THE DEFINITIVE RAP: Interview with Tara Ison, author of At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf

 Decades have passed since World War II, but the memories are being kept alive. The stories of the atrocities of the Holocaust and what people endured still emerge. The actual accounts, and the novels that are based on facts. Baila Sebrow, producer and host of The Definitive Rap interviewed author Tara Ison who wrote At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf.  At The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is the story of a twelve-year-old Parisian Jewish girl in World War II France, living “in hiding” as a Catholic orphan with a family in a small village. When Danielle Marton’s father is killed during the early days of the German Occupation, her mother sends her to live in a quiet farming town near Limoges in Vichy France. Now called Marie-Jean Chantier, Danielle struggles to balance the truth of what’s happened to her family and her country with the lies she must tell to keep herself safe. At first, she’s bitter about being left behind by her mother, and horrified at having to milk the cow and memorize Catholic prayers for church. But as the years pass and the Occupation worsens, Danielle finds it easier to suppress her former life entirely, and Marie-Jean becomes less and less of an act. By the time she’s fifteen and there is talk amongst the now divided town of an Allied invasion, not only has Danielle lost the memories of her father’s face and the smell of her mother’s perfume, but her very self, transforming into a devout Catholic—and an anti-semitic, fervent disciple of fascism.  During the interview Tara talked about her personal life and how she came up with the idea for this story, why the story is set in WWII France, as opposed to another occupied country.  Tara described the interesting research she did to write this book, and about the characters, particularly how Marie-Jeanne turns into an antisemitic fascist.   This podcast has been graciously sponsored by JewishPodcasts.fm. There is much overhead to maintain this service so please help us continue our goal of helping Jewish lecturers become podcasters and support us with a donation: https://thechesedfund.com/jewishpodcasts/donate