Hope for the Dream

President Obama. How wonderful it feels to write those two words, savoring them as I wait for the inauguration events to be televised today.

Me, in the white jacket, meeting Rabbi Capers Funnye, Jr. Beside him is his wife, Mary.

Last night I attended a utterly transformational event at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was a dual celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday and the inaugural of Barack Obama, featuring Michelle Obama's cousin, Chicago Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr., and the spiritual, soulful, and roof-splitting music of the "Prince of Kosher Gospel," Joshua Nelson, and double Grammy-winner Cissy Houston -- mother of Whitney, aunt of Dionne Warwick, and a powerhouse in her own right.

Miss Cissy Houston

Gospel, Dixieland, and Soul shook the rafters, much of it sung in Hebrew. Members of Stephen Wise and their guests, who included clergy of other faiths, African-American Jews from several local and not-so-local congregations, and people of all colors and every generation were on their feet for much of the concert, encouraged to keep the beat with their hands and feel the music. I was profoundly moved by the sight of Joshua Nelson's nonagenerian grandmother, seated in a wheelchair near the stage; while beside her, a baby girl, all pink and white, was bouncing on her mother's lap.

Rabbi Funnye with Haim Handwerker

When the musicians took a break, journalist Haim Handwerker interviewed Rabbi Funnye, whose responses to Mr. Handwerker's questions were thoughtful, moving, insightful, provocative, and humorous. Handwerker marveled that during the election, Mr. Obama had his wife's cousin as a "secret weapon" in his arsenal, and yet Rabbi Funnye was not tapped to speak to some of the American Jews who were wary about voting for him, unsure they could trust Mr. Obama to be a friend to Israel and support Jewish interests.

"Well, they know I'm here," the rabbi jested, indicating that he would always be eager to enter into a dialogue with people. "If you don't talk, you don't communicate, how can you understand what the other person is saying? I've been in the room when both sides were saying essentially the same thing, but they were saying it so loudly, they couldn't listen to each other. "

I, for one, cannot wait to visit Rabbi Funnye's shul the next time I'm in Chicago.

Joshua Nelson

In the Stephen Wise sanctuary the feelings of hope were palpable. The excitement in the room over the impending inauguration of Barack Obama, and the fact that with his historic election we have moved closer to Dr. King's dream of equality and justice for all people, moved an SRO audience to repeated bursts of applause. I can't remember the last time I've been in a room full of people -- mostly strangers to each other -- that was so full of love and hope and possibility, brought together with the universal language of music.

The evening ended with hundreds of people joining hands and singing "We Shall Overcome," although Mr. Nelson first suggested that we "update the lyric a little bit."

"We Have Overcome," Miss Houston sang, her voice warm and mellifluous. We're not there yet, the evening's headliners acknowledged; but with Mr. Obama's election as our nation's 44th president, we've taken a giant step in the right direction.

Happy Holidays!

As we wind down 2008 and pray and hope and strive for a brighter, rosier, and more prosperous 2009, allow me to wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday, full of warmth and merriment.

And may this season of wintry darkness be illuminated with the glow of inspiration, creativity, joy, and inner peace.

Blessings,

Leslie

In Praise . . . Postscript R. I. P. Mrs. Dunham

Just hours before Election Day, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama announced that his 86-year-old grandmother died Monday after a battle with cancer. The news comes a week after he visited Madelyn Payne Dunham in Hawaii after she fell seriously ill following a hip fracture.

Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement was made with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, who referred to Mrs. Dunham as "the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances."

In Praise of Older Women...

I've never gotten political on this blog, although my family and friends have no doubt as to my personal beliefs. But I was tremendously moved this morning to read that Senator Barack Obama is taking time off from his presidential campaign at this momentous time, in the eleventh hour before the election (in fact in many states the polls are already open), to visit his gravely ill granny, Madelyn Payne Dunham.

Now, there's a real reason for a candidate to suspend his campaign for a while.

The senator has never shied away from highlighting the importance of his maternal grandmother in his life. In a campaign ad he described her as the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland" -- things like "accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated.

"She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. "

Barack Obama with his grandparents in an undated photo taken --right in my neighborhood -- outside of Central Park, when Obama was a student at Columbia University.

Those words could just as well describe my own grandmothers. Not a day goes by that I do not miss them. I have never met Mrs. Dunham of course, but my eyes mist over when I read about the extraordinary bond she shared with her grandson and the values she passed on to him, because they are so eminently relatable.

My grandmothers encouraged and indulged me as they taught me the ideals of social responsibility, instilled and nurtured the virtues of endless curiosity and creativity, and inspired me to dream. No goal was too lofty or unattainable if I strived for it.

I am who I am -- as a woman, as an artist, and as a citizen -- because of two magnificent older women, each different in her own way from the other, but each of whom shared Mrs. Dunham's Golden Rule creed. All my life I have aspired to "treat [my] neighbor as I would like to be treated." I hope that most times I have succeeded.

And I'd also like to think that a U.S. President who pays such homage to the values instilled in him by his smart, pragmatic, and loving grandmother will be an asset to our country in a time where the culture of "me" -- not "we" -- has contributed to the sorry state of the economy.

Don't forget to give her a good long hug, Senator.

What about you?  Did one or both of your grandmothers play a special role in your life?  What do you remember most about your relationship with her?

Royal Affairs is now on sale!

Jane Austen, who never married, nor had kids, famously said "My books are my children." I just gave birth to my twelfth book yesterday, and feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment mingled with extreme relief.

ROYAL AFFAIRS: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy is also my nonfiction debut. It was the most difficult project I'd ever tackled because of the sheer scope of it , because I had less than half a year to research and write about over 900 years of history, and because (coming to nonfiction from novel writing) it was the first time I couldn't make stuff up! So I'm mighty proud of this new baby, all rosy and red-cheeked and ripe for reading.

I do hope you'll do more than peek between the covers and cuddle up with ROYAL AFFAIRS this summer. Dive into it at the beach, hang with the royals in your hammock, or go trysting the night away.

And do stop by to let me know who your favorite couples are!

Crystal Vision: Billy Crystal a Baseball Minor Leaguer?

According to the Associated Press wire, Billy Crystal will get to fulfill a lifelong dream by playing for his beloved New York Yankees -- albeit their minor league franchise. The comedian has , with the permission of Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, signed a contract with the Yanks, which allows him to work out with the team today and suit up for tomorrow's exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. A nice 60th birthday present! (Crystal hits the big six-oh this Friday, and will sport the number 60 on his pinstriped jersey).

What would Venus deMarley, the heroine of my recent contemporary release, CHOOSING SOPHIE, have made of such a celeb in her clubhouse?

She might suppose that he couldn't possibly be worse than some of the players she'd inherited when she took over her late father's cellar-dwelling minor league team, the Bronx Cheers.

Actually, Crystal might be better. Evidently, he had a batting average of .348 (better than a pre-juiced Barry Bonds, in fact) and was captain during his senior year at Long Beach High School on Long Island.

PLAY BALL, BILLY! This Mets fan will be rooting for you anyway!

Here's to You, Mary Robinson!

Overnight she became a star. Over many nights she became a legend.The amorous adventures of a celebrated English courtesan come to life in a novel rich with the pageantry of history—and with the notorious desires of the men and women who helped to define it.

Today marks the release of my fourth historical fiction title, ALL FOR LOVE: The Scandalous Life and Times of Royal Mistress Mary Robinson.

Narrated in Mary’s voice, the novel charts the steep rise and descent of one of the great celebrities of the 18th century, and yet Mary Robinson is little known to Americans. Yet she hobnobbed with so many luminaries of the Georgian era, which are “household names” to us: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, David Garrick, Thomas Gainsborough, Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and of course, her first lover, the teenage Prince of Wales, later George IV.

All of these august personages figure as characters in ALL FOR LOVE.Mary’s writings, so well known in her time, are scarcely taught in our high schools and universities, although I was delighted to meet a University of Pennsylvania English professor who not only teaches Mary’s work but has written about it himself from the academic’s perspective.

At only fifteen, Mary Robinson was married off to an unfaithful wastrel. During the next seven years, her spellbinding talent, beauty, and drive would lead her from the denigration of debtors’ prison to the London stages, where a star was born. With the heart of a poet and face of an angel she was sold as society’s darling. Though dubbed “the priestess of taste” for her dashing style, her unabashed exploits made her the queen of scandal, envied by women worldwide, and desired by every man within reach.

The future George IV

From Mary Robinson’s shocking affair with the Prince of Wales and the fortuitous liaisons that titillated the country, to heartbreaking betrayals and a restless pursuit of true romance, this breathtaking novel paints a vivid portrait of a woman who changed history by doing as she pleased—for money, for fame, for pleasure, and above all, for love.

John Dryden (1631-1700)

The title of my novel is taken from the 1677 drama about Antony and Cleopatra by John Dryden, the full title of which is ALL FOR LOVE—OR THE WORLD WELL LOST. Not only did Mary Robinson perform in that play during her career as the brightest light on the London stage in the 1770s, but the full title has such beautiful resonance to the story of her life. Although Mary played many of Shakespeare's heroines, numerous other classical roles and several leading parts written by contemporary playwrights, she was best known for the role in which she attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales--Perdita, the lost princess disguised as a shepherdess in The Winter's Tale, or more accurately, in Garrick's reworking of the play, retitled Florizel and Perdita. "Perdita" literally means lost girl, which also describes Mary in many ways. Signing himself "Florizel," the prince wrote copious love letters to his Perdita.

Born between 1756 and 1758 (I settled on 1757) Mary’s early childhood was spent in an affluent merchant’s home in Bristol. But her father, Nicholas Darby, an adventurer as well as a dreadful businessman, turned out to be an adulterer as well, and abandoned his wife and their three children (one of Mary’s brothers died of smallpox a few years later) He returned from a failed venture in the North American fur trade, and took up residence in London with his mistress, expecting his wife Hester to fend for herself and her children. But when Hester, needing an income, opened a school, her estranged husband was scandalized. How dare she bring shame upon his name by working?!

Mary was one of the rare girls to have some formal schooling during the era. She attended the academy run by the More sisters in Bristol, and Hannah More, in her pre-evangelical years was one of Mary’s tutors. Mary displayed an early aptitude for acting and eventually won an audition for David Garrick, artistic director of the Drury Lane theatre.

David Garrick (1717-79)

But her theatrical debut was postponed by two events: a bout of smallpox, and her mother’s insistence that she marry well instead of pinning her hopes on a stage career. What happened next set the wheels in motion for the rest of her life, and I won’t give away all the dips and turns on its wild ride. Suffice it to say that every time Mary hit rock bottom, she courageously managed to reinvent herself and in each profession she tried, from acting to courtesanry, to writing (poetry, bestselling novels, plays, operas, and essays) to radical feminism. Off the bat, I can’t think of any women of our era who have managed to attain a zenith in so many careers, all while raising her only child, Maria Elizabeth, as a devoted single mother.Mary died of illness in 1800 at the age of forty-three, having accomplished an extraordinary number of things, including a vast body of writing, during her short life. Sure, she had flaws—she was, after all, a real person. But she also impresses the heck out of me, I must admit. And I can’t help thinking what else she might have been able to achieve, had she spent more time on earth.

Had you ever heard of Mary Robinson before?