Zelda Popkin
Zelda Popkin (née Feinberg; 5 July 1898 – 25 May 1983) was an American writer of novels and mystery stories. She created Mary Carner, one of the first professional female private detectives in fiction. Carner was a store detective who appeared in five novels.
Life
[edit]Zelda Popkin was married to Louis Popkin, and together they ran a small public relations firm until his death. They had two children, Roy and Richard.
Work
[edit]Popkin's most successful book was The Journey Home, published in 1945, which sold nearly a million copies.[citation needed] Small Victory, published in 1947, was one of the first American novels with a Holocaust theme, and Quiet Street (1951) was the first American novel about the creation of the state of Israel.[citation needed]
She also wrote an autobiography, Open Every Door (1956), chronicling her childhood, life with her husband Louis Popkins, and life after his death.[citation needed] Herman Had Two Daughters (1968), a novel about two young Jewish women growing up in a small Pennsylvania town, is also largely autobiographical.[citation needed]
Awards
[edit]- 1952 Jewish National Book Award for Quiet Street[1]
Books
[edit]Mary Carner Crime Series
[edit]- Death Wears a White Gardenia (1938)
- Time Off for Murder (1940)
- Murder in the Mist (1940)
- Dead Man's Gift (1941)
- No Crime for a Lady (1942)
Novels
[edit]- So Much Blood (1944)
- The Journey Home (1945)
- Small Victory (1947)
- Walk Through the Valley (1949)
- Quiet Street (1951)
- Open Every Door (1956)
- Herman Had Two Daughters (1968)
- A Death of Innocence (1971)
- Dear Once (1975)
Non fiction autobiography
[edit]- Open Every Door (1956)
References
[edit]- ^ "Past Winners". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 2020-01-19.
External links
[edit]
- 1898 births
- 1983 deaths
- 20th-century American novelists
- American mystery writers
- American women novelists
- Jewish American novelists
- Jewish women writers
- American women mystery writers
- 20th-century American women writers
- Plainfield High School (New Jersey) alumni
- 20th-century American Jews
- American novelist, 19th-century birth stubs