The Other Traitor (30 page)

When I was a child, my mother mesmerized me with her stories about growing up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. How her father died when she was seven, and how her mother, penniless and illiterate, went to extraordinary measures to survive with three small children (my mom was the oldest!) Despite the adversity in her life, my mother went on to graduate from college and lived a happy and rewarding life, but her  memories of being a ‘red-diaper baby’, influenced by socialism and later communism, often seemed to take her to another place. The mention of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been executed as atomic-bomb spies in 1953 would bring tears to her eyes. The Rosenbergs were a young married couple with two small children. They had lived in the same Lower East Side neighborhood as my family and my oldest brother had gone to elementary school with one of their sons. Had they deserved to die? It was a question that haunted me.

The idea to merge my mother’s early years with the story of the execution of an atomic-bomb spy seemed inevitable. Of course, the result—this book—is very much a work of fiction. My mother didn’t have a secret life like Mariasha did. She and my father were perhaps the most loving, devoted couple I’ve ever known. But I believe both my mom and dad would have been pleased with this story of Mariasha, Isaac, and their offspring, and of their desire to do the right thing.

While my mother’s stories were the basis for many of the flashbacks and memories in
The Other Traitor
, I worked hard at getting the details and atmosphere right. The Internet provided me with some wonderful source material, including Brooklyn College’s
Spotlight
magazine. But above all, Sam Roberts’s brilliant biography,
The Brother—The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case,
enabled me to enrich my fictitious world.

There are many others to whom I’m grateful for helping make this book a reality. My early readers and support system—Delia Foley, Maureen O’Connor, Jack Turken, Arnold Weiss, and Neil Nyren, who gave me encouragement and focused me on my theme of the past haunting the present. My wonderful critique partners—Christine Jackson, Kristy Montee, Miriam Auerbach, Christine Kling, and Neil Plakcy, who once again played muse for me. Kelly Nichols, who designed the amazing cover. The photo, by the way, is one of my favorites of my children’s
other
grandparents—Susie and Frazier Potts.

As always, my remarkable husband Joe, the force behind Churlish Press, made sure I got the details right—the little ones like commas and spelling, the big historical ones, and everything in between. It’s convenient to be married to a genius, but even better to be married to one as supportive and encouraging as mine!

Sharon Potts is the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of five psychological thrillers, including
In Their Blood
—winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award and recipient of a starred review in
Publishers Weekly
. A former CPA, corporate executive, and entrepreneur, Sharon has served as treasurer of the national board of Mystery Writers of America, as well as president of that organization’s Florida chapter. She has also co-chaired SleuthFest, a national writers’ conference. Sharon lives in Miami Beach with her husband and a spirited Australian shepherd named Gidget.