Rachel Cockerell & Lucy Hughes-Hallett in conversation: Melting Point
£6.00
6.30pm, Tuesday 9th July
Description
Join us to hear Rachel Cockerell in conversation with Lucy Hughes-Hallett about her remarkably inventive first book Melting Point, which interweaves memoir with world-changing events.
Exclusively using source material to capture history as it unfolds, the book tells of how in 1907 a ship packed with Russian Jews set sail to Texas. The passengers were persuaded to travel there – rather than Jerusalem or New York, as many of them had dreamt – by David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather. It marked the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when 10,000 Jews fled to Texas in the lead-up to WWI.
Melting Point follows the Jochelmann family and Israel Zangwill (Jochelmann’s closest friend, and the charismatic leader of the Movement) through two world wars, to London, New York and Jerusalem. Their lives intertwine with some of the most memorable figures of the twentieth century, and each chooses whether to cling to their history or melt into their new surroundings. It is a story that asks what it means to belong, and what can be salvaged from the past.
Rachel Cockerell was born and raised in London, the sixth of seven children. She did her BA at the Courtauld Institute and her MA at City University. Melting Point is her first book.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Costa Biography of the Year Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Political Biography of the Year Award. Her other books include the cultural histories Cleopatra and Heroes, a novel – Peculiar Ground – and Fabulous, a collection of short stories. Her next book, The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham will be published in October by Fourth Estate.
Tickets are £6.00 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink.
Please note – regardless of posting details entered, tickets will be held in the shop rather than shipped out.