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Book Excerpts

Excerpt From Jacqueline Goldstein’s ‘Ms. Murphy’s Makeover’

December 1, 2016 by The Inside Press

Jacqueline Goldstein’s Ms. Murphy’s Makeover is the story of a collapsing marriage and second-time-around love, but it also provides insider insight into a topical problem–the pitfalls of too much emphasis on standardized testing in schools today. An urban teacher and suburban wife, Charlotte Murphy, comes to suspect that her husband is cheating and that the principal of the vocational school where she teaches English has changed the answers on a Regents exam. Sensing their teacher’s unhappiness, her students contrive to give her a movie-star makeover. When they’re done, Charlotte doesn’t recognize herself and vows to change her life. Charlotte’s new life is complicated by the attention of Theodore Lagakis, the school’s dean, who has a hidden agenda. Whom can she trust? …

4th-cover“Bertie Trombetta died last night. A heart attack. The witch is dead!”

It took a moment for Charlotte to process this information. In the distance, a church bell chimed. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Natalie bowed her head and folded her hands in pretend piety, their lacquered red nails pointing to the ceiling. “There is a God, after all.”

Charlotte closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “Dead? Are you sure? She was here Friday, teaching across the hall.”

The image of Bertha Trombetta, smoking, floated before Charlotte’s eyes.

“Screaming her head off, probably. I bet she gave herself the heart attack. But I must say her timing was perfect.”

This was cold, even for Natalie. But the principal was under a lot of pressure. Charlotte thought she understood. “Are you saying the visitors won’t come?”

Natalie gave a short laugh. “Nothing can stop that.” She placed her hands on Charlotte’s desk and leaned in close. “Life goes on. That’s actually why I’m here. Charlotte, I need you to go to Bertie’s funeral.”

Charlotte immediately shook her head no.

Natalie waved a hand, anticipating Charlotte’s objection. “I know, I know. I should go myself. Normally, I would. But I can’t this week. Not with the visitors from State Ed here. And someone has to represent the school.”

Charlotte thought of an escape. “Does Lagakis know?”

Natalie nodded. “I just told him. He’s in his office, on the phone with the family.”

“Perfect. Send him. Or do we need him in the school?”

Natalie laughed a second time. “Be serious. But yes, he asked and I can’t very well refuse. You’ll have to go with him. I’m sorry.”

Charlotte exploded. “No! And Bertie wouldn’t want me there.”

Natalie smiled, showing newly whitened teeth. “She won’t know.”

Technically, Charlotte could refuse. But Natalie was more than her boss. She was a friend, of sorts. Twenty years ago, they had attended the same college. Natalie recognized Charlotte at a job fair three years ago and offered her the position of teaching English at a vocational high school for cosmetology.

At the time, downsizing at Francis’s firm had made the Murphys anxious, and Francis had been relieved when Charlotte was offered work. He’d kept his job, however, along with a big raise. Now he was after her to quit. And Charlotte didn’t want to.

Natalie pressed her advantage. “You owe me, sweetie. I need this.”

Charlotte made a last ditch effort. “Look.” She pointed at her stack of journals. “I’m swamped.”

“Sweetie, I know you don’t read those things, anyway.”

“I read every word. Unless they ask me not to. It’s for critical thinking.” Charlotte put air quotes around the last two words.

“Save the buzz words for the visitors. I need this, Charlotte. With you there, maybe Lagakis will behave himself.”

“Good luck with that.” Charlotte sighed. “But all right. Under protest. And you owe me.”

“Excellent. Now. A teensy suggestion. At the funeral, glam up a little. Lose the librarian look for a day. Black dress. Heels. Hair down.”

“The librarian look? Is it that bad?”

“Look, we are a school of beauty here. So. You have a black dress?”

“I do, but Francis says black makes me look—conspicuous.” Her husband had used another word, but Natalie didn’t need more ammunition.

“Oh, yes. Pope Francis. Was he speaking ex cathedra?”

Charlotte had to smile at the image of her husband in papal vestments.

“I’d be on the phone to my lawyer so fast.”
Maybe that’s why you’re divorced. Aloud, Charlotte said, “What does it matter what I wear?”

One of Natalie’s more annoying habits was whispering behind her hand. She did so now, although they were alone in an empty room. “You never know who will show up at these things. Bertie was always threatening to go to the media. There may be reporters. That woman had a big mouth.”

“So? Wait. Is something wrong? Is that why State Ed is coming?”

Natalie looked Charlotte full in the eye. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a purely routine visit.”

Jacqueline Goldstein
Jacqueline Goldstein

Chappaqua resident Jacqueline Grandsire Goldstein grew up in the Fordham section of the Bronx, and taught high school English there for 25 years. After retiring from teaching, Jacqueline began to take classes at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College and also joined the informal writing workshop run by Joan Schulman at the Chappaqua Library. Her debut novel, Ms. Murphy’s Makeover, is a work of fiction, but it reflects her experiences as an urban teacher and suburban wife and mother. Jacqueline will be reading excerpts, taking questions, and signing books at nearby public libraries in December 8 (in North Castle), January 7 (in Bronxville, and January 21 (in Mount Kisco). For more information, visit www.jacquelinegoldstein.com.

Filed Under: Book Excerpts Tagged With: book, Chappaqua Author, Jacqueline Goldstein, Library Readings, local author, local writing, Miss Murphy's Makeover

From the intro to Bill Ravies’ new book: “The Way of the Entrepreneur”

December 1, 2015 by The Inside Press

Bill Raveis Book Cover“I was having breakfast with a friend one winter day earlier this year at Jane’s, an outdoor café in Naples, Florida, a few blocks from my winter house in Port Royal. This enclave of 600 estates–ten and 20, 30, even 40,000-square-foot temples to capitalism at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico–is a tropical Newport, Rhode Island, and the only place of its kind on the continent. It also happens to be home to some of the wealthiest individuals and families on the planet. Many come from the world of finance and big business–investment bankers, retired corporate CEOS and CFOs, hedge fund guys–but as many are entrepreneurs, men and a few women who have built business empires (as I have) and made their fortunes in highly individual, innovative ways. They’ve all hit it out of the park.

Which is one of the main threads that run through this book: The way entrepreneurs determine their success by virtue of individualism and an unwavering belief in themselves and their passions.

The subject appears to be timely. More than ever, America is a land of limitless entrepreneurial opportunity. At the same time, it remains the immigrant’s dream, a country in which you can do anything and be anyone you want. All you have to do–aside from working really, really hard–is embrace the immigrant-like ideals of belief in oneself and one’s vision and be embraced, in turn, by family and extended family and friends.

In the end, in fact, it is that community of believers and supporters who help make American entrepreneurs what they are, not only business schools or MBA programs or investors.

It also helps, by the way, to reside outside the corporate mindset. As you’ll see, the distinction between entrepreneurs and corporate executives matters. A lot.

I’ve been out to breakfast and lunch with other business people, some of whom never make eye contact with the servers, much less engage them in conversation. But like entrepreneurs in general, I seem perpetually interested in learning about other people (and, if I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath accurately, which admittedly may be iffy, the majority of entrepreneurs are like me in another respect: We tend to be dyslexic).

So I view encounters with a waiter or waitress as an opportunity to connect not just with another human but, more often than not, with a young person who has his or her own passion, vision and dream.

Our waiter at Jane’s that sparkling, sunshiny morning was a young man in his early-to mid-20s with Slavic features and a strong Eastern European accent. His name was Piotyr–Peter, for convenience in America, he told my breakfast companion and me–and had come from Moldavia three years earlier. After hearing from a Ukrainian friend about life in Naples, he had driven 1,000 miles from Maine with his girlfriend on the dream of one day opening a restaurant of his own, and he had stayed.

“Why leave?” Peter told us. “Is so beautiful!” Then–perhaps taking in our clothes, or the Bentley parked in front, or the fact that we were free to take a late breakfast in the middle of the workweek–he voiced a sentiment that either hasn’t been uttered, or I haven’t heard, in a very long time: “Thank you,” he said, “for building this country!” He was speaking to us but he might as well have been talking to the founders of the nation and the heroes of the American Revolution, who were entrepreneurs in the truest, fiercest sense of the word.

My entrepreneurial journey happens to have been mapped through real estate and a family-owned company, but it could just as easily have been in any industry and any entity. What counts is what you bring to a business–vision, passion, imagination, determination, sheer courage–not what it brings to you.

Our young waiter is on his journey, as I was 40 years ago, practically to the day. Although I live the rest of the year in an equally exclusive community in Fairfield County, Connecticut (one of the richest communities in the United States), I grew up a town away in one of the poorest and roughest sections of one of the poorest and roughest cities in the Northeast…”

Bill Raveis’ The Way of the Entrepreneur is distributed by National Book Network (NBN) and available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble in-stores and online, and independent book stores nationally.

In 1974, Bill Raveis opened the first William Raveis Real Estate office in a room above a grocery store. Today, William Raveis Real Estate, Mortgage & Insurance is one of the top companies in the nation and a full service real estate, mortgage and insurance brokerage with over 3,600 sales associates and 114 offices throughout the Northeast, annual real estate sales of nearly $8.1 billion, 3,000 corporate relocation transferees a year and a total mortgage volume of $10 billion.

Filed Under: Book Excerpts Tagged With: Business, Entrepreneur, Inside Press, opportunity, real estate, theinsidepress.com

From the Chapter: “Six Degrees of Hillary Clinton: My Chappaqua Neighbor”

October 16, 2015 by The Inside Press

Publication date: November 3, 2015 Ingram Publisher Services
Publication date: November 3, 2015 Ingram Publisher Services

An excerpt from Helen Jonsen, a contributing author to a new book, Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox, edited by  Joanne Bamberger.

“Election Day 2014 was the midterm election for the lame-duck years of President Barack Obama. Being self-employed, I avoided the crowds and waited until mid-morning to cast my ballot at our school polling place in Chappaqua, New York, often described as a leafy suburb an hour north of Grand Central Terminal. As I spoke to the volunteer to register, I heard the familiar voices of another voter or two who arrived next to me at the table. To my right were my neighbors, Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Bill Clinton. They, too, had come to meet their civic duty–to vote for our federal and state representatives, local judges, and governor.

We exchanged pleasantries and headed to the little kiosks to fill out our ballots. Secret Service men dressed as casually as the Clintons stood near them in the room. Little by little, others noticed them, but there was no press, no cameras. A number of people asked about their new granddaughter.

Outside, two black SUVs stood at the curb in the bus lane of the closed suburban school that serves as our polling place. When the Clintons came out alone, not in a hurry, I said hello again. They don’t know me well but for 15 years our paths have crossed both here in this berg and elsewhere. So we spoke for a while, not about politics but about mutual friends and acquaintances and local interests. Part of the conversation centered on how much they enjoy living in a town where their privacy has been reasonably protected and where they are comfortable dining, walking, shopping–even voting–without interruption (when reporters don’t have a reason to stalk them, that is).

I have been a television and digital journalist for many years, so I always walk a fine line when it comes to running into the Clintons. I don’t look for scoops but have sometimes been assigned to “cover” them. I am not paparazza. When not working, I’ve settled into the role of observer and neighbor, in their company when our paths cross. This has given me a glimpse into their lives and a perspective about them as people, rather than mere politicians, that others rarely get.

Fifteen years ago, when Hillary Clinton decided she would run for the U.S. Senate in New York, she went house hunting. Ironically, for me, it was the same summer my husband and I were looking for a new community for our family, complete with four children.

It became something of a running gag that Hillary seemed to be following us. I would spend a day with a real estate agent in a Westchester town, and the next day the newspaper would report Hillary had been house hunting in the same community. Our price range was more than a million dollars apart from the former first couple, but we seemed to be looking in similar areas. Finally, I thought I had outrun them by moving to Chappaqua, a town a little further afield.”

“To our surprise, that August weekend in 1999, as we unpacked a mountain of boxes in our new house, trying to find kitchen supplies, bedding, and kids’ shoes, helicopters hovered above our heads. Unbeknownst to us, the day before, the Clintons came to meet the owners of the white Dutch colonial on nearby Old House Lane and closed their own deal on a new home. They walked across lawns and introduced themselves to a few of the neighbors–ironically they were the only ones we knew before moving in. It was clear that sleepy Chappaqua would soon be on the GPS of every news desk in the nation and that Hillary and I were destined to share an adopted hometown. Not long after, the local Gannett newspaper headline read: “First Family of Chappaqua,” along with five articles about the house, the deal, the hamlet, and how life might change for the citizenry because of the new neighbors.

Bill Clinton would be in the White House for more than a year after the purchase, but he and Hillary took possession of the charming colonial in November. In those first couple of months, fences were thrown up, security updated, and Secret Service moved into a rented Cape Cod up the hill from us with access to the Clintons’ home via the driveway and backyard of other friends. Black cars and men in dark suits with curly cords tucked behind their ears became common sights.

Sleepy Chappaqua would never be the same.

There were plenty of things to complain about having the Clintons as our neighbors. Folks who owned homes more expensive than the Clintons or who lived in town for many years were concerned with the anticipated disruption. Some criticized Hillary’s perceived New York carpet-bagging and the intrusion of the press in their quiet town. The state posted “No Parking” signs along the town’s winding roads to keep gawkers at bay.

But when spring of 2000 came and her U.S. Senate campaign was well underway, First Lady Hillary surprised us with her desire to actually be a part of our community. We were delighted when she asked the Girl Scouts if she could march with them in our town Memorial Day parade. Just when we thought things might calm down as President Clinton came to the end of his presidency, on his last day in office, he became embroiled in a pardon controversy. The press swooped in as never before. Live TV trucks parked in front of our supermarket and train station…”

Helen Jonsen is the creative founder and chief storyteller of HJ Media, a consultancy & roll-up-your-sleeves firm focused on media-training, video production, digital, text and social media preferably for “social good.” She is hoping to see a woman in the White House her three voting-age daughters can be proud of (and so can her son).
Visit www.hjmediaconsulting.com.

 

Filed Under: Book Excerpts, Just Between Us Tagged With: book, Hillary Clinton, Inside Chappaqua (Nov 2015), politics

From…A Harrowing Education

October 22, 2013 by The Inside Press

mcquire-head-shotBy Michael McGuire

Andrew sat next to her on the bed. “I’m sorry about Jimmy, he’ll come around, he can just be stubborn sometimes.”

Jenny sniffled, and said, “You are such a good friend, even if it’s only been a day.”

They laughed, and Andrew said, “Did you know that not everyone figured out anything about the torches or the candles like we did?”

Jenny smiled. “Yeah, none of my friends did, but I didn’t want to tell them what we did because I felt weird, like they would feel stupid.”

“Me too!” Andrew said, and then they lapsed into a minute of silence. Finally Andrew said, “Well, do you want to hear another story?”

“You mean, more has happened since last night?” Jenny sniffled, but he thought she seemed better.

mdguire-coverAndrew didn’t know how she knew that was what it was about, but he nodded and then told her about his parents and Constable Jander. When he was done, Jenny was looking at him oddly. “What’s wrong?”

“Is that story true?”

“Why would I make that up?” he said.

“Maybe because your best friend just ditched me and now you want me to be your secret girl?”

The accusation in her eyes hurt him more than what she’d said. In fact, Andrew thought she looked a little scary. Of course now he could see why she would think that, but he hadn’t meant it in that way. Plus, he had been looking forward to telling her the story long before she said anything about her and Jimmy. Andrew felt as though he had to say something quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just thought you’d like the story, and it was basically the same idea you told me yesterday, so I don’t see how you can be upset. But anyway, let’s do the essay.”

He got up from the edge of the bed, and sat at his desk with his back to her, opening his bag and taking out his notebook. Then he heard something soft behind him, turned, and said, “What?”

“Thank you,” Jenny said. “Thank you for the story.” Andrew decided he liked the way she was looking at him.

“Oh, yeah, no problem. What are friends for?” Then he frowned. “You know, I just remembered that I don’t know what the actual assignment is, just that we have one.” They both laughed, and Jenny said, “I think I have it in here, one of my not as good friends gave it to me.”

She pulled a piece of paper out of her bag, but it slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. Andrew knelt to get it, but Jenny did as well. They looked up at one another, and Andrew found himself inches from her face. He’d never been this close to a girl other than his mother, but he was feeling something very different toward Jenny. In fact, he no longer thought she looked like a freak at all. Andrew felt as though his body was being directed by someone else. He couldn’t believe what was happening as he pressed his lips to hers, and felt her pressing back.

Andrew felt as though he were flying through the air, completely weightless. Then after what felt like an hour and a second all at once, she pulled back from him, though he was very aware of their hands touching. “Well, I never did that with Jimmy,” she said, breathless.

Andrew didn’t know what he should say, so he asked the first thing that came to mind. “Well, what did you do?”

“Oh, we just-” but then her expression changed, and Andrew watched as her face filled with fear. He looked around and saw that they were up in the air, only inches from the ceiling. Jenny pulled her hands away from him and they fell to the ground with a thud. He heard stirring downstairs, looked at Jenny, and didn’t like the terrified stare she was giving him.

“What did you do?” she said, slowly.

“I-what-nothing-I don’t know. I’m sorry!”

Jenny got up, grabbed her bag, and as Andrew’s father opened the door, she ran past him, down the stairs, and out the front door into the night.

Michael and his wife, Anne, have lived in Chappaqua for two years with their two troublesome cats. Prior to that, they resided in Manhattan for nearly a decade. Michael works in financial services. A Harrowing Education, a Young Adult Fantasy Adventure, is his debut novel and the first in the series The Way of the Redeemer.

Filed Under: Book Excerpts

Slipping Out from Under

April 24, 2013 by The Inside Press

(L-R) Authors Lori Toppel, Susan Hodara, Vicki Addesso, & Joan Potter. Photo by Margaret Fox
(L-R) Authors Lori Toppel, Susan Hodara, Vicki Addesso, & Joan Potter.
Photo by Margaret Fox

By Susan Hodara

“My left thumb is identical to my right thumb except for a small pink callus below its joint, permanently hardened by the regular pressure of my lower teeth. I am in my  50s–writer, teacher, wife, and mother of two grown daughters– and I still suck my thumb. The left one, never the right; an ingrained response, I know, from my earliest days.

When my first baby was born, my mother revealed that she had to stop nursing me after just three weeks because of an infection in her left nipple. My parents had come to stay in our Brooklyn Heights apartment to meet their new granddaughter. My mother and I were sitting on opposite corners of the sofa when she told me. Sofie lay across my lap and pulled greedily at my right breast; my mother perched upright on the edge of the seat cushion, knees together.

I remember her words, innocent, almost chatty, her eyes averted across the living room as she spoke. Of course I have no memory of my own first weeks, but I can imagine: the very best thing in my new life–my sustenance, my comfort, my reconnection with my mother’s body –suddenly gone. The discovery of my thumb set a lasting pattern: get the need filled, find another way. Though I don’t think about it often, I know my left thumb holds something of my mother for me.

In my childhood memories of her, she is often standing on the sidelines as my father proclaimed, announced, questioned, yelled. She is silent and passive, removed. In the memoir class, after I’d finish reading my work, Joan’s response was often the same: “But what about your mother? Where was she?”

BookCoverPhotoThe fall that our writing group started meeting, my father was declining into the morass of Alzheimer’s disease. Over five years our family had watched him slowly disappear. I talked to my mother on the telephone almost every day, and traveled regularly to Washington, D.C., to visit. Sometimes she cried, from exhaustion or despair.

But the more lost my father became, the more my mother emerged. As I wrote about her and shared my stories in our group, and as I learned about the others’ mothers through the stories they wrote, my understanding started to shift. For the first time in my life, I began to glimpse who my mother was.

I am the only member of our writing group whose mother is still alive, who can still ask her mother questions, compare memories from the past. When I think of the others’ stories– the heartbreaking last days of Vicki and Lori’s mothers, the spreading of Joan’s mother’s ashes–I sense the fragility of the time I have left with my own mother. I have just begun to discover her. It awakens a hunger I can hardly bear to feel.”

Excerpted from Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance with Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, March 2013), a collaborative memoir by Susan Hodara, Joan Potter, Vicki Addesso, and Lori Toppel. Hodara, a longtime Chappaqua resident, is a memoirist whose work appears in numerous anthologies and literary journals, and a journalist who covers the arts for the New York Times and other publications. She and her co-authors formed a writing group in 2006; Still Here Thinking of You presents their stories of their relationships with their mothers, from their early childhoods to their mothers’ later years. Available at Amazon.com and stillHereThinkingOfYou.com.

Filed Under: Book Excerpts Tagged With: memories, Mothers, writing groups

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