Writer Makes Magic of N.Y.C. Life

Long-time Upper East resident Eve Lederman is on quite a roll. On September 30, her book Letters From My Sister: On Life, Love, and Hair Removal, co-written with her sister Faye, was released by Skyhorse Publishing, while her play, Let it Come Down, is scheduled for its first production on November 17 at Dixon Place downtown.

Lederman and I live on the same block and met, like so many in New York, while walking our dogs, Stella and Tilly, both rescues.

In between rehearsals, book promotions, and a full-time job with a multimedia company, Lederman and I discussed this exciting time in her career.

Tell us a bit about how Letters From My Sister came about.

The book began with emails between me and Faye while she approached college graduation in Chicago and I was trying to establish a career in New York. I lamented my terrible writing jobs (including a newsletter called Healthy Feet), she regaled me with tales about her jock itch, and we both shared stories about our search for the ultimate man (a big, buff, stupid, kind, sensitive, feminist) and the perfect hair removal method. Those letters formed the book’s structure, supplemented by family stories and childhood memories to capture the trajectory of our relationship.

There are some very funny anecdotes, from dating disasters to navigating the streets of NYC on a bicycle. What are some of your favorite moments living on the Upper East Side?

Once I was walking up First Avenue and this ancient, rabbinical looking man approached me from behind and announced, “You have schmutz on your tuchos.” When I got home I looked in the mirror and had to bend over in order to spot remnants of the cleaning powder I had used on my tub, clinging to my black spandex in wedgie territory. What kind of bionic vision did this man have?

I had a memorable moment recently outside Fairway. I offered a Luna Bar to a homeless man nearby, and he replied, “No thanks; that’s for women,” looking down at his chest like it would make him grow boobs. “What?” I said, befuddled. “It’s a protein bar.” “I can’t eat that; it’s for women,” he repeats, pointing to the tiny text on the wrapper: “Sports bar for women.” We paw through my shopping bag and he exchanges it for a Kind bar. Apparently GMOs were fine.

Speaking of bicycling, I saw your fold-up bike locked on our block long before we formally met. The lawless bicyclist is one of my least favorite elements of New York City. How has biking in the city changed over the past 20 years?

It should be a new era with the advent of the bike lanes, but I’m not a fan—they’re filled with people on their phones, pushing strollers, and crossing against the light to their little pedestrian islands on First Avenue. Throw in the delivery guys on electric bikes and city cycling is more of a circus than ever.

There’s a lot of talk about ticketing but it hasn’t come to pass. I’ve deserved a thousand, but only gotten one, recently blowing through a red light (though I only grazed that 80 year-old woman with a cane). I tried to employ the international language of cleavage to get off with a warning, but no such luck!

Sadly, you lost your younger brother to cancer last year, and your mother just a few months ago. How have these loses influenced your latest work?

Neil Simon wrote an essay I love in which he describes himself as a two-headed beast—the human involved in interactions, and the writer-monster who’s simultaneously observing and taking notes. That aptly describes my process. I write what I know—I find that when my heart gets crushed and says oh god, this is devastating, while my head yells at me to take notes because this experience is a gold mine, that’s the sweet spot where I find the most compelling material. I finished a draft of a new play based on these losses, which was a process of grieving and writing along with a dollop of celebrating—capturing the humor in their lives in addition to the horror. As Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Speaking of family, you dedicate the book to your Bubby.

I inherited my gallows humor from my Bubby (Yiddish for grandmother) who, at 85, laughed at the plumber offering her a 10-year warranty on a new faucet. “I’ll take one year parts and labor; I’m not planning on washing dishes for another decade,” she scoffed. Nobody escaped a good kick in the tuchos and I try to carry on her tradition by lovingly ridiculing everyone in my path.

Do people scream like Marlon Brando when they hear your dog’s name is Stella? My life is completely different since I adopted Tilly; have you had a similar experience?

Literary New Yorkers get the reference. Others think I named her after the beer. I just nod politely.

One of my great joys is watching Stella chase a ball in Central Park. In her younger days she’d pirouette through the air like the dog child of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Michael Jordan. At 14 she’s still got game, though occasionally an “oy vey, my back” look passes across her face.

Stella also has a penchant for Bloomingdales. She struts the aisles like a fashionista and leg hugs the salespeople until they offer me 10% off. And of course she tells me my butt looks good in everything. Stella turns every walk into a memorable story.

While Letters has a mostly light tone, your play doesn’t. Tell us about it.

The play is inspired by deposition transcripts from a malpractice case against a therapist. I think the dynamics of therapy are fascinating in that only two people in the whole world know what goes on behind that closed door. Take that intimate relationship and toss in betrayal and deceit, and it’s as powerful and volatile as any romance. The story forces viewers to debate the case and unravel the truth, like in the play Oleanna, I hope it incites fistfights among the audience on November 17!