This is the first entry on this blog about the book itself. Why a book about seltzer? What does it take to create such a think? Couldn’t I have taken up yoga instead? All that and more to follow.

I’ll tell the story in more detail in future entries, but suffice it to say that last year I wrote a brief (very brief) article about Seltzer for the Jewish Forward. It caught someone’s eye last January and in February (over a very expensive lunch, at least by my standards) she offered to assist me in getting a book published.
At first I thought the idea was crazy — interesting, but crazy. How could there be a WHOLE book about seltzer? What was there to say? And how much of what there was to say would be worth reading?
So between our first conversation (which, I hate to repeat, I look forward to detailing in a future entry) and our lunch a month later, I told none of my friends about the possibility. Instead, I’d bring up my article and then ask, “Hey, if I wrote a book about it, what would the chapters be about?” It was like a fun party game.
Each conversation went essentially the same. First, Dismay: “What’s there to write about?” Then, an Extreme Burst of Creative Engagement: “You have to do a chapter about Egg Creams! And other drink recipes! And cleaning spills! And…” And finally, Obsession: “Remember that book idea you told me about last week? Well, you also have to include…”
That was when I knew I was on to something.
I had a similar experience myself, discovering one random thing about seltzer after another, just by considering all that I knew. Even a month later, it was still fun to think about. So by the time I had that lunch meeting, and I had to decide whether or not to embark on this project, and I had never written a book before, I knew I had the passion it would take. I had caught the seltzer bug.
Still, I had no idea that once I would begin my research that I would be writing about gangsters and radical ministers and Israeli air-pilots and the list goes on and on. As the world of seltzer unfolded during my first few months of research through secondary and primary texts, I was stunned to discover how rich the story actually was. And how interesting.
To begin with what IS seltzer? Ask two people and get two different answers. When was it invented? Read three different sources and, again, get three different answers. I realized the REAL answers to those questions could only be told through recounting the history of seltzer itself, from 400 b.c. to the beginnings of the twentieth century. As I view the book now, that will be the first of our four sections.
The second section, which I think of as “In the realm of living memory” is more about specific aspects of twentieth-century seltzer that can be explored though oral history. For example, what is the history of egg creams? Or of the seltzer bottling business? For these tales I don’t need to read original newspapers from the 1890s. Instead, I can talk with the people who lived it.
The third section, which I think of as “The Seltzer Museum of Popular Culture,” is all about seltzer and the arts, from movies, television and popular songs, to literature, poetry and vaudeville. Clowns and Allan Sherman. Lou Reed and Seinfeld. Mary Tyler Moore and the Simpsons.
The fourth section, for lack of a better concept, is everything else. Seltzer recipes. The best soda fountains in America. The most unusual things people do with seltzer (other than drink it). Things like that. You get the idea.
And while this is not a book about Jews, I want it to be a thoroughly Jewish book. Seltzer, to me, amongst other things, is one of those cultural icons that absorbed and took on the burden of Yiddish-American life. A culture in a glass of water. And I want that spirit to be infused throughout the book.
As a result, I often seek out obscure references to Jews throughout seltzer’s history. While it shouldn’t surprise me to find Jews EVERYWHERE, it always does, whether in sixteenth century Germany selling cows to the guards of the headwaters of Niederselters (where seltzer gets its name) to today’s seltzer manufacturers.
At the same time, for the book, it led me to create Saul. No one has read Saul yet. While I have written almost 100 pages in draft form (to prepare the book proposal and to find a voice and shape for the book) no one has yet to read a page. Which, if you knew me, is unusual. I usually spread a first draft of story to everyone without earshot. But not this time. For some reason, I am keeping it all close to the chest. Partly because, to be frank, I have no idea if Saul is working.
Saul is a character in the book who… well, I won’t reveal it all yet, but let’s just say he takes me through history so I can experience it first hand. I describe him in the book as reminding me of the old guy who sold me pickles from a barrel at the Roosevelt Field Mall when I was a kid. The older generation and the younger generation, together touring history. Will it work? We’ll have to see. If you read the book and there’s no one named Saul it in, then you’ll know he got the ax.
So once I began to write the book, I was having so much fun and was so passionate about it, I decided I couldn’t wait to start sharing. Sure, write a book, but can’t I offer something for you to nosh on in the meantime? If you get too hungry you might leave to eat elsewhere, right? Read a book about bialys or cod. Through this blog, and the podcast, I hope to keep you entertained, to hear from you as well, and keep you around for when the main course is served.
My goal right now is to create a proposal and two or three chapters that can be shopped around to a publisher. How that will happen, and who will do the shopping, is part of the story I refer to above, to be detailed later. But for right now, after three months of challenging, yet exhilarating, research, I am well into writing my first drafts. I have written a segment about the 1910s, two about the 1930s, one about the Israeli War of Independence (yup, there’s a seltzer hook), as well as a history of the word “seltzer” and a sort-of introduction to set up the book. I then plan to write a segment about Niederselters, Germany, Joseph Priestly and… and then I think I’ll have enough to look through for a proposal.
I’ll keep you updated. Thanks for joining me on my publishing journey.