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
These full-color drawings by Edward coupled with brief narrative texts by Nancy have been culled from the Atlantic. Among the most entertaining encounters is the chance meeting in an elevator between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst around the time Citizen Kane was released. After Hearst turns down Welles's chutzpah-laden invitation to the premiere, the director taunts him: ``Charles Foster Kane would have accepted.'' In another scenario, some of Al Capone's mugs kidnap musician Fats Waller at gunpoint and make him play for Scarface at a birthday bash. It's the Prohibition era, and the party lasts three days, after which ``Fats has acquired several thousand dollars in cash and a decided taste for vintage champagne.'' Other encounters, like that between Jean-Paul Marat and Charlotte Corday, don't end so happily. There are 65 encounters, and the Sorels make each one entertaining—and a few of them quite moving. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection)
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43119-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
A solid and worthwhile biography. (24 b&w photos)
A well-researched biography of the famed children’s author, by Financial Times critic Wullschlager (Inventing Wonderland, 1995).
Born to a poor washerwoman and a young shoemaker in tiny Odense, Denmark, in 1805, Andersen was an effeminate, unattractive boy who left home at 14 to seek fame on the stage in Copenhagen. Unsuccessful as an actor, he managed to find a wealthy patron who provided for his education and helped launch his writing career. He made little mark as an author until 1835, when he turned to the fairy tales that would ultimately bring him fame. Drawing heavily on Andersen’s diaries and correspondence, Wullschlager paints a revealing portrait: an over-sensitive and essentially child-like man who was conflicted about his ambiguous sexuality and haunted by his humble origins. Especially interesting is Andersen’s complicated relationship with his primary audience; he wrote for adults and was annoyed that the public looked upon him as a children’s author. Andersen traveled widely, and the accounts of his visits are a source of some humor (and a fair amount of insight): he was once introduced to fellow children’s author Jakob Grimm (who had never heard of him), and was received as a London houseguest by Charles Dickens (who subsequently pinned up the note, “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES!”). A popular but lonely man, Andersen left his entire estate to a lifelong unrequited love, and among the hundreds who attended his funeral there was apparently not a single blood relative.
A solid and worthwhile biography. (24 b&w photos)Pub Date: May 3, 2001
ISBN: 0-679-45508-6
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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