What could be more enticing than discovering a lost woman writer through a gorgeous portrait hanging in a university library and learning that her 1935 fantasy novel, The Unpredictable Adventure, was banned by the NY public library for being too “risqué” for their shelves? And that was just the beginning. Growing up in a conservative middle-class family in Temple Texas, Claire Myers sought adventure and freedom at an early age.
At twenty she left home and found a community of like-minded free spirits and intellectuals in New York’s Greenwich Village. There, she wrote fiction and essays, including the banned novel. Writings,based on her adventures satirize her work for an Alabama mining company, and her founding of a commune in the Virginia mountains – where the hens refused to lay eggs and chilblains her sent her rushing back to NYC.
Ultimately, deep spirituality informs her quest for self-realization and enlightenment. Her determination to find the good in the human race mirrors values we find in Jewish ethics and teachings. Discovering Claire Myers Owens transformed my life as a mother, a scholar, a friend, and a Jewish woman. Reading her story will transform yours as well.