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Love Rekindled in Local Author's 'Save the Last Dance'
By Phyllis McGuire, Special to iBerkshires
07:36AM / Sunday, August 07, 2016
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Eva Ungar Grudin and Eric Joseph sign copies of their debut novel, 'Save the Last Dance,' at Water Street Books in June.


The book is available at Water Street Books and through Amazon, which has a number of good reviews posted.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A reconnection between long-lost teen sweethearts has inspired a modern-day epistolary novel.

But rather than writing pages of snail-mail love letters, Adam Wolf and Sarah Ross in "Save the Last Dance" re-establish bonds through the swift and instantaneous communication of emails and texts.

Collaborators Eva Ungar Grudin and Eric Joseph used their own experiences as the jumping off point for this debut novel, which had a launch in June at Water Street Books.

"We went together up to 11th grade, and set a wedding date when we were 15," Grudin, a retired Williams College art history professor, recalled last week.  

But life intervened and the teenagers did not set eyes on each other after they graduated from Cleveland Heights High School.

"All my life I've looked for someone who loved me as much as Eric did. But anyone who has experienced an intense first love relationship knows it never happens again," said Grudin. "There is a chamber in my heart reserved for Eric Joseph."
 
Ironically, it was after she declined an invitation to her 50th high school reunion three years ago, that she and Joseph reconnected.
 
When Joseph noticed that her name was not on the attendance roster, he asked a mutual friend for Grudin's email address.
 
Grudin made it clear that she was beyond OK with Joseph having her address.
 
"At first, Eric and I exchanged two emails a day, then three a day, then 23 a day. After two months of email, I talked to my husband (about what was happening)," Grudin said, adding that "Eric and I did not see each other until six months after we started emailing."
 
Grudin mentioned the exchange to a friend, and he suggested that the emails be made into a book.

"I felt writing a book with Eric would work," said Grudin. "At 15, he had written reams of short stories and a novel I read.  I knew what he could do with language and he learned what I could do."
 
Joseph now lives in Chicago and has been published in his field of health care education and consulting. Grudin, who taught at Williams for 40 years, has written a number of books about art.

"Save the Last Dance" allows the reader eavesdrop on the main characters as they divulge their lifelong secrets, indulge in flights of fancy, and cope with the distress their reunion has caused others. Sarah and Adam also tell everything they feel and think to confidantes.

"I'm 68 years old and I'm acting like a 16-year-old. What's wrong with me?" Sarah tells her friend.

In an email to Adam, Sarah tries to describe how different she looks from when they last saw each other as youngsters. He tries to convince her that she shouldn't be concerned about that. "I can look through the mask of aging, " he writes. "There are no deal-breakers.”

Of her real life, Grudin, now 70, said, "Although I sometimes feel 16 again with this reunion and rekindled passion, I also feel too old for such enormity of feelings. Being as vulnerable as I was at 16 is too uncomfortable at my age."
 
Through the characters of Adam and Sarah, the authors, according to Grudin, were able to say things to each other they would not say as Eva and Eric.
 
The first chapter of the novel is the true story of Grudin and Joseph; the rest of the novel is fiction, with the authors' insight into the situation.
 
"We were miles apart when writing the book, I in Williamstown, Eric in Chicago, working on Skype, email and phone," Grudin said. "We read to each other what we had written. We brought out the best in each other as authors."
 
They melded their writing so well that Grudin says, "We don't know who wrote what.”

Grudin said writing the novel "was tremendously challenging, but writing is an old-fashioned skill, and we feel a certain mastery of it. ...

"There were no easy parts to that, except to learn how compatible Eric and I am."

But she admitted that promoting the book calls for a skill neither she nor Joseph possesses: working with social media.

"It is new-fangled for us," she said.

As for the ending of "Save The Last Dance," Grudin said. "It's not neatly tied with a bow, it's unexpected."
 
Grudin and Joseph have started collaborating on a sequel to their novel. It will not be in email form, but will allow the reader to "see" the characters interact face to face.

When asked what she would like people to take away from reading "Save the Last Dance,” Grudin replied, "The takeaway from our novel concerns late-in-life romance and the idea that adventures and surprises can still await and that includes passion and taking risks and even venturing into new territory — like writing fiction.

"We offer the reader, I think, an honest exploration of the power and peril of first love — especially teenage love rekindled at 70."

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