbeyn performed songs from everyone from Human League to Kander and Ebb. Photo: Luba Fayngersh.
To Fishbeyn’s credit, all of these seemingly discordant styles and moods come together deftly, commingling naturally within a single narrative. She succeeds in large part because of her striking command of language. Her verbal dexterity would be impressive coming from any writer. Considering that Fishbeyn achieved it as a nonnative English speaker is astonishing. It may sound hyperbolic, but as I read Emma Kaulfield, the word that kept running through my head was “Nabokovian.” Consider the visceral, erotic imagery that Fishbeyn employs in a scene in which Emma recalls harvesting mushrooms with her mother at a camp back in Russia:
Dejection slips into my heart. Nothing is alive or edible or real – only poison, death, a grumpy angry forest – I throw my useless wand against the ground and suddenly my eyes catch Him: the King Bolete – Porcini – Beliy Grib. He sits proud and still, leaning like a retired general against a thorny shrub. The needles prick my skin and latch onto my hair, but still, with bare hands, I forge ahead and pull the Beliy Grib out whole, my fingers clenching its regal, portly stem. I found Him, I scream in joyous trepidation, tears tapping at my eyes, but my mother doesn’t hear. She’s singing to herself or is there someone else?
Story continues below.
The final stretches of the novel are a bit hard to take. The love/hate and push/pull between Emma and Eddie become repetitive, but in a way it’s fitting. The reader, like the novel’s protagonist, becomes worn down by the ever-churning drama of the cross-cultural romance. Emma knows that her affair with her gorgeous goyishe guy is doomed, but she keeps coming back for more. Even as she understands that Eddie came from the womb of an inveterate anti-Semite.
“Time won’t cure me,” she tells her lover. “Can’t you understand: this thing, this anti-Semitism business is the mainstay, the all-consuming trope of my life.”
The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield is a brash, flamboyant and highly impressive debut novel. I look forward to discovering what Fishbeyn will do for an encore.
COLUMN: Literary Type
CATEGORIES: Identity, Literary
TAGS: books, comedy, criticism, culture, immigration, New York City, politics, religion, Russia, women, writing
The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield (Arcade Publishing)
By Anna Fishbeyn
“The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield,” by Anna Fishbeyn (Arcade Publishing)
This debut novel by actress, comedian, writer and web producer Fishbeyn elevates the literary rom-com with inventive language and a distinctive immigrant identity twist. The title character has grown from a 10-year-old Soviet refusenik and new American into a beautiful, all-but-assimilated New York University grad student engaged to “one of her own people” — a handsome, Russian-born Jew. But when a random encounter with a stranger turns into a torrid affair, Emma finds herself torn between the wants and needs of love and career, which are intertwined with the bonds and burdens of her family and heritage. If that all sounds a little heavy, take note that it’s all pretty hilarious, too.