The son and grandchildren of Helmuth and Freya von Moltke, anti-Nazi leaders, present the last letters their parents exchanged as he was awaiting trial in Berlin in 1944.
Their letters and the explanatory footnotes reveal a deep love bolstered by a building religious devotion. “These are love letters in extremis,” write the editors. “They testify to the profound openness with which Helmuth and Freya confront their fears, declare their love, articulate their hopes, and find faith.” Helmuth consistently demonstrated unwavering trust in Freya’s abilities, and their mental, physical, and spiritual devotion only increased as the letters continued. Both were attorneys, and Helmuth was conscripted as an attorney for the Wehrmacht in 1940. Both opposed Hitler from the very beginning, and their active resistance became known as the Kreisau Circle, a dedicated faction of Germans working to break with top-heavy authoritarian political tradition. They devised detailed political and economic plans for a postwar democratic Germany. In early 1944, Helmuth was unexpectedly arrested for alerting a friend that Gestapo had infiltrated secret meetings. At first, they expected him to be released—until the failed attempt on Hitler’s life that summer. Some of Helmuth’s co-conspirators were arrested in that plot, and the Nazis worked tirelessly to find a connection to him. Helmuth’s and Freya’s letters show their remarkable optimism and unvarnished grasp on the reality of the outcome of the trial. Eventually, Helmuth was transferred from Ravensbrück to Berlin’s Tegel prison. The chaplain at the prison, Harald Poelchau, was a Kreisau member, and he smuggled the letters contained in this book. Knowing the trial would likely end in a death sentence, Helmuth and Freya exhausted every political and social connection to find help. His family, descended from one of Prussia’s greatest heroes, was their strongest weapon as they worked toward a clemency plea. On Jan. 23, 1945, Helmuth was executed.
A compelling, profoundly emotional Nazi-era story that also serves as a reminder of the power of letter writing.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68137-381-2
Page Count: 380
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | WORLD | HISTORY
Did you like this book?
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
GET IT
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
Did you like this book?
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing memoir as well as a lively treatise on what extraordinary grace under extraordinary pressure looks like.
15
GET IT
The former first lady opens up about her early life, her journey to the White House, and the eight history-making years that followed.
It’s not surprising that Obama grew up a rambunctious kid with a stubborn streak and an “I’ll show you” attitude. After all, it takes a special kind of moxie to survive being the first African-American FLOTUS—and not only survive, but thrive. For eight years, we witnessed the adversity the first family had to face, and now we get to read what it was really like growing up in a working-class family on Chicago’s South Side and ending up at the world’s most famous address. As the author amply shows, her can-do attitude was daunted at times by racism, leaving her wondering if she was good enough. Nevertheless, she persisted, graduating from Chicago’s first magnet high school, Princeton, and Harvard Law School, and pursuing careers in law and the nonprofit world. With her characteristic candor and dry wit, she recounts the story of her fateful meeting with her future husband. Once they were officially a couple, her feelings for him turned into a “toppling blast of lust, gratitude, fulfillment, wonder.” But for someone with a “natural resistance to chaos,” being the wife of an ambitious politician was no small feat, and becoming a mother along the way added another layer of complexity. Throw a presidential campaign into the mix, and even the most assured woman could begin to crack under the pressure. Later, adjusting to life in the White House was a formidable challenge for the self-described “control freak”—not to mention the difficulty of sparing their daughters the ugly side of politics and preserving their privacy as much as possible. Through it all, Obama remained determined to serve with grace and help others through initiatives like the White House garden and her campaign to fight childhood obesity. And even though she deems herself “not a political person,” she shares frank thoughts about the 2016 election.
An engrossing memoir as well as a lively treatise on what extraordinary grace under extraordinary pressure looks like.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6313-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2018
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
