Goldstein, Jan

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Goldstein, Jan

PERSONAL: Married; wife's name Bonnie (a clinical psychologist); children: three. Education: University of Vermont, degree (with honors); earned master's degree. Hobbies and other interests: Rock music, bicycling.

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—Linda Chester, Linda Chester and Associates, 630 5th Ave., Ste. 2306, New York, NY 10111.

CAREER: Writer, poet, playwright, activist, and ordained rabbi.

AWARDS, HONORS: Broadcast Music, Inc., national award for musical, Covenant; honors from Johns Hopkins University and U.S. Secretary of Education; honorary member of board, A Place Called Home (youth facility).

WRITINGS:

Life Can Be This Good: Awakening to the Miracles All around Us, Conari Press (Berkeley, CA), 2002.

Sacred Wounds: Succeeding Because of Life's Pain, Regan Books (New York, NY), 2003.

All That Matters, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2004.

The Post-Revolutionary Self: Politics and Psyche in France, 1750–1850, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

Author of Covenant, a musical.

SIDELIGHTS: Jan Goldstein is a writer, human rights activist, and ordained rabbi. He is also a poet and playwright whose musical, Covenant, earned him an award from Broadcast Music, Inc. While studying in Jerusalem, Goldstein was caught up in the events of the Yom Kippur war and its aftermath, an experience that helped propel his interest in human rights.

In Sacred Wounds: Succeeding Because of Life's Pain Goldstein offers a self-help book that embraces the tragic, painful moments of life as catalysts for improvement and change. He relates the story of some of his own difficulties, including his experiences when his wife left him and he was forced to become both mother and father to his three young children. Emotionally devastated and physically exhausted, Goldstein still managed to ensure his children were taken care of and his other obligations met. The experience taught him to tap unexpected internal resources of mental and physical energy to put his shattered life back together again. He outlines a nine-step program designed to help people harness the often-hidden good in painful and traumatic experiences. At the heart of his method is a means for the wounded to work through their troubles and gain in strength, wisdom, and understanding. Goldstein also includes anecdotes illustrating the use of his system and how it has helped troubled people recover from the effects of alcoholism, abuse, and other problems. The healing effects of meditation and prayer figure largely in Goldstein's program. A Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked that the book "will be of the greatest interest to those seeking an introspective spiritual process of healing."

Goldstein's All That Matters is a "sentimental, uplifting first novel," commented a Publishers Weekly contributor. At age twenty-three, Jennifer Stempler is deep in despair and suicidal. Her mother was recently killed in a car accident. Her father, a successful Hollywood produce, seems completely uninterested in her, instead more dedicated to his gorgeous trophy wife and child. As a final insult, Jennifer's boyfriend has asked her to move out. With a combination of a drug overdose and drowning, she tries to end her life, but is found alive on a California beach. When Jennifer wakes up, she finds her grandmother, Gittel "Gabby" Zuckerman waiting at her side. A Holocaust survivor whose own precarious health is ravaged by emphysema, Gabby is willing to make any sacrifice necessary to save her granddaughter's life. In light of her experiences during World War II, Gabby is appalled by Jennifer's desire to end her life. Gabby had seen her parents and sister killed by Nazis, and she struggled fiercely to survive during the Holocaust years; she feels she must instill that same rugged desire to live in Jennifer. After convincing Jennifer's father that she does not need to be institutionalized and that she can care for her, Gabby and Jennifer return to New York. There, Jennifer begins the long process of healing as Gabby teaches her subtle, profound lessons about the value of life and living it to its fullest. Even if her final days are spent teaching Jennifer this truth, Gabby realizes that they will be the most important days of her life. The novel is a "sweet, touching story about the power of love and family to overcome even the most difficult of circumstances," remarked a reviewer on the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site. Booklist contributor Marta Segal Block concluded that "Goldstein's smooth writing style makes this literary medicine go down easily."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2004, Marta Segal Block, review of All That Matters, p. 60.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2004, review of All That Matters, p. 763.

Publishers Weekly, January 6, 2003, review of Sacred Wounds: Succeeding Because of Life's Pain, p. 55; August 9, 2004, review of All That Matters, p. 229.

Reviewer's Bookwatch, March, 2005, Jean Carroll, review of All That Matters.