Efrem Sigel (Ivory Coast) publishes JUROR NUMBER 2

Open Book with Efrem Sigel, author of Juror Number 2

Sept 6, 2020
by Lindsey Hollenbaugh
The Berkshire Eagle

Efram Sigel

Most people do everything they can to get out of serving jury duty, but on Nov. 20, 2017, Efrem Sigel found himself sitting in a Manhattan courtroom being told by a New York State Supreme Court judge: “This is the most serious case you could be involved in.”

“All of a sudden, I’m on jury duty,” said Sigel in a phone interview from his Great Barrington home. “I even picked a week [Thanksgiving week] I thought not much was going on; but there I was in the courtroom. The judge offered us all an easy way out, but for some reason, I was really intrigued by it. Next thing I knew, I was on the jury. It’s all a matter of luck.” Sigel became Juror Number 2 in The People v. Abraham Cucuta.

What came next was weeks of sitting through a murder trial, getting a front-row seat to the recounting of an alleged gang-related shooting that ended in multiple deaths in East Harlem.

The experience opened Sigel’s eyes, mind to a world completely foreign to him, even though the crime took place not too far from his city block.

“During the first five or six days of the trial, my view of the trial and what I was doing really changed,” he said. “I heard the horrendous life experiences of the key witnesses, and I thought, I have to find out more about their background, why kids in this environment grow up this way. It became a compulsion; I was on a mission to learn the why and how of this crime and the larger lesson of growing up in this community.”

That mission led to almost two years of researching, interviewing, investigating and looking for data for his part-memoir, part-true crime, part “social inquiry,” as Sigel describes his book, “Juror Number 2: The Story of a Murder, the Agony of a Neighborhood.”

The book — which will be officially released sometime in November, but is available for purchase at local bookstores and through the publisher — begins with Sigel’s recounting of his experience as a juror on a murder trial, but essentially takes on a larger, more detailed, look at poverty and society’s failure to address it. Sigel digs in and takes a close look at three major agencies intertwined in this story — the New York City Housing Authority, the New York City
Department of Education and the New York City Police Department.

“When I looked at all three, most of the time, all were not doing the job they were supposed to be doing, and in some cases, were harming the people they exist to help,” he said. “The details of that were shocking to me.”

Sigel, who has published more than 30 short stories and two novels, has a background as a journalist and in publishing, but also leads volunteers, all alumni of Harvard Business School like himself, who consult to nonprofits in the field of education. In his research for the book, he interviewed educators, principals and non-profits doing the on-the-ground work of helping children and young adults in these communities find another path.

“We need to give people growing up in these communities real opportunities,” he said. “I’m a firm believer that we
can’t hand an education to people, that they have to grab onto education, but you have to put the opportunity out
there. You need schools that work, that are filled with totally devoted teachers, a staff assembled by principals who care.”

While most of this book take place in New York City, Sigel, who splits his time between his home in the city and the Berkshires, points out that this story will resonate with anyone serious about understanding the societal problems we face in this country.

“I don’t care if you’re talking about small cities or giant ones … these are real social problems that exist all over the country. This is a very detailed picture of one small segment, but this is happening no matter where you live,” he said.

•

Efrem Sigel’s first novel, The Kermanshah Transfer : A Novel of Middle Eastern Intrigue (Macmillan), came out in 1973. His second novel, The Disappearance was published by Permanent Press. in 2009.  A third novel and a collection of previously published short stories are both in progress. Since the late 1990s more than 30 of his stories and memoirs have appeared in dozens of magazines, including The Journal, the Antioch Review, the Jerusalem Post, Midstream, Nimrod, Sixfold, Gemini, and PerSe and have won a number of prizes.

•

Juror Number 2: The Story of a Murder, the Agony of a Neighborhood
Efrem  Sigel (Ivory Coast 1965-67)
Writers Press
November 2020
146 pages
$19.00 (Hardcover) preorder