Author Phyllis Karas’ latest book addresses two family tragedies. In May 1935, six members of her family died in a car accident in Connecticut. Five months afterward, the family welcomed a baby boy, Ronnie Blumenthal. Almost two decades later, in 1954, Ronnie Blumenthal was arrested for murder in a case that made headlines in Boston. He served 13 years in prison.

Karas, a Malden native, previously co-wrote the widely acclaimed memoirs of Aristotle Onassis’ personal secretary and of Bulger Gang mobster Kevin Weeks. She now turns her attention to her own family history in “Curse of the Blumenthals.”

“I always wanted to write it,” Karas said. “This was my family’s and my story. I had to be persistent. It took a long time until, thankfully, I was ready.”

The author’s family relocated to Swampscott while she was still attending Malden High School; after the move, she continued going to Malden High and graduated. She currently resides in Marblehead and attends Congregation Shirat Hayam. She thanked the staff of the Abbot Public Library for assisting her as she worked on the book, along with librarians at the Boston Public Library and in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The book even includes a few family recipes, including one for strudel. Karas plans to make some for a June 3 event, sponsored by the JCC of the North Shore, at the Abbot Public Library in Marblehead. (All are invited.) She credits her agent Doug Grad for the idea to include the recipes.

For the book, Karas interviewed numerous family members, including Ronnie’s son, Marc, of Birmingham, Alabama. Marc provided vital information, including a memory of Ronnie saying that in the murder case, he took the fall for his own father, Barney. Marc was eight years old when he heard this.

The “Curse” in the book title relates to alcohol. Karas notes that her family – immigrant Jews with Eastern European roots – turned to bootlegging during Prohibition. One relative was even arrested for it. And she notes that liquor was present in both subsequent tragedies. In what her family came to call “The Accident,” the crash was caused by a drunk driver. Her cousin Ronnie – arrested for the murder of dressmaker Ora Schonarth, in what her family called “The Incident” – drank before and after his 13 years in prison.
Alcohol “just kept popping up everywhere I looked,” Karas said. “There it was – alcohol, an evil that caused so many deaths, so much pain. It had to be the one thing tying everything together.”

Just before “The Accident,” Karas’ uncle, Dave Halpert, was recuperating in a Hartford hospital when he received a visit from six family members – his two children, his mother, his brother-in-law, his mother-in-law (Karas’ maternal grandmother) and his nephew. All six died in the crash on their way home to Providence. Wishing to temporarily spare Dave the pain of learning that his two children had died while he was in the hospital, Karas’ mother sent messages and drawings that she pretended were from his children. Dave’s wife Etta went along with it and read him the messages, according to Karas.

In the parts of the book relating to “The Incident,” Karas examines the life of the murdered dressmaker.

“It’s very painful,” Karas said, noting that the four-times-married and four-times-divorced Schonarth was the dressmaker for the author’s Uncle Barney and Aunt Edythe, and that Barney was reportedly having an affair with Schonarth. “Everybody in the family, [Schonarth] took care of their clothes. She was very talented.

“My mother told me about the murder in very quiet tones: ‘It was an accident, [Ronnie] did not mean it, he just pushed her, it should never have happened.’ I checked the newspapers, saw cousin Ronnie’s photo in all of them – the Boston Globe, Boston Herald – captioned ‘The face of a murderer.’ … I thought, ‘No, Mother, you were wrong. He murdered her in a very savage way.’”

Yet Karas examines the possibility that someone else committed the murder, including Marc’s recollection of his father saying he took the fall for Barney.

“There was always the possibility somebody else did it,” she said. “Too many things in the court record did not make sense. After the murder, supposedly many hours after Ronnie’s admission [of guilt], there were screams in the apartment, and strange people in the neighborhood … There’s no way we’re ever going to find out.”

The book looks at Ronnie’s life while incarcerated – first in a state prison in Norfolk, then at a halfway house in Plymouth. He received frequent visits from family members, including the author and her husband. He also developed two separate romances with women who visited him. First, there was Flo Gold, a friend of Karas’ late sister, Toby. After Ronnie’s bids for parole were repeatedly denied, the relationship ended. Then, Ronnie fell in love with another visitor, Barbara Sickels. After his release, they got married and had a son, Marc, before they divorced. Ronnie later married his second wife, Helen, the daughter of an organized-crime figure.

After Helen died, according to Karas, Ronnie was thrown out by Helen’s daughter. Marc and his wife Michele drove from Alabama to Massachusetts to pick him up and bring him back to their home down South. In declining health, Ronnie stayed with them almost to the end, dying in a nursing home shortly after his admittance.

Karas says it is vital for families to stay in touch, never to lose sight of one another. “As my mother said after Ronnie was imprisoned, ‘When you lose six members of your family in a tragic accident, you must never lose another. No matter what.,’” she said.

Overall, she reflected, “I’m thrilled the book is out, so hopefully people realize there are curses, but being together as a family is the way you can get through them.” Θ