Episode
Laurie Frankel on the Jewish Ability to Hold Multiple Truths
- Published
- Jun 9, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3263
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Summary
Is two Jews, three opinions a good thing? In this episode, Laurie Frankel discusses the very Jewish capacity of holding space for many different ideas and views, and how this capacity might be exactly what we need in this moment. We’ll also discuss the power and devastation of Cythnia Ozick’s short story “The Shawl,” its contribution to the conversation around trauma, and how a difficult-to-believe premise followed by realism (like that in Naomi Alderman’s The Power) is one of Laurie’s favorite structures for fiction. Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of six novels. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Publisher’s Weekly, People Magazine, Lit Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald, and more. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. A proponent of transgender rights, she wrote about her child’s transition in an essay in the New York Times titled, “From He to She in First Grade.” Her novel This Is How It Always Is, also about a transgender child, was a Reese’s Book Club Pick and was listed as one of the best books of 2017 by People Magazine, Bustle, and more. Laurie’s latest novel is Enormous Wings. At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas—that would be her three grown children—but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant. As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researche…