Chappaqua Author Draws on Family Experiences to Write Second Novel
If writing what you know about most makes for the most compelling stories, then Lynda Cohen Loigman may have a hit on her hands.
The Chappaqua resident and author traveled back to where she grew up, Springfield, Mass., as the prime setting for her new book “Wartime Sisters.” It is scheduled for release next Tuesday by St. Martin’s Press.
Much like her first book in 2016, “The Two-Family House” where she used ideas from her mother’s history and experiences in Brooklyn, this time she drew inspiration from her hometown.
Loigman’s mother, one of three sisters in her family, moved out of Brooklyn when she was 18 in the early 1960s. Her mother stayed behind to finish her senior year in high school before rejoining the family in Springfield.
“So I had it in my head that I wanted to have this story about sisters who moved, like sisters in transition and what it felt like if one of them was left behind and what it was like to catch up with the others later,” Loigman said.
Instead of her mother’s time period, which Loigman concluded wasn’t intriguing to write about, she focused the book around the lives of two sisters, Ruth and Millie, when they’re living in Brooklyn in the 1930s. But Ruth’s husband gets a job at the Springfield Armory heading into America’s involvement in World War II. Although Ruth and Millie aren’t close, Millie is left behind without family or friends.
Five years later they reunite, but circumstances change and the strains in their relationship grow.
Loigman said that she made multiple trips to Springfield and the armory to research about what life was like leading up to the war and the lives of those who worked at the facility, which had been in operation since Revolutionary times.
“I’m really surprised I learned so much about it and how important it was to the war,” Loigman said. “It’s surprising I never had a class field trip there, but it’s a museum now. The original building, the arsenal building, is a museum.
For Loigman, the satisfaction of having now been a twice-published author has certainly been more personally gratifying than her initial career. A graduate of Harvard before heading to Columbia Law School, her legal specialty was wills, trusts and estates. After Loigman married and had her daughter, the oldest of her two children (she also has a son), she put an end to her full-time law career to raise her family.
However, the dream of being an author had long been in the back of her mind especially since she hadn’t been enamored with law from the start.
“I never really liked being a lawyer and I always had this idea for the first book that I had, since my daughter was six months old, I had that idea and eventually I was just thinking about it so much, but I was really not a writer,” Loigman said.
To realize her dream, about six years ago Loigman enrolled in the writing class at Sarah Lawrence College. The story behind “The Two-Family House” was developed in that workshop.
“I wrote that book through the class, then I got an agent and I kept taking the class,” she said.
Right up until this past year. Aside from receiving direction and being in an atmosphere with other creative people, Loigman made friends with other authors, or people who similarly became authors.
“You don’t make a lot of new friends when you’re 50,” Loigman said. “I have made a lot of new and wonderful friends because of this and that’s a very special thing.”
Loigman does have an idea for her next book but that will be on hold temporarily as she begins heading out to help market “Wartime Sisters.” That starts next Wednesday evening, Jan. 23, when she makes an appearance at Scattered Books, located at 29 King St. in Chappaqua, from 6 to 8 p.m.
For more information about Loigman and her books, visit www.lyndacohenloigman.com.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/