By Meghan Menzel
Lit House Beat Reporter
On Nov. 13, a singer-songwriter/novelist team visited Washington College for the Rose O’Neill Literary House’s “Jewish Voices” series. Author Anna Solomon and Singer-songwriter Clare Burson collaborated for an afternoon of literature and music in the Egg. Solomon read from her novel, “The Little Bride” with musical accompaniment from Burson.
“Although this will be my first time hearing Clare Burton and Anna Solomon performing together, my individual encounters with each one’s work has led me to see these two as kindred spirits,” said Dr. Dubrow.
Solomon’s novel, “The Little Bride,” published in 2011, is about a Jewish mail order bride, Minna, on her way to America. She finds herself married to a man much older than she is with two sons around her age.
When asked what her inspiration was, Solomon replied, “I was Googling myself.” She had found a site of Jewish women pioneers and found an Anna Solomon who once lived in Solomonville, Ariz. There were a few other women listed. One was a mail order bride in the 1890s. Luckily, the woman wrote her memoir before she died. Solomon read the memoir and decided, “There’s a story here.”
She did research for the novel, but said, “For me, I find that I actually start writing pretty much almost as soon as I start the research.” She didn’t think of “The Little Bride” as “historical fiction.” She thought of it as “writing as story that happens to take place during a different time.” Solomon believes not all the information you research belongs in your book unless you want to write non-fiction history.
Before she wrote “The Little Bride,” Solomon wrote poetry in college and short stories later on. Her stories have been featured in New York Times Magazine, “One Story,” “The Georgia Review,” and “Harvard Review.” She has won the Pushcart Prize twice already.
Solomon and Burson met through their husbands. Before Solomon came to Washington College, she asked Burson if she’d be willing to read her book and write a song for it. Burson “wrote a song within the hour of finishing it.” That first song Solomon heard was “The Morning You Left” about Minna’s mother leaving.
“I just started to cry,” Solomon said. “It was sort of the first moment for me that I really saw Minna in a different way than I had… for me it was an extreme gift.”
Burson has released three albums, her latest one being 2010’s “Silver and Ash.” Her music was featured in the New York Times, “Billboard Magazine,” NPR and NBC’s “Last Call.” Her album, according to Dr. Dubrow, “circles around the dark hole of the Holocaust.” This required, said Burson, “a lifetime of research.” This album is centered around Burson’s grandmother, whom she had to call up for as much information as she could get.
Burson started playing violin at two and a half.
She said, “I was bribed with bubble gum and chocolate and trips to the zoo to play for the polar bears.”
She thought she wanted to stop playing violin altogether in favor of piano, but in the end came back to it. In college, she took singing lessons and played more fiddle than classical.
“I realized that after all those years of bribery and pressure from my parents, it’s [music] actually really something that I love,” she said.
Planning this event was, for Burson and Solomon, a trial and error process of experimenting with songs and readings. But overall it was a success.
Freshman Emma Way said, “I thought it was interesting and beautiful to see written and sung word blended together in harmony.” And now Burson and Solomon may have a new project. One audience member asked if they ever tried writing music and then a story to go with it.
Solomon replied, “I like that.” Burson hopes to try it too.
Dr. Dubrow said, “In this collaboration between Clare Burson and Anna Solomon, we can see what happens when two artists engage in conversation.
Finding close connections between musical instruments and a white page, between stories sung in a minor key, and narratives recounted in lyrical prose.”