Have brunch with the Jason Sommer, local author of Shmuel’s Bridge: Following the Tracks to Auschwitz with My Survivor Father

We’re excited to welcome St. Louis author Jason Sommer to Books & Bagels, the J’s literary brunch and learn series where great conversation, local authors, and fresh bagels come together for a meaningful mid-morning break.

Jason Sommer’s father, Jay, is ninety-eight years old and losing his memory. More than seventy years after arriving in New York from WWII-torn Europe, he is forgetting the stories that defined his life, the life of his family, and the lives of millions of Jews who were affected by Nazi terror. Observing this loss, Jason vividly recalls the trip to Eastern Europe the two took together in 2001. As father and son travel from the town of Jay’s birth to the labor camp from which he escaped, and to Auschwitz, where many in his family were lost, the stories Jason’s father has told all his life come alive. So, too, do Jason’s own memories of the way his father’s past complicated and impacted Jason’s own inner life. Shmuel’s Bridge shows history through a double lens: the memories of a growing son’s complex relationship with his father and the meditations of that son whom, now grown, finds himself caring for a man losing all connection to a past that must not be forgotten.

Program

10am Doors Open & Brunch Served:
11am–Noon Author presentation

Featured Author Jason Sommer

From a fam­i­ly of refugees and sur­vivors, Jason Som­mer is drawn to sto­ry. He is the author of five poet­ry col­lec­tions, earn­ing a num­ber of hon­ors, includ­ing an Anna David­son Rosen­berg Award for poems about the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence and a read­ing at ​“Speech and Silence: Poet­ry and the Holo­caust” at the Nation­al Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Muse­um. Jason lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Register

J Members/Non-Members: $12.97 (includes brunch & all fees)

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