A historically intriguing and tender retrospective.
In this debut book, a writer offers a tribute to his mother, who left Denmark after World War II to marry a handsome American soldier.
Born in 1923 in a small town in Denmark, Inge Elizabeth Buus grew up on the family farm, a successful enterprise. But she did not take to country life. She decided to study nursing and, to that end, moved to Copenhagen after finishing high school. Nursing was satisfying, but her ankles, weakened from rickets, became compromised, and Inge secured a high-paying job as a bookkeeper for “Burmeister and Wain, the largest shipyard in Denmark.” The Germans occupied Denmark in 1940. Although the country was under the yoke of the Third Reich, Hitler’s demand for new ships brought temporary prosperity. Peterson’s attention to the details of the war as experienced in Denmark creates one of the more captivating sections of the book. Following the Nazis’ surrender, Robert, an American soldier stationed in Germany, took his 10-day leave in Copenhagen. At a dance for GIs and British soldiers, he met Inge. After a week’s courtship, Inge knew she had found her life partner; 10 months later, in September 1946, she sailed to America to marry him. The author was born in November 1947. Over the course of his mother’s life, she would make 24 trips back to Denmark, 11 of those accompanied by Peterson. His comprehensive account of those journeys, including, it seems, a citing of every tourist and off-the-beaten-track spot they visited, forms a travelogue of sorts within the larger narrative. Especially close to his mother, the author delivers recollections of his own life that primarily concern activities he shared with his parents, especially Inge. He does devote several pages to a strange and tiresome obsession over what he believes was an inadequate third grade education. And some readers are likely to find his occasional political snark off-putting. He refers to payroll taxes as supporting “restrictive government programs…designed to mollify ‘the little people.’ ” The generally engaging prose is augmented with a substantial supply of black-and-white and color family photographs.
A historically intriguing and tender retrospective.Pub Date: April 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949735-76-5
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Ideopage Press Solutions
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A ramshackle biography of the legendary jazz innovator. Gourse (Madame Jazz, 1995, etc.) has researched Monk's life thoroughly, interviewing his surviving family members and musical cohorts, as well as combing the archives for contemporary profiles and reviews of his work. Sadly, however, there's insufficient narrative thread here to stitch together Gourse's assemblage of quotes. Monk grew up in New York City; by 1934, when he was 16, he had dropped out of school to devote his full attention to the piano. After touring the country with a gospel group, he returned to New York and began experimenting with his uniquely personal tonal and rhythmic language, often identified as the essential ammunition of the bebop revolution. While Monk profoundly influenced Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, it wasn't until the late '50s that his seminal gigs at Manhattan's Five Spot garnered him full public recognition as a musician and composer. He was equally famous for his eccentricities: Generally late for his performances, he often left the piano and danced around the stage, letting the ever-changing members of his quartet supply the music. In private, Monk was notoriously taciturn, and occasionally he would experience episodes of complete withdrawal that required his hospitalization. Gourse entertains the idle speculations of many nonexpert acquaintances about the causes of his behavior, but the conclusion she seems to support—possible extensive use of unspecified drugs, complicated by genius—is vague. And about Monk's music the author offers silly tautologies like, ``In the aggregate, his songs comprised an oeuvre, each a commentary on his unique universe of sound.'' The book's obvious title, already used for a Monk documentary, is a perfect tipoff that Gourse has little to say about her subject that is imaginative or useful. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-02-864656-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
Schulze’s courageous story fills a major gap in the story of the world’s greatest conflict, and she deserves a wide audience...
This compelling memoir of a German girl’s bitter, frightening life reveals the horrors visited upon an average family caught between two of the most cruel dictators in history.
Amidst the copious histories of Hitler and Stalin, historians have often neglected the horrific tales of innocent girls like Schulze, who early in World War II survived Nazi occupation, then was forced to hide in a secret attic for months at war’s end to escape sexual attacks from the invading rampages of the Russians. The Russian soldiers pillaged her tiny village of Doelitz, where women scrubbed their faces with ashes and dirt to make themselves unappealing to the Red Army’s serial rapists. With professional writer Collier’s help, Schulze tells a ground-level story that is at once haunting and shocking in its narration of ordinary, peaceful lives shattered forever by war. The small, poignant touches are riveting–the family’s favorite horse being dragged away to haul artillery; their argument about whether to follow Nazi orders to display Hitler’s portrait. Her inspiring story concludes with the long, harrowing struggle to escape to West Germany, followed by a months-long wait for a berth on a ship bound for America. Her first tastes of ice cream and pineapple aboard the ship are a fitting climax to a tale of never-ending stress and fear–and ultimately, redemption.
Schulze’s courageous story fills a major gap in the story of the world’s greatest conflict, and she deserves a wide audience of all ages.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2005
ISBN: 0-58348-072-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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