Authors Interviewing Characters: Lisa F. Rosenberg

 Fine, I’m a Terrible Person

Fine, I’m a Terrible Person is a funny, heart wrenching adult mother daughter story. It begins when 73-year-old, worn out, former beauty, Aurora Hmans Feldenburg, a hapless, perpetually broke, eccentric, divorcee living in the wealthy enclave of Marin County in Northern California, is wakened by a phone call informing her that her father’s widow, has died. Possibly her last chance at solvency she decides to drive to Los Angeles to see if there is a will and how she might benefit. Aurora is always ready for the next get rich scheme.

Aurora’s daughter, 43-year-old Leyla Feldenburg Rothstein, is a hypersensitive, insecure, perfectionist, insomniac, emotionally damaged from her father’s lifelong abuse and rejection. She is married to a wealthy, prince charming, investment banker who specializes in the legal Cannabis industry. Leyla spends her days keeping up with the other Marin uber mom’s, manically pursuing perfection in herself, her home, and her children. When she overhears a conversation at parent’s night at her children’s elite private school, and suspects her husband is embarking on an affair, she decides to sneak into a Cannabis business conference he is attending, also in LA, to spy on him and put her suspicions to rest. While at the conference she accidentally ingests 40 mg of THC packed granola bite samples. 

Aurora and Leyla’s separate quests intersect and enmesh in Los Angeles over the course of a weekend, where they both end up staying with cousins, quirky, endearing, Sephardic Jews who speak Ladino, mostly in proverbs and cook prodigious quantities of delicacies from the old country, the island of Rhodes. When Aurora’s meager inheritance is stolen by a trusted cousin, she drags Leyla into a ludicrous chase, they have been down this road before. Unable to resist the pull of the trauma bond she shares with her infuriating mother; Leyla fails to adhere to her boundaries, even after years of therapy. She risks losing everything to another one of Aurora’s harebrained schemes. Their entangled journeys and the chaotic, catastrophic outcome are the last straw for Leyla who must break free from her mother’s toxic dependency and destructive attachment to save herself, her marriage, and her young family. 

The author’s family heritage is Rhodeslis, Ladino speaking Sephardic Jews from the island of Rhodes. The novel celebrates the real culture of “Rhodeslis” in Los Angeles.

The following is an interview with the Author and Leyla. 

Author: How are you and your mother, Aurora, different from one another? 

Leyla: I have made it my life’s mission to be the opposite of my mother in every way. If I found a way that we are alike, I would do anything within my power to rectify that immediately. 

Author: We read that you have had a lot of therapists. Are you still in Therapy? 

Leyla: I am interviewing new therapists right now. There is one I kind of like, but the “recap” gets harder and harder to do with each potential candidate.

Leyla: After this most recent disastrous escapade in Los Angeles with my mother, I think I might just take a break from therapy for a bit. 

Author: I love all of the proverbs in the book. Do you speak Ladino?

Leyla: I spoke Ladino fluently as a small child at home. Once I went to school it embarrassed me, and there was really no one to speak to anyway other than my grandmother, aunt and mother. We were our own little community. I still understand enough to decipher my mother’s endless supply of daily proverbs. It’s funny though, I find myself speaking to my kids in proverbs now. Quien hijo cri’a, oro hila. To rear a child is to spin gold.

Author: Did you ever get around to baking any of the delicious recipes from Estrella’s kitchen that we read about?

Leyla: Yes! My kids and husband love all the baking I’ve been doing since returning home from LA. I have been kind of housebound while my injuries heal, so I have busied myself in the kitchen making Estrella’s Potato Borekas, Spinach Boyus and her aromatic Sutlach (rice pudding.) The kids have to fight their grandmother off in order to get their share. Aurora never passes up a platter of Borekas.

Author: The car accident was devastating. Did it change your relationship with your mother? Did she ever apologize?

Leyla: You’re joking right, apologize? Aurora would never accept responsibility for anything. I have finally come to terms with that. She will never change, but I have learned to manage my expectations better. I have learned to say no. I never realized how simple it was to just say no. I don’t know if it was all the years of therapy finally kicking in or the gash across my forehead, fractured collarbone and broken wrist that finally put me over the edge. 

Author: Have you been in touch with your cousin Eliezer? Did he ever get caught?

Leyla: I cannot discuss that on the advice of my attorney. All I can say is: La vida es una avika, kuando blandika i kuando durika. Life is like a bean, sometimes soft and sometimes hard.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews