You Gotta Have Balls

by Lily Brett

Notes by
Kay Perry

CAE

the journey continues
The notewriter
Kay Perry studied English and history at Monash University and
found this to be habit-forming. She now teaches at the CAE.

The text
References in these notes are to You Gotta Have Balls by Lily Brett
(Picador, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2006).

This booklet is Number 1944 in the series of Book Discussion Notes
produced for CAE Book Groups.

© CAE Book Groups, 2007
253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 3000, Victoria, Australia
Telephone: [phone]
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You Gotta Have Balls
by Lily Brett
Introduction

Maybe you can't judge a book by its cover, but you can learn a lot
from its title. You Gotta Have Balls establishes from the first a tone
of gutsy irreverence. As readers we rightly expect the kind of story
that will play with double meanings and innuendo while exploring
the question of just what qualities are needed to get ahead in life.
The novel's central character, Ruth Rothwax, is successful but
stressed. Her eighty-seven year old father, Edek, has moved to New
York and begins to form plans that Ruth considers wildly
ambitious. When it becomes clear that Edek's appetite for female
company is undiminished and also that he fancies himself as something
of an entrepreneur in the restaurant trade, Ruth goes into a tailspin. Ruth sees herself as Edek's protector, but Edek proves - in
every sense - he has sufficient 'balls' to manage for himself. You
Gotta Have Balls charts the changes in their loving but fraught
relationship as Ruth learns more about her father, herself, and the
allure of Polish home cooking.

About the author

Born in Germany, Lily Brett came to Australia with her parents in
1948. She is the author of four novels, three books of essays and six
volumes of poetry, including The Auschwitz Poems which won the
Victorian Premier's Literary Award. Since 1989 she has lived in
New York with her husband, the painter David Rankin. There are
numerous parallels between Brett's life and her work, which have
raised questions regarding autobiography. As Brett said, "My female
characters have always had parents who were in the death camps".This echoes her own situation in that both her mother and father
survived Auschwitz concentration camp. In speaking of the
atmosphere in which she was raised, Brett has observed, "We were
tied and threaded. We were bound and wedded. To a past. A past
that was present in our every breath".2 She has also said, "I grew up
in the middle of great grief ... and I grew up in the middle of great
love".3 Both of these qualities are evident in the relationship
between Ruth and Edek in You Gotta Have Balls.

Nevertheless, Brett insists that her work should be seen as fiction
and not as autobiography. She states:

People have thought that I write about my life. I haven't helped that,
particularly in the later books, because when you give your central
female character a husband who's a painter and they have three
children and they live in New York, then you're asking people to
think that you're writing out your life.4

Despite these similarities, Brett draws attention to her re-shaping of
the material of biography. "It isn't my life", she states:

If you were to write out your real life, many parts of it would be
very tedious. I think that all writers write out of themselves, so
people are right to feel that I'm writing out of myself and they're
right to feel they know me especially after reading many of my
books. But it isn't my life, and that's one of the great luxuries of
writing - you can make yourself something that you're not,
something that you aspire to be. Ruth Rothwax has an independence
that I envy.5

As readers, we need to be careful not to conflate the biographical
Brett and the fictional Ruth Rothwax.

Characters

Ruth

There is much that is paradoxical about Ruth Rothwax. Her highly
successful business is based around the art of communication and her
greeting cards find the positive aspect of just about any situation.Ruth herself, however, is not an emotionally robust character. Ruth is
a worrier who sees the potential for disaster in all situations. When
talking with her husband about the weather, she reflects:

It wasn't just rain ... Nothing was just anything. Chocolate wasn't
just chocolate. Chocolate made you fat. Cheese wasn't just cheese.
Cheese could ... clog your arteries. Sun wasn't just sun. Sun
produced melanomas and heat rashes and heatstroke and sunburn
and blisters. Nothing was just anything. Everything had a
consequence, (p.270)

Continually conscious of negative consequences, Ruth leads a
carefully circumscribed existence. As her father and her friend
Sonia eat delicious restaurant meals, Ruth restricts herself to
nibbling steamed vegetables or sipping chamomile tea. She cannot
relax and ruefully notes that she is the "Queen of Planet
Complaint" (p.42).

Early in the novel, we are made aware that Ruth is the child of
Holocaust survivors. "It is not so easy", as Edek observes, "to have
parents what was in concentration camps" (p.208). All her life, Ruth
has lived with the feeling that people could easily disappear. She has
regarded herself as an "inadequate replacement" (p. 32) for the family
members her parents had lost, and she has grown up feeling - as
Brett likewise did - "that the dead were more present in our house
than the living".6 The consequence of this has been a tendency to
fearfulness:

Self-inflicted anxiety and fear, self-inflicted suffering, Ruth thought,
was something children of survivors often sought. It somehow
validated their life. Allowed them to live. There seemed to be a need
to pay a price for any sense of well-being. And made a life with too
much happiness seem perilous, (p. 134)

At times, Ruth's life - which features a loving family and
rewarding, well-paid work - may seem virtually ideal, but Ruth's
long-ingrained and painful attitudes ensure that she does not see it
as such.Unlike some of Brett's earlier works You Gotta Have Balls subjects
its protagonist to a certain degree of gentle mockery. We are surely
intended to see something comic in Ruth's obsessive need to bring
her own meals with her "in a plastic leak-proof food storage
bag" (p.35). Moreover, we are invited to see her possessiveness
regarding Edek as excessive.

While others can discern good qualities in Zofia, Ruth resents her
from the first meeting, seeing her as a predator. This, as Sonia tells
her, is scarcely an admirable perspective from someone who
professes to believe in "sisterly solidarity" (p. 115), but then, Ruth
doesn't really have much success in this area. Her attempts at
forming a women's group are continually frustrated and we are left
to wonder whether this is a comment on women or on Ruth. Ruth's
elaborate guidelines, " Am I too dictatorial?" she asks (p.8), are off
putting, and the women she eventually recruits are women who are
- as it were - in her own image. It is no surprise, therefore, that
Zofia who is so conspicuously unlike her and who is a contender for
her father's affections should prove so disturbing.

Ruth is acutely conscious of Zofia's body and of the way she
dresses. Her husband Garth laughingly tells her that she is "a bit
preoccupied with Zofia's breasts" (p. 182) and indeed, she is. This
may be because she sees Zofia displacing her deceased mother
(p.282) or it may be because she sees Zofia displacing herself as the
centre of her father's emotional life. Whatever the case may be, we
can both sympathise with Ruth's concerns and see her over-reaction
as a trifle ridiculous. She is so embroiled in her own dramas that we
are encouraged to see the futility of her self-flagellation whilst
looking on her with a degree of indulgence. Ruth remains, by and
large, an endearing character who does not realise how her wise
words apply to her own life. "Don't Be So Hard on Yourself and
"The only people who are not making mistakes are those who reside
in an urn or a plot" (p.25), her bestselling cards advise. It is a long
time before Ruth lightens up and understands the implications of
these messages.Edek

We are not far into the novel when we learn that "everyone adored
Edek" (p.42). We probably love him too. For one thing, he is
irrepressible. Diplomacy and political correctness mean nothing to
him and he is prepared to be direct on any topic as, for instance,
when he lectures one of his daughter's major clients on his "duty" to
visit Israel (pp. 15-16). Lovably inept around computers, Edek has a
childlike love of more user-friendly gadgets (including, notably, the
self-navigating vacuum cleaner) and is keen to make himself useful.
He has great reserves of enthusiasm and joie de vivre but he makes
no pretences about what leaves him cold. When Ruth whisks him
away to the nature reserve of Shelter Island, he is comically morose
and spends much of his time looking "for vitality, for activity, for
sidewalks, shop windows, ice-cream stores" (p.69). He is a
resolutely urban man.

It would be easy for Edek to be other than he is. He is a Holocaust
survivor and Ruth wonders why "all of that hadn't extinguished all
eagerness from his system" (p.266). Edek, however, is vastly more
joyful than Ruth who has "trouble dredging up miniscule amounts
of optimism or exuberance" (p.266). At eighty-seven, he wants to
make the most of his remaining time and he is not easily
disheartened. When Ruth tries to persuade him of the difficulties of
running a restaurant, he replies: " It is not such a hard thing to know
... A restaurant does have food. And we got very good food. And
people does need to eat" (p.241). His grasp of the essentials of
business, reflects Ruth, should see him "lecturing at Harvard or
Yale" (p.241).

It is commonplace that as parents grow older, the roles of parent and
child are reversed, with the child taking on the task of guiding and
directing the parent. Ruth assumes that this should be her role in
relation to Edek, but Sonia tells her that she is acting like those
mothers who "want to occupy and organise every moment in their
kids' lives" (p.21). Besides, as Ruth learns only too quickly, Edek
has ideas of his own.There are hints, early in the book, that things are not going to go entirely Ruth's way. Although Ruth is in the habit of correcting Edek's idiosyncratic English, there is usually a logic to what he
jays. He tells her that is it is appropriate for a department that does
stocking to be called the "Stockings Department" (p. 13) and she can
scarcely argue. Edek's magpie ways with language, as when he adds I
he upper-crust term "chappie" to his vocabulary (p. 163), are /
actually very engaging. Moreover, he often means just what he says.
His understanding of the word "impossible" is impeccable and Ruth
reels as her father shows himself to be a "wordsmith delivering dictionary-like definitions" (p.91).

ft is never wise to patronise Edek. As the novel unfolds, the focus
shifts from Ruth's difficulties as the devoted daughter with a
loveable pest of a father to Edek's efforts to seek his own happiness
whilst gently disentangling himself from the excessive solicitude of
an over-controlling daughter. The joke, finally, is on Ruth.

Zofia

Initially, we see Zofia through the eyes of Ruth whose impressions
are unfavourable. Ruth finds Zofia too loud, too "forthright and well
-muscled" (p.24). Zofia is overtly sexual and inclined to wear "only
very short, very tight skirts and plunging necklines" (p.24). Ruth
prefers Walentyna's "quiet modesty" (p. 125) and muted, if dowdy,
dress sense. Edek - need it be said? - does not.

Ruth perceives Zofia as "intimidatingly energetic" (p.97) and
focuses on her external qualities, her excessively yellow hair or her
choice of green lurex skirts and ice-skater outfits. She is grudgingly
obliged to admit that Zofia is fit, "there was nothing flabby about
her solidity" (p.97), but this only complicates matters by making her
- in Ruth's view - a more dangerous "predator" (p. 115). The
subtext of Ruth's disapproval - and it is not far from the surface - is
that she does not like to think of her father as a sexual being. When
she envisages a companion for him, she is thinking of "someone to

' CAE Book Groups

go to the movies with" (p. 19), not someone with whom he can have
"very good sex" (p.213).

It seems that everyone other than Ruth can see the good side of Zofia.
Ruth's children tell her that Edek "seems really happy" (p. 110) and
Garth soothingly but firmly says that the relationship "might be a good
thing" (p.96). As for Ruth's friend Sonia, she finds it inconsistent of Ruth to support "sisterly solidarity" (p. 115) between women whilst
harbouring such venom towards a woman who is "independent and
direct" (p. 114). As far as Sonia is concerned, both Zofia and
Walentyna are "courageous, adventurous and brave women" (p. 114). Ruth, on the other hand, is "probably a prude at heart" (p.l 15).

Faced with these different responses, readers have to reach their
own conclusions about Zofia. It is clear that, in many respects, she
is an admirable woman. She is remarkably energetic and never
complains. Ruth, of course, is "suspicious of people who had no
complaints" (p.212). Although she is a newcomer to New York, she
learns quickly and seems to know "more about New York than most
New Yorkers" (p. 190). She notes trends such as the rise of
vegetarianism and does not isolate herself from new influences
(eventually the trio of Edek, Zofia and Walentyna are doing Tai Chi
in the city's parks). Zofia appears to be well aware of Ruth's
sensitivities and sticks up for her when Edek questions Ruth's
choice of diet. This could be merely strategic on Zofia's part, but
she does seem to want to create good relationships with the
members of Edek's family. She is also very respectful of the
memory of Edek's wife, saying "with no bitterness, no envy, no
judgment at all" that Rooshka was "very beautiful" (p. 141) whereas
Zofia herself, although very attractive, can lay no claim to beauty.

Over time, Ruth's attitude to Zofia shifts and she begins to
appreciate even the things that previously irritated her. When, for
instance, Zofia appears in a "black and green tartan skirt, a lime
green top and a black emerald and rhinestone studded belt" (p. 172),
this over-the-top outfit simply lifts Ruth's spirits. She starts to
respond to the exuberance of Zofia and to find within herself the
generosity to enjoy her rather than condemn or compete with her. It
takes time, but - eventually - she is able to acknowledge that Zofia
"looks very good" (p.284). This only happens, however, after Rum and Edek have discussed Rooshka and she has had a dream in which
she explicitly connects Rooshka with Zofia (p.282). It is only late in
the novel that Ruth can address the issue of someone taking her
mother's place in her father's life.

Themes

Time and place

Lily Brett has observed that New York has become a major
character in her books. This is certainly true of You Gotta Have
Balls. From the assumption that everyone is in therapy to the Sex
and the City concerns of modern dating (pp.247-48), Brett presents
us with a recognisable version of the New York that has been
created through innumerable images in film and literature.

Whether through Edek's exploration of the Lower East Side or
through Ruth's successful letter writing business (which even deals
in condolence letters for dog-owners), Brett builds up a picture of a
diverse, thriving, and high-paced city. Thus, when Edek and Zofia
decide to set up a restaurant in a locale known for its cut-throat
competition and celebrity chefs, the odds appear to be heavily
stacked against the seemingly naive and inexperienced oldies. They
do not even seem to be aware that weight is a sensitive issue for
New Yorkers (p.260). Nevertheless, Edek and Zofia understand
things that business models have not taught them, and Edek is
eventually on speaking terms with Steven Spielberg and Luciano
Pavarotti. It is part of the joke on Ruth that her 87-year-old father is
so far from being dependent on her that he is able to make his mark
in the 'city that never sleeps'. In a city that lionises celebrities, he
meets them on his own terms, saying simply that Spielberg is a
" very, very nice chappie" (p.274).

To some extent, Brett's New York in You Gotta Have Balls is a
place that has been made sombre by the terrorist attacks ofSeptember 11. For a time, Brett notes New Yorkers abandoned their
usual complaining and "small and large irritations ... seemed of less
consequence" (p. 12). The New York that welcomes Edek and Zofia,
however, is a New York that has returned, for good or ill, to
business as usual. "Three years after September 11", writes Brett,
"old prejudices were even more entrenched" (p. 12). Perhaps, having
lived through World War II, Edek and Zofia would not be surprised
by this.

Jewish identity

At times, Brett's writing skirts perilously close to perpetuating
stereotypes. When Ruth says that she thinks Zofia is an
inappropriate companion for Edek, Sonia accuses her of being - in a
pejorative sense - a Jewish mother. Brett writes:

Ruth was annoyed. She didn't want to be lumped in with the Jewish
mothers of her childhood. She was a Jewish mother. But she wasn't
'one of those' Jewish mothers, (p. 132)

On the other hand, she recognises and has known the type of mother
that Sonia invokes. She has to struggle not because she is maternally
possessive, but because she frets obsessively about her father. As
she herself admits, "She had never mastered the category of
concern. She had always slipped straight into worry" (p.56).

Brett views these tendencies of Ruth's with an affectionate and
ironic eye. The same is true of her attitude to what she presents as
typically Jewish characteristics. Jews, she comments, always have
"one more point to add to any discussion" (p. 39) and are
"genetically predisposed to spot what was wrong" (p.237). These
characteristics are apparent in the exchanges between father and
daughter regarding Edek's plans for improving Ruth's business, his
proposal to start a restaurant, and - memorably - in the discussion
of the strengths and weaknesses of the menu at the second Avenue Deli (pp.33-34).Brett also notes shifts in Jewish identity according to generational
difference. Elsewhere, she has contrasted "a generation of robust,
earthy, vigorous parents",7 survivors of the Holocaust, with their
anxious, self-doubting children. In You Gotta Have Balls, Ruth is in
just this situation. She is flanked by - on the one hand - an
energetic, dynamic father, and - on the other - by relaxed, accepting
children. Like a dutiful New Yorker, she has "spent a fortune lying
on analysts' couches" (p. 171), but it is difficult for her to manage
her emotions. " Too much of anything" (p.289) makes her nervous.
There is, however, one exception. " Too much sadness", she says,
" I take that in my stride" (p.289).

Telling it like it is

There is a quality that both Edek and Zofia share. It is frankness.
This is even reflected in the nature of their business. In up-scale
New York, they plan to run a restaurant based around meatballs. Ruth thinks this is madness but Sonia disagrees. Meatballs, she says,
"are so straightforward. They're not pretending to be anything
else" (p. 167). In this respect, they are the opposite of faddish foods.
Most fancy food, Sonia maintains, "is in disguise. Lettuce isn't
even lettuce anymore. Lettuce is now being fried and masquerading
as pastry" (p. 167). People are beginning to yearn for something
simpler and this is what Edek and Zofia provide both by way of
their cuisine and their homespun wisdom.

Like Edek and Zofia, Brett's narrative displays a high degree of
honesty. It looks behind the "masks that mask people from each
other" (p. 11). Edek's grief over the death of Rooshka; Ruth's fears
when left to deal with family crises in the absence of her husband;
and the resentments felt by women towards other women are all
explored. The novel is also quite open in discussing sexual matters
such as Sonia's interest in extramarital affairs and the problems
posed by sexless relationships (p. 112). Parts of the novel - with
their focus on the problems of menopause (pp.113-14) or the
difficulties of lesbians seeking sperm donors (pp.226-27) - read likethe kind of intimate gossip which can take place between close
female friends. And Ruth's friends really are close. They are
prepared to tell her truths that she may be unwilling to hear. When Ruth mentions that she used to think her father's opaque toenails
were a result of his time in Auschwitz, Sonia responds, "not
everything emanates from Auschwitz" (p.58). Instead of responding
angrily to this bluntness, Ruth accepts her friend's challenge to her
own obsessions. It takes time, however, before she brings the same
degree of honesty to her feelings towards Zofia.

Endnotes


1. Lily Brett interview, lilybrett.com, Viewed 13 Sept 2007, < http:// www.lilybrett.com/interview.html>.

2. Age, Saturday Extra, 10.7.1999, p.6

3. Critical Mass, 31 August 2006, 'Lily Brett Finds a Lighter Side in Her New Novel', viewed 13 Sept 2007, < http://
bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2006/08/lily-brett-finds-lighter-side-in
-her_31.html>.
4. Lily Brett interview, loc. cit.
5. Lily Brett interview, loc. cit.
6. Lily Brett interview, loc. cit.

7. 'If You Live Long Enough' in Things Could Be Worse, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, 1990, p. 154.






Looking Further
The Auschwitz Poems by Lily Brett Things Could Be Worse by Lily Brett Too Many Men by Lily Brett What God Wants by Lily Brett Reading the Holocaust by Inga ClendinnenIf This is a Man and The Truce by Primo Levi [CAE Box 1448] The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi [CAE Box 1440] The Polish Kitchen by Mary Pininska The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden

Lily Brett explores a consistent body of themes throughout her work
Her earlier writing is generally more serious in tone than You Gotta
Have Balls which revisits familiar subject matter from a lighter
perspective. An informative interview with Lily Brett can be
accessed at < http://www.lilybrett.com/interview.html>.

If you would like to look further into the experience of Holocaust
survivors, you might consult Primo Levi If This is a Man, and The
Drowned and the Saved, both of which deal with the author's
experience of Auschwitz. A recent historian's view of the Holocaust
may be found in Inga Clendinnen's Reading the Holocaust.

Alternatively, if you would like to appreciate Jewish culture by way
of cuisine, you could seek out The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia
Roden. Similarly, if You Gotta Have Balls has left you with a
hankering to know more about Polish culinary tradition, you might
like to check The Polish Kitchen, which has recipes for more than
meatballs.

Some of the films and writings of Woody Allen provide an
enjoyable counterpoint to Brett's view of Jewish life in New York. Hannah and Her Sisters and New York Stories (which features three
short films directed by, respectively, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford
Coppola and Woody Allen) provide a starting point.



'

Questions for discussion






1. Edek doesn't see the point of book groups; "What for should I join such a group where people do discuss what did happen in
the book they did just read?" (p.20). In what ways does a book
group support or extend your own experience of reading?

2. Ruth says, "Women see other women as the enemy" (p.63). In what circumstances might this be true, or - heaven help us! is
it true all the time?

3. Ruth says she knows "hardly any women" who have a "less than complex attitude to food" (p.2). Would you agree that
this is generally true? Why does Ruth follow such a strict diet
and deny herself simple pleasures?

4. To what extent are Ruth's problems those of a child whose parents survived the Holocaust? Why is Ruth obsessive in her
possessiveness of her father but seemingly relaxed in her
attitude to her children? Is it because of Edek's experiences in
the concentration camp and the loss of his family and wife?

5. Initially, Ruth is hostile to Zofia. What indications are there that Ruth's judgment is clouded? How do you judge Zofia?

6. What changes occur, over the course of the novel, in the relationship between Ruth and Edek? How would you relate
these to your own understanding of the relationship between
children and their ageing parents?

7. "Meatballs are so straightforward. They're not pretending to be anything else" (p. 167). Can the same be said for Edek and
Zofia? Is that part of their charm? Were you surprised that
New-Yorkers, accustomed to celebrity culture with its facade
of glamour, were drawn to the restaurant? Would you describe
Ruth's letter writing business as "straightforward"? Is there an
element of dishonesty in having someone else express our
emotions and offers of support to friends and family?8. Are there any points in the text at which you feel critical of Ruth? What do you make of her anti-Polish outburst? (p. 190).
Would you agree with Sonia that Ruth is a "prude"? (p.l 15).

9. Ruth wants to start a group for "smart women who'll care about each other and collectively gain more power" (p.7). Is
there something missing from her personal relationships or is
it more about establishing professional links? The women she
approaches are similar to her in many ways. Why doesn't she
ask Max or Zofia and Walentyna to join the group?

10. Like Ruth Rothwax, Brett takes pains to communicate her meaning clearly. She has commented, "I never want to be one
of these writers that whose sentences you have to read ten
times to work out what it means. I'm not impressed by that
and I don't enjoy it".1 Do you find You Gotta Have Balls readable? Do you like Brett's writing style?

11. Brett has described her goals as a writer in the following terms: "I hope that what I write moves people. I hope it makes
them laugh; I always want to make people laugh. And I don't
mind at all if they cry about what I've written as I think there
are lots of things in life to cry about".2 Did you find that the
book affected you emotionally?

12. Brett notes, "I think a lot of people have been perplexed by how you can be funny when writing a book in which the
Holocaust features".3 Does this aspect of the book trouble
you? Do you find the book funny?

Åš

.

Lily Brett interview, lilybrett.com, viewed 13 Sept 2007, < http:// www.lilybrett.com/interview.html>. 2 ibid.
3 'u: j