Oakland writer Barbara Quick is on a dizzy course these days, after spinning out two books published just four months apart.
The first, printed in January, is called “Still Friends: Living Happily Ever After…Even If Your Marriage Falls Apart.” It details how couples, including Quick and her ex-husband, maintain healthy connections after divorce.
Then in April came “Under Her Wing: The Mentors Who Changed Our Lives,” which describes the close mentor-protégé bonds between a variety of diverse women.
While not specifically working with Jewish themes, Quick, 45, says her writing and her life are rooted in her Jewish background and values.
Growing up in a non-religious household in Southern California, the author says encounters with bigotry as a child in Orange County gave her a strong sense of Jewish identity.
“It’s very much who I am,” she said, “but I’ve never been an organized-religion type of person.”
Quick attributes her drive to stay friends with her ex-husband to her Jewish ethics. Now separated for more than three years, the writer believes their healthy relationship is crucial for the two of them as well as for their 7-year-old son.
“We really value each other tremendously as people,” she said, noting that the two chat on the phone at least once a day and her ex-husband recently helped her move. “We never say anything bad about each other.
“This sense of respect and compassion I would say, those were Jewish values,” she added.
“Still Friends” documents a Jewish couple with two children who split up. When the father, who was living in Miami, planned to move to San Francisco with his son, the mother also decided to move, with her daughter.
“She lived in one bedroom with the daughter, he lived in another with the son,” said Quick. “The people in the apartment building just assumed they were married.
“They celebrated all the holidays together. They wanted to keep the family life without the romantic part of their marriage.”
This relationship continued for years. When the ex-husband eventually went to live at the Jewish Home, his ex-wife’s boyfriend drove her for visits.
Quick said that after reading her parents’ account in the book, the couple’s grown daughter called her in tears.
“She was happy someone had documented this extraordinary relationship between her parents,” the author said. “The daughter felt her life was enriched by their successful efforts to maintain a family life.”
Quick identifies patterns in couples who manage to stay friends after divorce.
“At the beginning it’s all so traumatic. Everyone goes through a time of anger and grief. It’s unavoidable,” she said.
But in successful relationships, couples do manage to find healing, forgiveness and, ultimately, insight. “You really see the person for who he or she is. You’re in a position to celebrate that relationship.”
If not, Quick believes, “you’re just throwing out that time you spent together.”
When asked to describe her most recent work, “Under Her Wing, “Quick identifies it as “in a sense, a celebration of all the fairy godmothers.” The book includes an account of Quick’s own connection with the late activist and writer Jessica Mitford, who lived in the East Bay.
One remarkable chapter tells of a young woman who had a mentor who enabled her to escape from Nazi Germany as a 14-year-old girl. The sponsor, a Quaker, brought the girl to England and supported her throughout her school years.
“Her story is very touching,” said Quick. While the girl eventually was reunited with her mother and moved to the United States, “she never forgot this woman.” Today, according to Quick, her only regret is that she never adequately thanked the woman who took such great care of her.
Quick’s conclusion is that a strong mentor-protégé connection shares the same qualities as a healthy mother-daughter relationship. If a young woman has a bad relationship with her mother, Quick says, a female mentor often gives her a second chance for a close bond.
Mentors, who uniformly share the ability to be good listeners, help younger women formulate adult identities, according to Quick. “They wave a magic wand and light up the path for us. They say the magic words so we can go after our dreams.”
A longtime freelance writer and editor, Quick published her first book in 1990, a novel about friendship in the wilderness called “Northern Edge: A Novel of Survival in Alaska’s Arctic.”
Still unpublished is a novel called “The Stolen Child,” which deals with a Jewish woman from the Bay Area who travels to Budapest after the death of her young daughter.
While she awaits that book’s publication, she’s keeping busy by working on her memoir.
“My life is very rich and full,” she said. “There’s a real sense of abundance.”