Before And After Zachariah [Paperback]

Fern Kupfer (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 247 pages
• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897333039
• ISBN-13: 978-0897333030
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fern Kupfer is a memoirist, columnist, novelist and popular speaker. She is currently completing a new book, Leaving Long Island,a memoir about being a woman of a certain age (born in 1946) and surviving the loss of a child, the explosive end of a long marriage, and the discovery of a genetic inheritance (the BRCA 1 gene) endemic to the Ashkenazi Jewish population. It is a second half of life story, without any sensational theme of surviving molestation, substance abusive or captivity, but a dead-true depiction of an ordinary life of pain and happy second chances.

Fern Kupfer's work has appeared in Newsweek, Newsday, Redbook, Family Circle, American Way, Woman's Day, The Women's Review of Books, Writer's Digest, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Parents magazine, Moment, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan and The Des Moines Register; her essays have been widely anthologized in college texts and popular collections including Nice Jewish Girls (Plume/Penguin), The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives and Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers on Fairytales(Anchor/Doubleday)

Her columns "Mothering " and "A Certain Age" appeared every three weeks in Newsday from 1993 - 2005.

Her novels' include
Surviving the Seasons (Delacorte)
No Regrets (Viking)
Love Lies (Simon and Schuster).

A memoir, the best selling Before and After Zachariah, a story about family life with a severely disabled child is in its third edition (Academy Chicago). All of her books have been published internationally. Surviving the Seasons was nominated for the Jewish Book Award.

Fern Kupfer has been a public speaker for family advocacy and special needs children, lecturing all over the United States at conferences, hospitals and schools. She has appeared on Good Morning America and has been interviewed by Oprah Winfry.

Until her retirement from the creative writing program at Iowa State in 2011, she was a tenured professor, teaching creative writing and magazine writing at Iowa State University.

She is married to the Lebanese-American writer Joseph Geha. Their family combines step-children and grandchildren, middle-easterners, mid-westerners, gentiles and Jews. They live in the middle of the country - Iowa - where the corn is high, the political caucus begins, families grow hearty and the people are almost always nice.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I ruled the world, every parent would have to read this!!, July 22, 1999

By 

Eva Reynolds - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before And After Zachariah (Paperback)

This book is especially helpful and insightful for those of us who have handicapped children, but I really believe every mom or dad could learn from it. Although the "I'm so glad it's you and not me" phrase is thrown at us "special" parents way too often, there's some truth to the fact that most parents never have to deal with anything that remotely comes close to the things that happen daily when a family includes a disabled child. I especially appreciated the stories in the book from other parents of disabled children. Ms. Kupfer hit it right on the mark when she brought up the issue about "accepting" her child's disability. I wish the therapists and care providers and docs could get hold of that concept and really understand it. Awesome, wonderful book. It's old, but still good -- and very applicable in our society today that is pushing to do away with institutions for the disabled. What has always made our country great is our freedoms and our wonderful ability to choose out of all the opportunities available to us. Some would take this choice (to make use of institutions) away and call it a step in the right direction. They are sadly mistaken. Read this book and you will not be disappointed.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important and rarely-heard perspective, February 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Before And After Zachariah (Paperback)

As the sister of a profoundly retarded young man, I recommend this book to anyone related to or otherwise close to a person whose mental functioning is severely impaired. While there is much material available on the mildly and moderately retarded, few books are written about the lives of the severely and profoundly retarded and their families. Fern Kupfer tells her family's story well, and by including quotations from many other parents of severely retarded children, she also puts that story into perspective. Her family's decision to place Zachariah in residential care was not made lightly or easily, and those who are struggling with their choices in caring for their relatives will find this book compassionate and helpful, as well as refreshingly honest. This book is also an important reminder to all that while the vast majority of retarded people can be "mainstreamed" with success, a significant minority do need a level of lifetime care that is extraordinarily difficult for a family to provide.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good, Realistic Picture of a Child w/Multiple Challenges, August 31, 2000

By 

BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Before And After Zachariah (Paperback)

The world was first introduced to Zachariah in a 1980 article of "Redbook" magazine. Fern Kupfer writes with a clear, clean, crisp and very direct style that is sure to reach all readers.

In more recent years, her severely developmentally delayed son's progress has been updated in this book. It made the reader feel somewhat bonded to the Kupfers (Fern Kupfer has written some delightful fictional stories that have appeared in "Redbook" and other magazines) and all the more interested in the approaches used to teach and raise this perpetual infant.

Zachariah's older sister, Gabi, provides comic relief. Bright and verbal, Gabi possesses a savvy that shows up at a very early age. Wonderfully original, Gabi is never at a loss to express herself and her mixed feelings about her brother. One does sense that Gabi feels a real loss. Her brother is on the developmental plane of an infant and most likely will remain an infant for the rest of his life. She is funny, lovable and unflinchingly honest in her assessments. It is through Gabi that one gets an even clearer picture of life with a loved one who is severely developmentally delayed.

Some years have passed since the latest update on Zachariah's progress. The residential program in Iowa where we last checked in with Zachariah sounded like a wonderfully humane place and one where persons living as perpetual infants got good, loving care and full protection.