The Eagle and the Dove

The Russian-born San Francisco author is best known for four novels she wrote between 1967 and 1974 -- the trilogy "The Candlesticks and The Cross," "The Eagle and the Dove" and "Two Lives, Two Lands," and the semi-autobiographical "The Ultimate Triumph."
But in her family, Solomon is remembered as "bigger than life," a woman for whom "anything was a story," said her grandson Joshua Solomon.
"If you were wondering about a set of glasses she bought at Macy's, it became a 20-minute history. But she never failed to entertain."
In fact, it was that natural gift for telling tales that propelled Solomon into writing.
Already in her late 50s, Solomon was vacationing with friends in Big Sur when, "as always, she began telling one thing and then another and tying all these seemingly unrelated anecdotes into a big knot at the end," Joshua Solomon said.
The man listening to Solomon was a publisher. He asked if she could write as well as she spoke, and asked her to drop off a sample. The result was "The Candlesticks and The Cross," published when she was 59.
"Before that she was raising a family," Joshua Solomon said. "I wouldn't say she dreamed of being a writer. But she knew she had it in her. She was terribly in awe of great writing. She just wasn't certain she could match up."