The Girl From Cleveland City: Episode 2: Madame Defarge’s Needles

The Girl From Cleveland City, Episode 2, Madame Defarge’s Needles, is the sequel to the 5-star reader-rated Episode 1: Welcome to Cleveland.

In Madame Defarge’s Needles, we revisit our protagonist Esti, this time as a young wife and mother. Esti is simultaneously grateful for the family she’s built, while also dissatisfied by her marriage.

Madame Defarge’s Needles, set against the alleys and facades of Cleveland’s secrets, lies and real estate deals, explores a culturally diverse and increasingly divided metropolis. From Welcome to Cleveland, it brings back the pivotal and distinct troika of men driving Esti’s life into their own desired directions:

1. Aaron, her New York-born Ashkenazi husband, father of their son, and a prominent corporate lawyer.
2. Patrick, the west-side groomed Irish Catholic contractor who seems to know all the decision makers, from every neighborhood in his city.
3. John, aka Officer Dusan, the African American man whom Esti loved in high school. Now a Cleveland cop, John’s back in her life, but for all the wrong reasons.

One morning, after Aaron heads for work, leaving Esti and their son Isaac safe at home, she faces horror straight on. Shocked, petrified and numbed, from that moment on, Esti’s daily life spirals into an insurmountable existence.

Madame Defarge’s Needles showcases how one event unravels a woman, a family, a community and an entire city.

It answers the frightening question of, ＂What does a mother’s rage look like?＂ And the even more terrifying, ＂What horrible chain of events has led her to this place?＂