'Bylines and Blessings': Having faith in a liberal industry - review

Some memoirs are filled with titillating gossip and some with horrific tales of violence and abuse. By comparison, reading Bylines and Blessings: Overcoming Obstacles, Striving for Excellence, and Redefining Success by Judy Gruen is a light stroll through a sweet meadow. 

As the chapters unfold, Gruen traverses two interlocking narratives in this loosely woven memoir. One of these is the story of her career as a writer, from beginning as a very green college student journalist to becoming an established writer and book author with bylines in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News.

Gruen’s first professional gig was writing for a trade publication with the unironic title Hospital Gift Shop Management. Fresh out of UC Berkeley, she began writing about such riveting topics as “How to display merchandise attractively in a small space [and] dealing with shoplifting,” for what she calls “this itty-bitty niche in the retail world.”

Knit into this narrative is a second story, one that is far more compelling. In her early days, Gruen was a largely secular, culturally identified Jew. The book describes how, after meeting Jeff, the newly religious Jewish man she eventually married, Gruen experiences a gradual spiritual awakening and maturation into Orthodox practice. It’s refreshing, given the recent publishing trend of bashing Orthodoxy, that Gruen writes with reverence about her life as a Torah observant Jew.

Combining an entry into journalism and Orthodox Judaism

The reader may be left with the sense that these two elements of her personal journey don’t seamlessly merge. The stories feel carefully curated, which may be ascribed to Gruen’s allegiance to the Jewish value of modesty. Nevertheless, individual chapters are engaging and often written with a light dash of humor.

Although some of the more Jewish material was shared in greater detail in an earlier work, her 2017 memoir The Rabbi and the Skeptic: Falling in Love with Faith, in Bylines and Blessings Gruen focuses on how she has balanced her writing career in an industry better known for secular liberalism than for supporting conservative, religious values.

Plenty of memoir writers bleed all over their pages. Gruen isn’t like that. She writes with a combination of gentle humor and reserve. She does weave some charming stories, even as the reader detects that they are tightly scripted to reveal just so much and no more. 

There are some minor moments of self-disclosure, such as “Confession is good for the soul, so I admit that when driving alone, I’d blast my favorite rock and roll music nearly at rock concert decibel levels.” But even when she’s confessing, there’s no tinge of voyeurism.

One of her more delightful stories recounts how, early in her career, she snagged an interview with Clarence Clemons, the Black saxophone player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, which she placed in the now-defunct Players Magazine, a magazine popularly known as “the black Playboy.” 

In the middle of the chapter, Gruen’s sense of humor and Jewish identity are on display as she writes, “Mazel tov! I had just landed my first X-rated journalism assignment.” The end of the chapter is a humorous retelling of Gruen’s experience skulking around a retailer to buy a copy of the magazine from “the section of the newsstand where naughty magazines lived in infamy behind a curtain.”

While some chapters, such as the one about Clemons, retell episodes in her writing career, others, like “Planning a Career, Planning a Life,” very much focus on Gruen’s Jewish journey. 

Although the drama in the premise of Bylines and Blessings is far thinner than the selling point of other memoirs, Gruen’s writing makes the journey enjoyable. 

Bylines and Blessings would be especially meaningful for those looking for advice about integrating traditional Jewish values and career ambitions. 

It’s also ideal for readers looking for engaging content that doesn’t burn their eyelids or make them cringe with political correctness.

The writer is a freelance journalist and expert on the non-Jewish awakening to Torah happening in our day. She is the editor of Ten From The Nations and Lighting Up The Nations.

• BYLINES AND BLESSINGS: OVERCOMING OBSTACLES, STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE, AND REDEFINING SUCCESS 
• By Judy Gruen
• Koehler Books
• 224 pages; $15