Pryor has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Michigan and twenty years experience in professional and creative writing with special interest in fiction. In this essay, Pryor examines how the current life of the title character in "Rosa" mirrors her past Holocaust experience and the disparate methods the characters use to cope with that experience.

How does one deal with the Holocaust and its memory? This is the question that "Rosa" brings to mind, but does not necessarily answer. Rosa Lublin's niece Stella theorizes that there are three lives: before the Holocaust, during, and after. Rosa claims: "Before is a dream. After is a joke. Only during stays." Rosa's answer to dealing with the Holocaust is to carry it with her every day, to deny that there is a life after by living only in the past.

In fact, in moving to Miami Beach...