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Falmouth Jewish Congregation welcomes the public to an author talk on Thursday, April 26 at 11:00 A.M. by Jane Healey. Ms. Healey will discuss her historical novel, The Saturday Evening Girls Club, set in Boston’s North End in the early 1900’s. This event is part of Falmouth Jewish Congregation’s participation in the Jewish Book Council’s Author Network, which brings authors to communities for talks and book signings. Light refreshments will be served. Facilities are accessible to all and everyone is welcome. Eight Cousins Bookstore will handle book sales, accepting payment by credit card, check, and cash. The Saturday Evening Girls Club is a compelling tale of immigration and the timeless search by women to reach their full personal and professional potential. For Healey’s main characters, four young immigrant women living in Boston’s North End in the early 1900s, escaping tradition does not come easy. But at least they have one another and the Saturday Evening Girls Club (SEG), a social pottery-making group offering respite from their hectic home lives—and hope for a better future. Ambitious Caprice dreams of opening her own hat shop, which clashes with the expectations of her Sicilian-born parents. Brilliant Ada secretly takes college classes despite the disapproval of her Russian Jewish father. Stunning Maria could marry anyone yet guards her heart to avoid the fate of her Italian Catholic mother, broken down by an alcoholic husband. Shy Thea is torn between asserting herself and embracing an antiquated Jewish tradition. The friends face family clashes and romantic entanglements, career struggles and cultural prejudice. But through their unfailing bond, forged through their weekly gathering, they will draw strength—and the courage to transform their immigrant stories into the American lives of their dreams. The Saturday Evening Girls Club (SEG) was one of many library-reading groups developed in Boston’s North End by reform-minded local philanthropists to educate and assimilate immigrant girls and to keep them “off the streets.” Edith Guerrier, a young librarian in the North End branch, established the SEG with the support of Mrs. James Storrow, who features prominently in Healey’s novel The Saturday Evening group included the oldest girls, many of whom had dropped out of school in order to contribute to their family’s income. The Paul Revere Pottery (1908-1942) was established to offer these girls a healthy and safe environment to earn their wages, surrounded by their peers. The SEGs, as they came to call themselves, decorated the Pottery’s bowls, plates, vases, and other forms with stylized imagery of animals, flowers, landscapes, and other designs in earthy tones of blue, green, yellow and brown. Because of the design and color of the wares, and the reform-minded philosophy of the Pottery, products of the Saturday Evening Girls Club have become icons of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early twentieth century. Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is one of many art museums and institutions that house a collection of Paul Revere Pottery. In addition to being a fiction writer, Ms. Healey is a freelance journalist and consultant. Her publishing credits include the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, AOL/Huffington Post, the Street, Publishers Weekly, and New England Home. Ms. Healey was inspired to write The Saturday Evening Girls Club after learning of the group’s history while researching an article Paul Revere Pottery. She became fascinated by the relatively unknown stories of these smart, sassy, enterprising young immigrant women living in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century. The vitality of Healey’s fictional account is testament to her immersion in the spirit of the SEG as a creative and successful partnership of Boston’s women from the elite and working classes. Redbook praised her novel as “a breathtaking ode to female empowerment and the American Dream…the ultimate battle cry for female potential.” Come learn more about this lively background and Ms. Healey’s novel on April 26. For more information on the author and her work, visit www.janehealey.com. The Jewish Book Council, which promotes Jewish books through a variety of online resources and programs (awards, author talks, publications), has an excellent website with discussion guides, book reviews, and more, at www.jewishbookcouncil.org. This event will take place at Falmouth Jewish Congregation’s Blanche and Joel D. Seifer Community Center at 7 Hatchville Road in East Falmouth. Reservations are not required. Falmouth Jewish Congregation is an inclusive, egalitarian Reform congregation serving the Upper Cape and beyond, is accessible and welcoming to all. For further information, please visit the website at www.falmouthjewish.org, visit our Facebook page, or call 508-540-0602.