Photography by Gregg Richards
Next month, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi returns to St. Louis, nine years after directing Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ production of A Little Night Music. The energetic designer’s career has also included judging contestants on Project Runway, performing cabaret, and frequenting QVC. The latest addition to his résumé: author and keynote speaker at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.
Mizrahi will discuss his new memoir, I.M., which depicts his thoughts on his Jewish upbringing and a “different kind of Judaism. It really speaks a lot about atheism,” he says. “I don’t really believe in God, and I don’t really practice Judaism, except that it’s in my DNA, my heritage.”
So is it surprising that Mizrahi would lead a festival celebrating Jewish authors? “I’ve been doing talks at Jewish centers across America,” he says, “and I keep expecting them to throw stones at me.” Instead, the response has been welcoming, perhaps because of the book’s “idea of finding your own spiritualism, as opposed to adhering to any particular one kind of belief system,” he says.
When he told his mother he’d be writing a memoir, she told him to tell the truth. He was relieved: Much of that truth involved her and his sisters.
He likens writing to how he designed fashion shows: Models were characters, and they built tension with each step down the runway, telling a theatrical story. But I.M. isn’t fiction, and Mizrahi wanted to “declaw” some of the details and very real characters. “I’m not a wallflower, by any means,” he says. “I’m not shy, but I don’t like fighting. I don’t like bitterness. I’d rather not talk about it. I don’t think [the book’s] bitter, necessarily, but here and there it does illuminate.”
Some of that illumination is cast on what it was like to grow up in a Syrian-Jewish family in Brooklyn. “Being gay, being creative—it’s not the greatest setup in a Jewish community,” he says.
He didn’t allow his family to read the book before publication. “I didn’t want them to say, ‘Oh, do you really have to include that story?’... I don’t think I shied away from any truth in the book.”
His mother is portrayed as a “great woman and loving mother but also a mother who storms in a bedroom and throws a television on the floor,” he says, laughing. After reading the book, she thanked him. “Of course I burst into tears, because so much was on the line between us,” he says. “I so did not want her to die hating me.” That rounded portrait might have been the writing process’ greatest challenge.
“I learned about myself,” he says. “In the face of a job like this, truth is the most important thing to me.”
Best of the Fest
Three must-see writers at Jewish Book Festival
Marra B. Gad
A large part of Gad’s debut memoir, The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl, is yerusha, or inheritance. Detailing what she’s inherited from her family, the book follows Gad when, after 15 years estranged, she develops a relationship with her great-aunt, who has Alzheimer’s. 7 p.m November 4
Art Shamsky
The Major League Baseball player’s new book, After the Miracle: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets, details what happened after the Mets’ 1969 World Championship, which came as a huge surprise, given the team’s last-place standing. Co-written by journalist Erik Sherman, it’s a baseball lover’s ticket to the “Miracle Mets.” 7 p.m. November 6
Sarah Hurwitz
A political speechwriter for former first lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Hurwitz writes about her own journey with Judaism in her book Here All Along. The memoir covers such topics as Jewish holidays, ethics, prayers, and concepts including God, death, and social justice. What does she want readers to take away? Encouragement to make Judaism their own. 1 p.m. November 8
