Tues. Oct. 14

 Diana Spechler, born and raised in Newton, just released her debut novel, “Who By Fire.” It deals with America and Israel in a broad sense, and the particulars of one family: There’s a kidnapped sister, Alena,  who’s body has been found after 13 years; there’s his mother, Ellie, her wild child daughter, Bits, and her son, Ash, who inexplicably decides at age 20 to abandon his life in America, move to Irsael and become Orthodox. When news of the discovery of his sisters’ body hits – and the family wants him to come home – he refuses to talk with them. “The crux of the book,” says Spechler, “is there are three different narrators, none of them communicating in an honest way.” .” Spechler reads at Brookline Booksmith Tuesday Oct. 14 at 7.
     “I didn’t base the book on anything that happened,” she adds, although noting an irony in that her own brother later did what Ash did, though did not abandon his family.
    “Who By Fire” has a lot to do with the division of American Jews and Israelis. “As far as the American Jew’s relationship to Isreal goes,” says Spechler, “one of the primary reasons I wrote it was I wanted to explore the feeling, the experience,of an American Jew, reading about and fearing the bombings, feeling the pain and the disconnect. It’s probably more so for than an American who’s not Jewish. Spechler’s take: She agnostic. “ I’m not religious. I see all sides, I understand atheists, I understand the desire to be extremely religious, I understand the  middleground-agnostic. I try not to judge, and it’s not good for fiction to judge.”
    There’s a desire on all parts to escape the guilt and loss of the past. “Of not being responsible in an adult way, that’s Bits,” says Spechler, “Ellie latches onto something and watches the train wreck; Ash’s is the most obvious move toward Orthodox Judaism. The some extent the crux is recongizing there aren’t definitive answers and the world won’t  play out the way you wish it would, … But you can be comfortble, like, ‘Ok, try this instead of living in the muck.”
    How does Spechler see America’s take on Israel?  “I spent a bit of time in Isreal. People have asked: Is the media here wrong? Not exactly. There is violence in Israel, the threat of violence on a day to day basis. There are suicide bombings there. The issue is a lot of people is the American media doesn’t report on things that aren’t newsworthy. People go shopping, kids play in the streets. The news is tricky, a beautiful thing, but the comlications create an environment of hysteria, the things that are newsworthy are scary. They don’t present a ratio [of save to unsafe]. I believe people should be going to Israel. I recognize it’s not perfect, but it’s a bastion of western civilization, a democracy in the Middle East, out of a dessert came civiliazation.”
    In the back of “Who By Fire,” there’s a Q/A and Spechler is asked what historical figure she like to meet? “Moses, or whoever wrote the Torah,” she said. “I’d like some answers.” We asked to expound: “I would like to see if you’re real. … My parents took my niece to Disney World last week, and she  doesn’t know fantasy from reality, so when she was meeting Snow White and Cinderella,  they were livem kind of like we met god, we had out doubts, but your are real!”

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