DNA, or The Book of Brad received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Monica Bauer.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
DNA, or The Book of Brad was published in 2020.
What’s the book’s first line?
“It all began with a dead rabbi.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
In “DNA, or The Book of Brad,” a comic love story of women’s fiction, adoptee Rose Pettigrew, a young black legal aid lawyer in Los Angeles who aches to find her “real family,” discovers through a DNA test that she’s half Jewish. Rose’s lover, Paula Bernstien, has a complicated relationship with her own Jewish heritage; and now, her African American girlfriend has to decides how much of a Jew she wants to be. The worst part is, Rose discovers her Jewish identity a week after her biological father, Rabbi Brad Cohen, Rabbi to the Stars, the founder of Extremely Progressive Judaism, has died in a fiery car crash on an LA freeway. Rose can only connect with her father now by reading Rabbi Brad’s books! So each chapter of the novel begins with a short reading from “God and Sex, What’s Not to Like?”, or “Rabbi Brad’s Guide to a Joy-Filled Family,” or, later in the book, “Rabbi Brad’s Guide to a Joy-Filled Death.”
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I’m an adoptee myself, and in 2016 discovered through DNA testing that I am 80% Ashkenazi, so I’m Jewish by heritage, on both maternal and paternal sides. This led me to discover a whole new Jewish family, and to think about just how Jewish I wanted to be. This was somewhat complicated by the fact that my first career had been as an ordained pastor in the liberal-leaning United Church of Christ! My first attempt at processing this was writing and performing a one-woman show called “Brand New Jew,” which took me Off Broadway and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But I still had more feelings to explore. Rather than write memoir, I decided to process all these feelings by writing fiction that was comic in tone, but with a serious undercurrent. My new DNA first cousin is black and half-Jewish, and I thought about her journey as well when I was writing this comic fiction.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
If your family is completely joy-filled and without any challenges, then this book is not for you! Everybody else, step up and buy a copy. Although it seems at first to be a book about DNA and adoption and coming of age, or maybe about finding a religious and cultural identity, the book is actually about how to deal with all the imperfect people in your family. Each chapter is prefaced by an excerpt from one of Rabbi Brad’s self-help books about family life, and readers have said they now want to buy these books, which, of course, only exist in my imagination. I drew from my study of family dynamics and counseling at Yale Divinity School to offer real, honest advice sprinkled in with the humor.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Rose Pettigrew is a young woman struggling with discoveries that she is multi-racial, and although she was raised as a fierce social-action Catholic, comes from a distinguished line of rabbis. In our multi-cultural American culture, she struggles to find firm footing and discover who she is, and who she wants to be. Oddly enough, I’d compare her to the young Barak Obama who wrote my favorite coming of age book, “Dreams for My Father.” Barak was raised in a white family and had to figure out his relationship to his father, who wasn’t the most admirable of men.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
This is my first novel, coming after a fifteen-year career as an award-winning and published playwright. After my first two careers, as a pastor in the liberal left-leaning United Church of Christ, and later as a college professor, I went to Boston University to become a playwright, graduating with an MA in Creative Writing. My first attempt at writing about my DNA experience was a play; I wanted to write something on a grander scale. My dream for this book would be a film adaptation.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
I’d sign with a traditional publisher in a heartbeat. I’m just not motivated, at this stage in my life, to spend the next few years pursuing that goal.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
One thing that motivates me is my own inner drive to understand what makes people tick, which helps me understand how I tick, too. A second motivation is that I love to make people laugh and believe that humor can heal people. My third motivation is that I am a born storyteller, as well as being devoted to the craft of telling a story in the most compelling way that I can. Anybody who writes in pursuit of fame and fortune needs therapy.