 Let's get started. So welcome tonight you are here as part of our summer stride Tuesday night author series. And that means every Tuesday night, June, July and August, every single Tuesday, all of those months we will have an author talk, which has been really fun so far and I'm very excited to have Alina Adams tonight discussing her book, the nesting dolls. And as I mentioned, this is part of summer stride, and summer stride is not just for kids, it's for all ages. So you do your 20 hours of reading. And you know you get that iconic San Francisco Public Library tote bag with that beautiful artwork right there that you see from this year's artist Kailani Juanita. And she is Bay Area and has a new book on chronicle books called Tada. And she is amazing. I love her artwork. We want to welcome you to the unceded land of the Aloni tribal people and acknowledge the many Romuto Sholoni tribal groups and families as the rifle stewards in the lands on which we reside here in our Bay Area. The library is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations. And we encourage you to learn more about first person culture land and land rights. I put a link into the chat box and that link has lots and lots of library resources, including a resource list on indigenous culture and land rights, and lots of summer reading lists, and links to tonight's presenters to her website to her socials and links back to our catalog so you can check out the book if you haven't already. So just some upcoming programs like I said we have a lot going on tomorrow night we have the book launch of essential truths. Writers of color. And right now SF is a writers group here in San Francisco, this is going to be a good one starts at 7pm and a night full of readers so come check that out. On July 11 we'll be hosting the California Northern California Book Awards which honors the best books from 2020. Super excited about this I love Hay Day Books, Hay Day is our local publisher, been in the business since 1974 so we love them. And Jonathan Taplin will be discussing his book The Magic Years, but more cool he's in conversation with Grail Marcus who is a rock and roll journalist and author and just an amazing person and in his own right so it's going to be sure to be an amazing conversation. The SF Arts Commission and COVID Command San Francisco's COVID Command Center had an artist in residency during COVID. And their panel will be discussing the work that they did. So that should also be interesting. I don't know if many of you know that San Francisco Library has a jail and reentry services department. I'm so proud of the work that they do. We service the jails and the one last youth detention center, I don't know what we call it now detention center, which will be closing down, you know, at the end of this year hopefully so we'll be happy to do that any longer. But we have in partnership with that department and Oakland Public Library author Keisha middle mass and Ruben Miller talking about the politics and race of and racism of reentry. So our jars department is going to be hosting the prison within, which is a film with our French Roy Williams there in the last photo. And he took part in this film and we'll have a panel film screening and panel discussion sure to be good. And tonight's event we're here. So I want to welcome you all to Alina Adams. And we're going to be. We're also going to be discussing her book The Nesting Dolls which, if you haven't checked it out please do put the link in the chat box. Alina Adams is a New York Times bestselling author of soap opera tie ins romance novels and figure skating mysteries. She has worked as a creative content producer for as the world turns and guiding light was part of all my children and one life to live reboots and has been a writer producer and skating researcher for ABC NBC TNT ESPN and Lifetime TV. Alina immigrated to the United States with her family from Odessa USSR in 1977. She lives in New York City with her husband Scott, and their three children, and is a San Francisco Unified School District, school alumni. So she is Bay Area. She is in good company. And without further ado, Alina Adams friends. Thank you. Thank you so much for that introduction. Yes, I not only went to Lowell High School I also went to San Francisco State University so I had all my education here in the Bay Area. As I was just saying before was a bit obsessed with the San Francisco public libraries I even had my own preference for which one was better for media books which one was better for fiction which one was better for science fiction which one had a better children's reading room. When I brought my own kids to San Francisco we would go to various events we did everything at the San Francisco public library from Russian language story time to making ice cream in a bag. So I'm a huge fan of the San Francisco public library system. I am so grateful for this evening and this opportunity to speak to you. I have to give a little warning about 40 minutes before this event started in a really fun turn of events the Wi-Fi went out completely in my house we had a moment of panic. We had to reboot it. So if I suddenly disappear. It's not me being rude. It's that my Wi-Fi has gone out again but I have a phone that's charging that has a hotspot that I should be able to turn on so if I disappear please don't leave. I'm coming back I'm trying to come back as fast as I can. So one final thing is if you look at the bottom I don't know how many of these events you've done. There is a chat button at the bottom of the screen that you can write questions and I will see them in the side. So if you have a question while I'm talking please go ahead and write the question I'll keep an eye on the box and then I will try to answer it so thank you so much as I was introduced my name is Alina Adams. Well actually it's Alina Sivarinovsky. Well actually the name that I was born with was Alina Gendrykhovna Sivarinovska. Yeah I was born in Odessa then the USSR currently Ukraine and the first seven years of my life I spent I lived in a room with my mother and my father we lived in what was called a communal apartment which meant that we shared it with another family. We lived in what was probably the dining room or the living room of the original apartment. There was another family that had a child about my age and also a grandmother they lived in another room which is probably the bedroom of what the old apartment had been the grandmother had a tiny room off the side. We shared a communal kitchen. We shared a communal bathroom the bathroom if those who have read my book The Nesting Dolls there is a scene where the character creates a shower by threading a pipe from under the bathroom sink and then putting a cabinet sort of like a drawer there with a basin that would then fill up with water and then screwing in a nozzle so to sort of make a makeshift shower because the bathroom didn't have one that was something that my father actually did in our communal apartment. I think my parents are on this call I see that my aunt is on this call. So many of the people who I will be talking about today are actually here. So as I said I lived in the first seven years of my life in Odessa and then in 1976 we emigrated we were as I like to say we were traded for wheat. In 1976 President Jimmy Carter tied the import or the export of wheat to the Soviet Union to the human rights of Jewish refugees and for they to be allowed to leave it was called the Jackson Vanic Amendment to Senator Senator Jackson and Senator Vanix sponsored it and we were traded for wheat. We left the Soviet Union through a series of border towns we went through Lvov we went through Chop then we ended up in Vienna. Vienna was a place where Jewish refugees were processed. Those who wanted to go on to Israel could leave Vienna and go directly to Israel. Those who wanted to move to either America to Canada or to Australia were then given visitors visas to go into Italy for one day but then we kind of forgot to go back. So officially Italy was not hosting Soviet Jewish refugees but in the late 1970s you could hear Russian all over Rome so officially we weren't there but we were actually there. We ended up staying in Rome for about four months while our paperwork was processed to go to the United States people who wanted to go to Canada had to wait as long as a year people who wanted to go Australia had to wait around nine months. The American processing was faster. We had relatives in the United States that were willing to sponsor us. So we were on our way to San Francisco but in order to leave and leave Rome and in fact I have some photos and family photos that if you'd be kind enough to share screen right now there's one's called Leaving Rome. That's actually that's a photo of actually my grandmother, my great grandmother and my aunt who's on this call looking a little older than she is in this photo she's the baby in the photo. But if that's that's okay there we go thank you perfect okay. So as you can see and as I said some of these people on this call I'm the little girl in the fake fur coat. The two people standing behind me are my parents who are I actually now are I'm looking at them right now in their San Francisco kitchen but that's them in Rome in January of 1977. Then there is my aunt and my cousin and his father. So that's us leaving Rome. Remember the day when airplane travel like you know look they're wearing ties look how formally everyone's dressed it's not like now or you're on basically an airbus. But so we're leaving Rome, and we have to stop over in New York, because on our way to San Francisco and we spend the night in New York, where I see a lot of exciting things like it's the first time I've ever seen a color television set. In retrospect I know I was watching the Lucy show but all I remember at the time is color I'm seeing color. So we get on a plane we go from Rome, we get to New York, I don't know what airport it was may have been JFK may have been La Guardia. I don't know we spend the night in the hotel and then if you could put up the other photo, the one about leaving NYC, please. So this there's a reason there's a reason that I want to show you the fun. Okay, so there I am again. In my hand, you will see a teddy bear. I don't know how many of you have kids who were very attached to a particular object. I was very attached to that particular bear that was the bear that I had with me as we left Odessa as we went to Vienna as we went through Rome. And so here we are we're at the airport in New York, getting ready to go on a plane to San Francisco, and the teddy bear is missing. Let me repeat that one more time. The teddy bear is missing. Now we need to go to San Francisco because planes leave, but the teddy bear is missing. Now also at this point you have to understand we're not we're kind of not really even legally in the United States. We're wearing these stickers that say he asked Hebrew International Aid Society. We're not supposed to leave the airport. We're not supposed to we're not even officially in New York. We're on our way to San Francisco. That's where we're supposed to land. But the teddy bear is missing. So my father decides to leave the airport. He decides to get into a cab. He decides to go back to the hotel. He says to the person at the hotel, you know teddy bears missing can. Did you find one that said no the hotel rooms been cleaned. We don't we didn't find a bear. He said can I talk to the maid who cleaned the room. He talks to the maid made says I didn't find a teddy bear. He says can you take me to where the laundry was dumped. We find the teddy bear. My father gets back in the cab. My father comes back to the airport. This picture is taken after the fact the reason that I look so grumpy is because I'm probably still in a state of post traumatic stress. But the teddy bear was gotten back for me by my father and we flew to San Francisco. Otherwise I swear to you I would not have been in San Francisco. I would still be sitting at the airport in New York right now because I was clearly not going anywhere without that bear. So that, you know, I told you about the Jackson Vannick Amendment I told you about Jimmy Carter I told you about the politics of Jewish refugees and protests both pro for and against. But you asked me what do I remember about the immigration experience. What was the most important part of the Teddy of the immigration experience. It was that the teddy bear was missing. And then the teddy bear was found. And that is what immigration to the US means to me. So now I'm in San Francisco. Thank you. You can take the you can take the photo down. Thank you. I appreciate it. So now I am in San Francisco, and I get sent to a Jewish day school. Now what's nice about me being sent to a Jewish day school is I didn't speak English or Hebrew equally. So it didn't really matter. I spoke no English. Okay, no, that's not true. I knew two English words because I had a book. I had a book of English words. And so I knew the word Apple, because that was the first word on the page. And I knew the word the happy translate the word the, especially Russian language that doesn't have articles. So those were the two words that I went to school in San Francisco, knowing the word Apple and the word though. But along the way, I learned all sorts of fascinating things about American culture. Did you know that in America, you're supposed to wear a different outfit to school every day. I didn't know that I had this dress I had a really great dress it was red it was made out of wool, and it had apples and pears along the bottom of it. And my mother said it was a terrific dress because it was the kind of dress that you could wash it out at night, put it on the radiator to dry and it would be dry the next day. I had a dress I love my dress. I didn't realize you were supposed to wear a different outfit to school every day. Did you know that in America, when you go to the pool, little girls are supposed to wear swimsuits. So you could actually put up the photo called Odessa Beach. There's a be there's a picture of me with my father on the Odessa Beach. And if you look at it, you will see that little girls in the USSR that they don't wear tops. There we go. There's me. There's my father. There's Odessa. I'm not wearing a top little girls don't wear tops. So the first time I went to the pool I found out that apparently in America, little girls wear tops. Since then I have told this story at a lot of events for Russian Jewish organizations. And it is amazing how many people said yes, I too was traumatized by this. I had no idea. There was this outpouring of feeling from women who had been little girls when they came to the US and found that you're not so supposed to wear a top and a little hat. You're supposed to wear a little bikini top. So that was something that I learned. Thank you. That was just a demonstration. You can take that photo away. Here's what else that I learned. I learned that there was a holiday where they gave cards to everybody with like little hearts on them. I had no idea what that meant. So like, okay, here's a card so that the next week when somebody gave out invitations to a birthday party, I had no idea what that was. I thought, oh, it's another holiday where they give out cards. I guess this is what they do. Every week in America they give out cards. I also found out that there was a holiday where, as my grandmother said, what's that holiday where they go door to door begging for food? It's Halloween. She was talking about Halloween. But I didn't know about that holiday either. So there's all sorts of things that I found out in America. Did you know that in America a sandwich has two pieces of bread? Not just one? Did you know that in America a hamburger is not a cutlet? A cutlet is something that you make where you put in. It's kind of more like a mini meatloaf. But I learned that a hamburger was not a cutlet. Did you know that in America when kids got a cold, you did not take dry mustard and pour it into their socks and then put their socks on their feet, or take dry mustard and put it on their chest and cover it with a cloth, or take boiling water and pour it into a bucket and put their feet into it. Or this is my personal favorite. I don't know if anybody here is familiar with what Ban Ki are, but I will describe it for you. Imagine sort of the top of a light bulb, the thick glass that's the top of a light bulb. And then you take a stick, you wrap some gauze on it. You dip the gauze in perfume for the alcohol. You set it on fire. And then you put it under the glass to take all the oxygen out. And then you put it right on your back so that it makes sort of like this sucking sound. And now it's called cupping. It's apparently become trendy in the holistic health community. It's called cupping. In Russian it's Ban Ki. And you do that when somebody has a cold. The idea is it increases circulation. So Ban Ki are about this big and they can go on your back and let's say there's like rows, four rows of four. And you keep them there for about 20 minutes. And then so they really get to suction. And when you remove them, they make a perfect round bruise. So you have about 16 to 20 bruises on your back. And then you go to school in America. That's a story you have to explain because apparently they don't do Ban Ki in the United States. I also learned things from television. I learned important things like television, such as that children are supposed to talk back to their parents. That's what I learned from American television. I also learned that you can't be a real American if you don't have a banister in your house that you can slide down. If you can't slide down a banister like in the Brady Bunch, you're not a real American. So these are all very, very important things that I learned in the United States. As I mentioned before, then I went on to Lowell High School where it was also very heavily immigrant population. So I learned all sorts of other things that might not be quintessentially American. But to me, they felt quintessentially American because to me, the immigrant experience was quintessentially American. And it actually tied into one of the things that I'm going to talk about, which was about, which is about writing. And there's just so many stories out there, you know, some people say they're seven, some people say that they're 12. And the thing that makes any story unique is that it comes from a unique perspective. So one of the things that I think is very beneficial to being an immigrant and being a writer is that you see the world sort of from an outsider's perspective so that you can tell stories that might be the same old stories, but in a unique way. For instance, even though I started trying to write novels while I was still at Lowell, while I was still in high school, you know, I'd send them out and I'd get rejections. And as I like to tell young people today, this was back in the day, this is before email. This is where not only did we have to print out our manuscripts. And I don't know who remembers dot matrix printers, you know, if your paper got stuck, you could print out 400 pages on one line. So that was not good. You had to really keep an eye on your dot matrix printer. So you had to print out, you know, your 300 pages of a manuscript, you had to take it to the post office, and you had to include a self addressed stamp envelope for them to send it back. So not only were you getting rejected, you had to pay them to reject you. So I started writing in high school in college, and everybody always says write what you know. Well what did I know, I knew what I knew how to be an immigrant in San Francisco in the United States. And so I wrote some stories that had my similar background that was talking about the USSR that was talking about immigrants, and the feedback that I got back was nobody cares. Nobody's interested in the Soviet Union, nobody's interested in Russia, nobody's interested in those kinds of stories. But one editor said to me, you know what stories I am buying, I'm buying Regency Romances. Would you like to write one of those? And I said, sure. And I hung up the phone and I said to myself, what's a Regency Romance. Now people know, because Bridgerton was this huge hit, I think it was on Netflix. So people know that a Regency Romance is a romance that set in England during the Regency period, which is I think 1811 to 1820. But I didn't know that. So what did I do? I went to the San Francisco Public Library. This is not me pandering to the San Francisco Public Library. This is part of the story. I can tell you I went to the Merced Branch and I got the maximum at the time that you could take out was eight books. Who remembers like the little paper cards you had to fill out and the little pencils that they kept in the box. So I checked out eight Regency Romances and I read them all. Oh, it's now 50 somebody said and then it was eight. And at the time I thought I am so lucky that I can check out eight books. It's now 50. How can you carry them? I guess it works for a Kindle. I guess it works if you have to put them all on here and I am using the San Francisco Public Library and I can tell you currently it's 25 for the Kindle, which I'm thrilled about because in New York it's only three. So I use the San Francisco Public Library 25 but I had no idea it's now 50. The time it was eight. I checked out the eight Regency titles. I read them all. And so I wrote three chapters and an outline. Write what you know right. So what did I write about I'm writing in Regency England 1811 to 1820. And what am I writing about Jews. I'm writing about Jews, because that was really the only thing I could think of to write about. So I write three chapters and an outline and I send it off to the editor. And the editor says to calls me a week later. And she says I love it. I'd love to see the rest of the manuscript on my desk by next week. And I said, it's not polished yet. Because that was a lot better than saying it's not written yet. So I banged it out in about three weeks, and I sent it to the editor and she bought that Regency romance. And it came out in 1993. It was called the fictitious marquee. And then last year, I found out that the romance writers of America, which is the organization that covers most of romance writing, had named it as the first our own voices title, which means it was the first historical novel about Jews written by a Jew, apparently. I had no idea of that at the time. It wasn't noted at the time. But now that romance writers of America like so many other organizations is trying to be a lot more inclusive. It's trying to reach out to a lot more different voices. They're going back and they're looking at their former title. And so the fictitious marquee which I wrote simply because I couldn't think of anything else to write about turned out to be the first our own voices historical now. So I wrote the fictitious marquee which was a Regency romance. I wrote another Regency romance called thieves at heart. Then I wrote a couple of contemporary romances one called Annie's Wild Ride, one called when a man loves a woman. And then this is actually where we go back to my immigrant experience again so my first book was sold, because the only thing I could think of was to write about was Jews. And then because I spoke Russian, I was hired at ABC Sports as part of their figure skating department. My younger brother had competed in figure skating out of the Bay Area he was I think regional champion in the Bay Area and then a national champion in the novice division so I knew figure skating and I spoke Russian. And I ended up getting hired at ABC Sports. And then at ABC Sports after I finished working there I ended up writing a series of figure skating murder mysteries against we're back to write what you know. Tell the same old story, but try to do it in a new way I mean how many figures, how many murder mysteries are there out there I don't know if the librarian can actually quote me a number. But I a lot let's assume there are a lot, but how many of them are written about figure skating. That's what was unique to me. So I wrote the figure skating murder mystery series. Then I ended up working for two soap operas called as the world turns and guiding light which were part of proctoring gamble productions. And I wrote books about the characters on the show. Now, those of you who watch soaps especially those two particular soaps they're incredibly middle America, they're incredibly waspy they're basically everything that I knew nothing about. So I made things up, because that's what you do when you're a writer you take what you know, you put it with what you don't know and you hope that you sound quasi impressive. So after I did that, I was having lunch with my agent about three years ago. And she said to me, you know, Russia is extremely hot right now. And I said, really, I can't imagine why. After basically 20 years of being told that no one is interested in reading about the USSR, or Russia suddenly Russia is really hot right now. So she said to me, you know what else I've been talking to a lot of editors and they are kind of getting tired of Holocaust books they feel like they've written they've published so many, and at a certain point it's getting repetitive and I said hey, Now I got the story for you, forget the Holocaust let's do the 1930s in the USSR where you have Stalin's great terror, you have people being deported to Siberia, you have basically all of the suffering, but it's not the Holocaust. So it's a little fresh. The book that became the nesting dolls actually takes place in three sections. The first one is in Odessa USSR in the 1930s. The second one is Odessa USSR in the 1970s. And the third section is Brighton Beach Brooklyn in 2019. And here's something else that I just got sort of lucky on is that when I first wrote the book. It was supposed to come out in 2019. When I read books, I don't like books that feel like they've only taken place a year or two ago because it feels like now but not really now. So it feels odd but the editor thought you know this is a really good book. We'd like to release it we'd like to really promote it. So let's release it in the summer of 2020, even though it was written for 2019. So the book came out in the summer of 2020. If the book had taken place in the summer of 2020 could not have taken place because there's scenes that take place at the Guggenheim Museum. And there are scenes that take place at a famous comic book store in New York called Forbidden Planet. And there are scenes that take place on the boardwalk in Brighton Beach. But all of those places were closed in 2020. So I actually got extremely lucky that my story was set in 2019, and that it could continue to take place in 2019. So the first section the one that takes place in the 1930s and actually that photo that you had put up earlier is of my, as I mentioned it's of my grandmother of my aunt and of her mother. And the other one if you could pull up the photo that says Gourfield family photo. That one is actually that's my, my grandfather, and a lot of this story that's me on the beach again still not wearing it up. As you can see I clearly did not did not learn my lesson. That's, that's, that's Stalin, that's my mother is the one. Thank you. All right, so that's my grandfather and his mother, and I believe this he actually have my mother and my aunt on this so they can tell me is my sister, I'm not sure but it's definitely my grandfather and his mother and some of the stories in the 1930s were based on his life story for instance he had come from a small town outside of Odessa. So many of you have teenagers or you know 13 year olds my youngest is actually now 14. But at 13 years old, he left his little village to come live in Odessa alone to live in a boarding house to work at night, or either he worked in the factory at school during the day or vice versa but the point is at 13 years old, he came by himself, which is amazing I mean I don't think my 14 year olds could do that I don't know if a modern day kid could, but his father, who actually didn't speak Russian who spoke He wrote a letter to Stalin in Yiddish, thanking comrade Stalin for the fact that his son, a Jewish boy from a little village had the opportunity to get this education, and that story is included in in the nesting dolls well. The thing about the nesting dolls is people always ask me how much of it is based on real life. And my answer is no characters are based on anyone living or dead. Really, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. But of course in truth I took all sorts of stories that I'd heard from my parents stories that I'd heard from their friends, their parents friends and they all made their way into the 1930 section thank you you can take the photo down. When it comes to the 1970 section, I mean I was born in 1969 but my memory of the 70s is obviously very limited, although one of the depth it's definitely one of my memories is that I described the fact that there would be these public fountains, where if you put in one You could get seltzer water, and if you put in three ca pica which is three cents you could get a seltzer water with like syrup so it was more sugary so that was definitely my memory. There was one glass by the way here's something in the time of coven let's all take a moment to think about. There was one glass that everyone drank through it from publicly and my father actually told me that the glass was changed down so that the drugs wouldn't steal it. That was a detail that I didn't remember that he added but let's all ponder the fact that there's an entire city drinking from one common glass. That's just something to ponder these days. The thing about the 1970s is that that was my parents generation. And so I would be asking them very specific questions and in fact I'm in New York there in San Francisco. So we have a three hour time difference. So they would be waking up to emails which would be questions like if you were standing on such and such street in 1976 what would you see. Or like I asked my mother what did the back of the Odessa opera theater look like and she said you saw it a million times that's where your aunt lived I'm like that's very nice but I was six and I don't remember. So could you give me a little bit more description. So my parents were getting these very random queries. And this is actually one of the things that I also want to talk about is that anyone can read a history book. Anyone can get the big dates like what date did Hitler attack Odessa or what date did cruise shift announced Stalin at the 20th Communist Party Congress those are the kind of things anyone can read. And you need them in a story to sort of anchor your story especially when you're doing historical fiction. But what I think makes a story unique is the details that you can add to it that are more personal. So I mentioned to reading vast historical accounts like I read a very good book on the history of Odessa. And I read a lot of first person accounts for the 1930s when the family sent to Siberia I read third person first person accounts from families because it wasn't just men that they send it wasn't just political criminals it was entire families it was entire towns and that included women and children. So I read a lot of first person accounts but for the 70s. I also got stories from my parents that I think were unique or the kind of things that you wouldn't get just reading a general history book like they told me about how university exams were administered where you would come in and there'd be cards lying face down and you would pull one turn one over and answer the question there, which of course brings up some Jewish problems which were a series of math problems that were specifically designed to keep Jews out of universities, due to quote us, or they told me about how public bathhouses worked and that you would go in, and they're separate rooms for men separate rooms for women some family rooms how a woman would take your ticket and she would rip your ticket and sometimes she would save it so she could resell it. And there was a stick with a hook that she would use to open the locker where you would keep your clothes and details like that I mean I asked them how much food cost I asked them all sorts of things like that that were little nuances that might not be found in a general history book. And to give you an idea of something that I don't think I would have found in reading a history book there was two stories that my mother told me one was about how in the 1970s they first got mascara, but it was really thick and viscous. They spit into the tube in order to make it so that you could put it on. And so she said you'd go into the women's bathroom and you'd see all these women spitting into their mascara. Now that's not a plot point. But it is a detail that tells you something about what life was like, or for instance the fact is, so apparently for the first three years of my life I didn't eat or sleep. I was just a delight. And my mother kept trying to tell doctors that she thought that I was allergic to her milk, but they were saying no baby can't be allergic to milk. So she said finally when I was three months old, she got them to write her a prescription for yogurt. Let's all think about that for a minute. She didn't go into the store and say should I buy Chubani should I buy fruit on the bottom should I buy Greek yogurt should I buy goat milk yogurt, she needed a prescription for yogurt, which also tells you something about what life was like at the time so it's these little details that I think really make a story come alive when it comes to especially when it comes to writing historical fiction. And then finally the section in 2019, which is set in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which has a very heavy Russian Jewish population by now it's actually even more Russian than it is Russian Jewish. But at one point it was much more of a Russian Jewish population and that's one where also you want to get the local color you have the subway going overhead like, I don't know if anyone has seen the movie. And then Annie Hall, where Woody Allen claims that he grew up under the Coney Island roller coaster or the fact is when you walk that boardwalk and you see where that roller coaster is, you see that there actually are some houses there where it feels like you're living under the Coney Island roller coaster or if you watch the Neil Simon play Brighton Beach memoirs outside the window every few minutes, there's the shaking of the subway because the fact is the B and the queue line do run really just outside of some windows to where you could look out your window and you can see the people in the subway. So it's that kind of detail that goes into the story of Brighton of the Brighton Beach section, which is the section on 2019. Now, when I was first writing the book the first sentence and the last sentence of the book is love is not a potato, which is a Russian expression. For years I thought that was it I thought it ended there I thought love is not a potato, and that was it I didn't realize there was a second line which is love is not a potato if it goes bad you can't throw it out the window. I just thought it was a statement love is not potato. So I use that as the first line of the book, and as the last one so I initially called the book love is not a potato. Now my agent thought it sounded too much like a children's book. So she suggested coming up with another title so while I was writing it and while it was being sold, it was actually called mother tongue. And that had to do with the double meaning well first of all mother tongue is usually the first language that you learn it's considered your first language regardless of what language you end up speaking later. Another theme of the nesting dolls the book that became the nesting dolls is communication. And not only is it the communication between generations, but it's the fact that people who grew up in the Soviet Union, they developed this mental state where what you thought, and what you said had nothing to do with each other, because the things you said were the things that were approved, and you had to make sure that it was approved at the time because the politics changed constantly, but the things that you said had to be the safe things, the things that wouldn't get you arrested and the things that wouldn't get you called out publicly the things that wouldn't get you shamed you know you might be called in your workplace to have other people that you work with tell you all the terrible things that you have done so the things that you said, were the socially publicly and the things that you thought were your own. And there was really no connection between the two, which is very, very different from the American attitude of you have to be authentic. You have to say how you feel that it's actually wrong to think one thing and say something and as a result that makes communication between the generations, particularly difficult. So mother tongue actually had two meanings it talked about your first language and the communication problem of just communicated between generations when you speak different languages, but it's not just different languages it's the whole mindset about what you should say, and what you can say. So the book was called mother tongue, but then the editor thought that it sounded too much like a nonfiction title. So she said let's come up with something else. She said let's think of something that makes you think of the old country that makes you think of Russia that makes you think of family that makes you think of mothers and daughters, we came up with a lot of really really terrible ideas. So finally, I went to the arbiter of all things Facebook. And I said to my friends, my Facebook friends, here's what I'm writing. What do you think would make a good title. And it was actually a Facebook friend of mine who suggested the nesting dolls. And after she said it, it was perfect. The first of all nesting dolls are the wooden dolls you've all seen them they're painted there's one inside the other side of the other so they're very associated with Russia, and it makes you think of Russia, but then the brilliant cover artist who did the cover of the This is what they did. So the first one is you have the Siberian scene with the mother and the two children on the initial the original scene actually had some, some light poles and other things. And as my agent said, could we remove this and make it a little less winter wonderland and a little more Siberian hellhole. And then in the other layer, which you can see is in the shape of a nesting doll you have 1970s USSR, you have the steeples and you have the factories and you have sort of that industrial gray association that people have with the USSR. In fact, when I first came to the United States, somebody asked me if the Soviet Union was all black and white. Yeah, sure I said it's it's it's all black and white. And then the very outer layer is Brighton Beach you have the ocean you have the birds you have all of that. And not only does it capture the mood of the book, but think of how brilliant it is the cover artist not me the cover artist is the fact is all of us are the result of the people who came before us. We carry all of the generations of the people who came before us inside of us just like those photos that I just showed you of my aunt and my mother and my grandmother or my grandfather and his mother. And then me and my father on the beach and then us in leaving New York or starting leaving Rome or leaving New York, we are all the result of what came before, and we carry all of it inside of us. So the nesting dolls not only did my Facebook friend come up with a brilliant title that invoked Russia, but the artist was really able to illustrate the themes that I was talking about, which is about how one generation affects the next and how we think we're completely independent, but we are all actually the result of what came before us. So that is my presentation of how the nesting dolls came about how I came to write. It was a lot of words that I just spoke as you can tell I'm very good at talking and can talk endlessly. But if people have any questions now I know we only have about 10 minutes left. If people have any questions, please feel free to put them in the chat and I'd be happy to answer them or else I can just keep talking incessantly and I don't think anyone wants that. One question got covered up by all of our chat there. Did hi AS pay for your transportation and hotels to get to San Francisco. That is my understanding if actually anybody who's online as I said maybe my parents can correct me, but my understanding was that he asked Hebrew International Aid Society they did cover the expenses of people coming to United States and here's actually something that I found out really interesting later on, because he has had so much experience with bringing refugees to the US. Also in 1970s when America was bringing Vietnamese refugees to the US after the war, they actually hired he has to do it, because they were so skilled at resettling people that he has was used to settle other immigrants in the US because they had been doing it better than any other organization. I also like that. I believe it was William who said ha ha ha San Francisco American. Well, here's the thing. I came to America. I came to San Francisco San Francisco was America to me. Since then, you know I've lived in New York I visited other places but to me my first America let's put it this way my first America was San Francisco. So is there anything else that I can answer for people or have they just heard enough words for me at this time. Those questions will come just take a little and YouTube friends we will take questions from you as well. Actually I'm curious of the people here I looked at some of the names. If people could type in the chat whether they're all I'm just curious, whether they're also immigrants or maybe their parents or their grandparents were immigrants because very often when I do these talks. I have people who, who's whose only experience with either Russia or the USSR or immigration or their parents experiences or their grandparents experiences and some of them are similar and some of them are very different. Thank you very much it's this wonderful presentation thank you look forward to reading your book thank you so much for coming. I have to say I am so grateful to people who show up on zoom, because I think we are all so tired of zoom at this point. And it's just I cannot thank people enough for taking the time out of their day to come and do this it really means a lot because when you write you kind of sit alone in your room and you put words it's not even on paper anymore now it's on a screen, it's off into the world and you have no idea if they ever get in front of anybody. Here's something from Marcy, my mother used to use mustard plaster on my chest when I had a cold we lived in Philadelphia but I have Russian ground okay so you know Marcy, you know that when you're sick, the mustard comes out or sometimes did they ever do like alcohol and put it on cotton around your throat, if you had a sore throat that was another good one. This is from a Siberian city. And let's see what else do we have. How long did a question from William how long did it take you to write the nesting dolls. It took me about a year. The first draft took about a year I first wrote it out as a proposal and that I just wrote out what the three sections would be about. And then I wrote the full manuscript, and then after it was sold. I did another rewrite for about six months based on what the editor, what the changes that the editor wanted. I did mine talking about your future projects, I am actually doing some research now and hoping to do a book that was set in Burabajan, which was actually the first Jewish autonomous state. It's Israel by about 20 years. It was established in the 1920s on the very far border in the USSR was practically on the Chinese border. The idea was that they would set up a Jewish autonomous region. And it wasn't because Zionism was illegal in the USSR. So it was supposed to be an alternative to Zionism. And the goal was that eventually not only Jews in the USSR but Jews in America and Western Europe would all come and settle. And they would work the land and the region actually exists. It's no longer majority Jewish, but it's still there. And so I've done research on that history and I just find it fascinating. And so I'm actually working on on that as an idea for a novel. And somebody says any options for a movie or a series. No, but if you know somebody I'm always I'm happy to talk. So who do you. Let's see a little off topic but how do you feel about the demise of soap operas. Oh, that's a whole other lecture that I could do because that's that's a passion I learned English in fact my aunt who was on this call is the one who first got me started watching so I started watching them in 1980s and I ended up working for them throughout most of the 90s. And as I said I ended up writing books for them. I like to say the soaps didn't die just daytime soaps died because if you look at what's on TV now everything's a soap everything is serialized friends was serialized the sopranos was serialized breaking bad was serialized certainly Shonda Rhimes with grains that graze anatomy and all that so I like to say the soaps are dead long live the soaps because the fact is they won and they lost at the same time they won in that absolutely everything is serialized now, but they lost in that if you like series television, you don't have to see it in the daytime anymore you can get it in prime time you can get it on cable. You can get it every which way but thank you for asking that question I could do a whole, a whole other hour on on soaps and the history and their future. How did I end up in NYC soaps. I moved to New York actually during the OJ Simpson trial, speaking of history getting into my life soaps were preempted. So ABC daytime started a show to cover what viewers had missed during the OJ Simpson trial, and I came to New York and I was writing that show and what brought me to New York soaps brought me to New York. And then I got married here and my husband is one of those people who suspect there's probably a world outside of New York, but he really doesn't want to risk finding out because why else. Why would you leave New York, everything you need is there. I watched Guiding Light with my grandmother and that until it went off the air. Yes, I worked there until the last day. I have killed many genres. I first worked in figure skating at the height of its popularity, you know during the Nancy Kerrigan Tanya Harding thing. And then I started working in figure skating and then it became less popular and off the air, and then I worked in soaps and I worked at four different shows who are all canceled while I was there. I don't say it was all my fault. I contributed. Yes, I was a Guiding Light until the last day. I was actually in Peek-Pak, New Jersey when they shot the last episode. All right. So does anyone have anything else I can as you can see I can speak on many topics. An interesting career. I get bored easily. I have to move around. Let's see. Well, I don't see any more questions rolling around. I'm going to put in the chat one last time the links to tonight's event, which, you know, we piled some links on there. But this one link has everything that we piled onto there so you can pick up all of Alina's books. Check out all of our upcoming events. And last call for questions. There's some love coming in. We love that. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to give the love back. As I said, just so so meaningful to me that people took the time to do this and I really appreciate it. I hope everyone is well, you know, that's the main thing I want to tell everyone these days that I just hope you're well, your parents are well, your children are well, your mental health is hanging in there because that it's just means so much to me that in the middle of all this people are taking their time out to come and listen. Well, it's very important. I mean, I think, even though this is a virtual landscape that we're stuck in a little bit. It has been a lifeline and, you know, plugging along doing programs and it's been pretty fun and successful and we'll continue doing a hybrid. So stick around and find out what SFPL is up to. And we thank you very much Alina Adams and for bringing the love to SFPL, bringing it back to SFPL. Well, you definitely you saved my life when I was a kid if I didn't have the library if I look, I don't know. I don't know what I would have done with myself because it's just, it's like I'm getting emotional talking about the value of libraries but they save lives, they save kids lives, they save adult lives, they show you that there's a world out there beyond yourself and that there is something that you can do and that there's something that you can strive for so. It's definitely a lifeline to a lot of folks so thank you for saying that really appreciate that. All right, my library community and actually you know family of Alina Adams thank you for joining tonight. Appreciate that. And thank you Alina, and thank you Lisa and the tech side, and we'll see you come back tomorrow guess what I'm right here. Thanks. All right friends have a wonderful evening. Thank you Alina. Good night. Good night everyone. Check out Alina's book.