Zibby welcomes author Rebecca Wolf to discuss her debut novel, ALIVE AND BEATING. Inspired by the true story of Rebecca’s close friend, who was killed in a 1995 suicide bombing in Israel, the novel imagines the lives of the six people who will receive organ transplants from the victim. Rebecca shares how she wove together multiple perspectives to honor her friend’s legacy, the diversity of Jerusalem, and our shared humanity. She also reflects on the challenges of writing such a personal story, the research that went into capturing medical and cultural details, and how the book became both a tribute and a cathartic process.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Rebecca. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about Alive And Beating, a novel. Congrats. 

Rebecca: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. 

Zibby: Aw, well thank you for this beautiful novel, which at times felt like short stories all interwoven in these clever ways.

I was reading part of it in the car with my husband and I would be like, oh my gosh and now this person, listen to what, how this related to this, and listen to what happened with these guys and this guy. Oh my gosh. Anyway, It was very, very cool the way you did the whole thing. Why don't you explain to listeners what the book's about and the structure and, and how you even thought of it all.

Rebecca: Sure. So the book, uh, in a one sentence is about six people that get organ transplants from a victim of a suicide bombing. And it's inspired by the true story of a friend of mine who was killed 30 years ago when we were 20 years old. She was on a bus in Israel on the way to the beach, and, um her bus was blown up, but her family donated her organs and that was sort of the most transformative.

Part of the story is that most Jewish people around the world and certainly in Israel were not donating their organs and her death and subsequent donation really changed the way people looked at things. And since then, Israel has gone from being a country that was leading in donor shortages to being a country leading in organ donations.

So anyway, I wanted to honor my friend, but I was also very concerned with sort of writing her story when it wasn't my story. So that's why I didn't wanna have the traditional main character protagonist and have it be all about her. I also thought this would be an opportunity for me to sort of show the diversity of Jerusalem.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: And to show how I think we're actually all much more similar than we are. And so by not telling her true story, I was able to kind of handpick the recipients and try, like you said, weave things together and try to, um, try to make it a story of hope and of our shared humanity. 

Zibby: I feel like I'm sort of still in the room with an IV in my arm or the bag or however, with who's the character?

Yael, who had, who was, you know, getting her transfusions in the Tel Aviv Hospital after the car ride and everything, and not wanting to watch tv, not wanting to do any of the things she's not supposed to do and just like sitting there feeling so suffocated in so many ways. It was such a, I mean, the way you depicted it and then like the hair salon, I mean, the settings themselves were so revealing, right?

Everything becomes like a, like a microcosm of their stations in life, in a way, the way you do that. 

Rebecca: Right. I think the settings in some ways are another character of the book. 

Zibby: Mm-mmm. 

Rebecca: Because, um, which is another interesting thing. I, you know, if someone hasn't been to Jerusalem, it's hard to believe that you could walk almost like 10 minutes in either direction and be in a radically different neighborhood.

It almost feels like the weather is different and it's, and it's not. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: So, um, I felt like the setting was important, and even in our last chapter, the hospital room as a setting, because talk about, you know, stifling and claustrophobic. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Rebecca: Not even really knowing what the weather is. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Rebecca: Oh, it's spring.

They can't tell. 

Zibby: Yeah. There's a different sense of time in hospital land. Right? And when you walk, I remember spending a bit of time for one reason, and then I, I like got outside and I'm like, what? 

Rebecca: Right. 

Zibby: It's all, it's, you know, even the air felt different. I don't know. I have so much respect for people who work in hospitals and do that every day.

Like that's their life when the rest of us pop in and out. But anyway, um, wait, go back. Can you tell me more about your friend and how you met and what she was like, and, and then a little bit about the loss and what that did to you? 

Rebecca: Sure. It would be my pleasure. So my friend's name was Elisa Flatow and um, we were friends in high school.

My maiden name is Geller. So we had lockers, FG right next to each other, um, all four years and I was a little bit of a grumpy teenager, certainly in the morning so I would kind of trudge into school and she was just the opposite. She had big dimples, big eyes, and just a, a big personality. And so she was a great person for me to have a locker next to in the mornings because she always was just cheerful and started my day off right. So we were very close in high school and then afterwards, you know, there was no internet back then. There was no texting. So we did write letters and we called once in a while. But 

Zibby: where, where, where was your high school? 

Rebecca: So our high school was in New Jersey in Paramus, New Jersey.

It was a small, private Jewish high school. Um, and my grade only had about a hundred kids, so we were all pretty close. And then afterwards, I went to Barnard and she went to Brandeis and for our junior year abroad, we both were taking, she took a semester off and went to Jerusalem to study, to study like Jewish subjects, and I was in London and I was actually studying terrorism, ironically enough. And so this was April of 1995. And like I said, she was going with some friends. It was just this right before Passover so her seminary was on break and she was on her way to the beach. And, um, a suicide bomber drove his truck into her bus and A lot of people were killed. A lot of people were injured. What was crazy about Elisa's story is that she actually was in perfect condition, and this part I did model my my character on, but a piece of shrapnel severed her brainstem, so they called her family in America, her dad jumped on an airplane, came to Israel, and they pretty quickly said you know, your daughter is not alive, but her body is, and would you consider being an organ donor? And, um, you know, he called his wife and I think they really wanted to make it happen because it was like the only thing they could take from this. So they consulted with a bunch of rabbis and even now, I mean, I would never wanna say what is the rule or not the rule, but it seems now there is a series of test that have to be established, let's say three things, three hours apart three times to establish brain death. They didn't have that protocol back then, so this was really like creating something new. And Elisa had she, she became famous pretty much overnight because she was the first American tourist to be killed by a terrorist in Israel and then to be also the first religious Jew to do this was just really, she was all over the newspapers. And, um, prime Minister Rabin spoke, as I say on the last in my author's note, he said, Elisa's heart is alive and beating here in Jerusalem. And he actually flew to New Jersey, um, a few weeks later, and he paid a condolence visit to the family.

So it shows you how groundbreaking it was. So for me as a 20-year-old, you know, I know. We just had this article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal from Elizabeth Bernstein, who's such an amazing writer, and I know this is supposed to be talking to me, but I'm so curious from you also to hear about your friend Stacy.

So as a 20-year-old, you're just first of all, you don't believe it because we're supposed to be invincible when we're 20 and when you're going to the beach, you know, you just, you can't really process it almost. And I definitely think at that age I felt shock and sadness and just such a profound loss.

And, and, and, you know, it was like she was probably the friendliest person in our whole class. How could she be gone? It was, but later on I started to think more about what happened after her death and I started to realize like, wait, my friend was really a hero. You know? Like she changed the world.

Literally changed the world, and I'm so proud of her. I wish she didn't have to do it this way, but I think it's amazing that she did. And so when it came time for me to say, I think I wanna write a book, this was the only book I could write. It was just a story that had been in me for so long and I kept trying to write something else and I couldn't.

So eventually I said, let me just, let me get this off my chest. And it was, it was sort of cathartic, I will say. 

Zibby: Wow. Well, to your point about invincibility and how shocking, how particularly shocking if it even is, I don't know, maybe it's always the shocking, but when you're that age and you had a line somewhere that said, of course teenagers have to be soldiers because they're the only people who believe they're invincible. 

Rebecca: Right. 

Zibby: And in a way that actually made me feel better because I'm always like, oh my gosh, those boys are so young and oh my God, you know, we feel it as like, you know, my son's age. You know, like, you feel it, but they're like, no, it's gonna be okay and then we also, as young, you know, we, we felt like we all had the world ahead of us and then when someone in our peer group, you know, I don't often chat with other people who's really close friends are killed by terrorists. So, you know, hey. 

Rebecca: Right. 

Zibby: There's that in common. But, um, it is, it is hard to fathom because it, it, it is, it's just, it's hard to put that in life and then, you know, go about your day and 

Rebecca: Right.

And it's different. I think that when someone dies from an illness, which is obviously just as sad and a loss is just as profound, but this just had this element of just like pure evil in it that I, it also was very hard to reconcile because I actually still try to wear my rose colored glasses in life, and I do actually think most people are good.

But definitely at age 20, I really did. I had a great view of the world. And so for something like this to happen, I just, I just thought what? Like how could this happen? Who, why would someone do this? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. Wow. Well, I'm so sorry for your loss. I really appreciate the way that you took that experience and made it into art to open reader's eyes, not just to your friend or that experience, but to the many types of people living in Israel to how people's stories interact, how there's two sides to every story, and also to the illnesses that you draw attention to, because there are a whole range of, of situations medically that now I've learned a little bit more about through the book, which was also interesting. So did you, how do you know so much about all of that?

Rebecca: Yeah, that was, that was super interesting to me also, um, I mean, I love to read and I love research. I'm a librarian's daughter, so I think it's like, it's in my genes, uh, I have a lot of friends who are doctors. Luckily someone in almost every specialty, but I just kind of went on, you know, National Kidney Foundation and started reading and you, you read a lot of patient stories, watch a lot of those videos.

And I read a lot of books by people who either are confronting illness or were confronting illness. Um, like I'm sure you've read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Co. 

Zibby: I am 

Rebecca: like, that's a perfect example of just the most amazing writer and person it seemed like, and he gave such an incredible insight into all of a sudden going from doctor to patient and I really, I, I, I mean maybe enjoyed is the wrong word 'cause these were hard books to read, but I have to say I learned so much 

Zibby: mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: From all of those books that I read, I definitely gained an appreciation for my own good health and I hope that I've become more compassionate to those who don't have it because, and one of the things I tried to portray in the book is you know, for some people, literally moving from the bed to the couch is a major accomplishment in the day. And not only do I have to not take that for granted in myself, I have to appreciate that in these people and say, that is resilience.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: Like, it doesn't, it may seem like such a small thing, but it's really not when you are bedridden to get to a sitting position is a huge effort. And so, um, I learned so much, but I also learned, you know, back to what we were saying at the very beginning of our conversation. The hospital and how things are different there.

I also think in some ways life is easier in a hospital because you're stripped of all that other stuff and you're just people. You're human beings with bodies that are fighting things and you're trying to survive. And I've seen it myself in hospitals and I really tried to portray that in the book that it's much easier for people to get along there.

I don't know if you've seen that in your own experience. 

Zibby: I, I haven't spent enough time. I mean, like knocking wood here, but Right. The, for longer term experiences, but I don't know. I feel like nothing is easier in a hospital, but that's my own. 

Rebecca: That's true. 

Zibby: I am biased. 

Rebecca: Maybe. Maybe that came out wrong. 

Zibby: I see what you're saying.

No, no, I, I know what you're saying. I'm, I'm just joking. I mean not to, yes, because we are all just fighting for our lives in it. 

Rebecca: Right. 

Zibby: Right. That's what the hospital is. That's it like vitals. 

Rebecca: Right. 

Zibby: Right. My gosh. What were you doing before you were a lawyer? Did I make that up? No. 

Rebecca: No, you didn't make that up.

My husband's a lawyer. 

Zibby: Your husband's a lawyer. And he knows my cousin. Right? He knows my cousin. 

Rebecca: And he knows your cousin. Yes. 

Zibby: Amazing, amazing. 

Rebecca: Um, my husband is a lawyer and I, uh, I was a reporter before I had kids. I worked for Dow Jones Newswires. Which was the wire of the Wall Street Journal and I covered heavy industries and it was a great job, but not really my thing.

And so when I had my first daughter, um, at the age of 99, I stayed home with the kids and I mostly just over the pa, you know, let's say the first 10, 15 years I just wrote articles about parenting or Jewish subjects, more very light personal essays. And I would say mostly I was a mom. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: Um, and then when my youngest was about, you know, maybe towards the end of elementary school, getting into middle school, I thought, I really have a lot of time during the day and I need to go do something.

And I had always thought about just trying to write a book and so I decided this is the time to do it. And like I said before, I tried to write something else and it just, this had to come out of me. So eventually I gave in. I started with the first chapter of the Hasidic girl because even though I am not Hasidic, I have some friends who are, and that was easier for me. I didn't have to do as much research for that as I did, let's say for the chapter about the Catholic priest. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: Because I am neither a man nor Catholic, nor a priest. So I had to spend a lot more time. 

Zibby: And your, and your ankle is hopefully fine. So there's that. 

Rebecca: And so it took a long time. It took me about four and a half years to write the book.

'cause there was a lot of research between the medical, a lot, the locations. I haven't been to all of those places in Jerusalem, even though I've lived there. And just, I don't follow a lot of the rules that you're supposed to follow as a writer. Like I know you're supposed to have what they call the vomit draft and just get it all out.

But I have a hard time doing that, and I need to sort of have something be in pretty decent shape before I move on to the next thing. I'm also not so good at always saying, okay, every day from nine to 12, I'm sitting down and I'm gonna put out at least a thousand words. Um, I think when I was a reporter, it was helpful that I could work under pressure, but now it's a little more of a procrastination.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: So I tended to write a lot in a few days and then take a few days off and then go back to it, but eventually it got done. 

Zibby: I'm the same way, by the way. I'm like, I have, I need like a long plane flight. 

Rebecca: Right? 

Zibby: Where I'm, I have no excuse and then I won't be interrupted. But if I have all day at home, I'm like, no, no, no.

Now I'm gonna email and now I'm gonna do another Zoom and I'm gonna do this and somehow it's like impossible, but yeah. 

Rebecca: Right. And especially when you have to research, you don't feel like you're procrastinating because you think, well, but I really need to do this for the book. But it is a little bit because you can keep reading and reading and reading.

Um, I also used, I think because I was a journalist, a lot of the stories in my book, probably almost all of them are true. Like they're all sort of read from the headlines. So anytime I would read something, I had a whole file for myself on my Google Drive of just stories. Like, for example, my, um, the girlfriend of the soldier. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca: In the liver chapter who was a shooting instructor. That's a real story where. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Rebecca: Someone did this. So that made it easier for me because switching from journalism to fiction writing is hard. And I didn't hear it. It was like I didn't have to use my imagination as fully and I was able to take something real, but then just build it up and fictionalize it.

Zibby: Interesting. I like that. Inspired by true events. Yeah. 

Rebecca: Ripped from the headlines. 

Zibby: Ripped from the headlines. That's exactly it. Do you feel now that it's out, that you have a new sense of peace with things that have happened? With the loss of your friend with this itch to write, how do you feel? 

Rebecca: It's an interesting question.

I definitely think it was cathartic for me in terms of a personal loss. I think with her family, there have been a lot of articles in my local area, especially the local like Jewish papers where there have been pictures of her and a lot of our former classmates have been in touch with her family saying, you know, I still think about her.

I still miss her. So, to that extent, it's been really comforting. And I think real, a, a nice thing. I mean, it happened to just by coincidence come out on the 30th anniversary of her death. So in some ways, like the timing couldn't have been better, even though I, I think, wow, it took me so long. But maybe everything's meant to be that way.

The other part of it, I'm not sure. I mean, I actually think this book is so relevant for right now because I think it's about our shared humanity. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: But it was a hard book to get published. It was a challenging process that I would say did not go exactly how I hoped it would. And now it's still a little bit challenging.

You know, it's really hard to get out there. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: I'm grateful to your cousin because it's hard to get on podcasts. It's hard to get in, you know, in papers. It's just really hard. And I think my demographic and my subject matter make it even harder than it would be just for any indie writer. 

Zibby: Hmm. On the other hand, there is a big market audience.

Target audience, right. You just. 

Rebecca: That's true. Although in some ways, I hope the target audience would be someone who isn't necessarily thinking like me, because in some ways I would be so happy if somebody that really didn't know anything read this and said, you know. Why are we only focusing on bad stories?

There definitely are some good stories here. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Rebecca: And there are some people that do get along and maybe if those people, you know, we focused on them more, we could have something good happen. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Rebecca: So, but yes, I agree with you and I've gotten really great support from my community for sure. 

Zibby: I didn't mean to minimize it, it's just, it's always good to have a base.

Rebecca: Yeah. No, you're not. Uh, I understood what you were saying and you, I mean, I hope this doesn't sound too solicitous, but like, you're amazing that. 

Zibby: Aw. 

Rebecca: I, I, I was on a Zoom that you were on a maybe over a year and a half ago with Hadassah talking about why you started that book, you know, and being Jewish now and really trying to support Jewish writers and thank you because you are sticking your neck out for people and I really appreciate it. So, uh, I know, I know a lot of people do, but I have to just say thank you publicly because you recognize that there's an extra challenge there and so you're doing what you can and using your platform to try to promote people and I really think it's amazing.

Zibby: Thank you. That's really nice. I really appreciate it. Also, the books are really good. You know, like your book is really good. So I'm, I, I, I'm not taking on books that I don't think are amazing. It just so happens that, you know, as someone Jewish, I find those topics really interesting. Not exclusively, of course I love reading across, getting to know tons of types of people.

But yeah, I think it's important. 

Rebecca: Yes. 

Zibby: So thank you for saying that. It's nice. Are you working on anything new? 

Rebecca: So I do have a book sketched out that I've been trying to get deeper in, but I find it's really hard now that I am trying to have a bunch of events in this book. I'm so married to these characters still, and they're so alive in me that it's a little hard to invest deeply in other characters while they are here. So for the moment, it's more in sketch form as opposed to deep down nitty gritty writing. But I'm hoping that by mid fall when, you know, I think things will slow down a little more for me with this book that I'll be able to really get to it.

Zibby: I mean, no pressure. It's okay. I mean, you've spent all this time and now you've crossed the finish line. It's okay. You don't have to like it. 

Rebecca: True and hopefully it won't take me four and a half years, but I could imagine it would take me two years because this book that I'm thinking of also would involve a lot of research.

It has a dual timeline like. I guess I don't like making things easy for myself, so I'm picking another somewhat complicated format. I mean, it won't be as hard as this. One of the hardest things with this book, and I don't know if, I don't know if you've ever written anything where it was, everything had to be at the exact same time.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Rebecca: So this, everything here had to take place in 36 hours because I wanted to, you know, get to the urgency of an organ donation. You have such limited time, and there'd be time that I thought I finished something and I was like, great, this part is done and then I realized, oh shoot, you know, it's the night and it had to be the morning and I'd have to go back and, and it was, uh, uh, probably an unnecessary challenge that I put on myself, but I, it was just part of the vision that I had for the book.

Zibby: The novel I'm writing now is all within less than 24 hours. 

Rebecca: Oh. So yeah. 

Zibby: So I get it. I totally get it. At the same time, I feel like at least it's a nice container, you know, like. 

Rebecca: Yes. 

Zibby: I have the urgency too, and hopefully the reader as well. Right? 

Rebecca: Right. 

Zibby: That's the bonus. But yeah. Well, Rebecca, thank you. I really, really enjoyed it.

And um, that's happy to help however I can be alive and beating. Beautiful. Now we have to launch this wallpaper somehow, because I would totally put this on my wall. Maybe this would be a. 

Rebecca: I'll call the book designer. 

Zibby: Yeah, call the book designer. I really like it. Anyway, congratulations. 

Rebecca: Thank you so much, and thank you again for having me.

I really appreciate it. 

Zibby: My pleasure. 

Rebecca: Take care. 

Zibby: Take care. Bye-bye.