A beautiful, meditative account of literary and historical merit.
A debut memoir about adversity, identity, and a mystical quest for spiritual succor.
When Lucia Weitzman was just a child in Poland and still known as “Rose,” her Jewish parents were desperate to shelter her from the occupying Nazis. Their first attempt to place her with a Christian couple backfired; the two quickly returned the girl but not the money her parents had given them. Determined to find her a new home, they tried again; this time, their daughter was placed in the custody of the Swiateks, a couple that raised her as if she was their own. She grew up largely unaware of her Jewish heritage, disconnected from her own bloodline—an estranged diaspora of one. Years later, while living in the United States, her husband, Herman, died, and she was once again wracked with grief. She traveled to Jerusalem and visited the Western Wall in search of spiritual guidance, and she challenged God with a question that bordered on insolence: “God, why were You removed and not involved during dark periods on the planet, like the Holocaust, 9/11, and other tragedies?” Theologically speaking, she was posing the classic question regarding the problem of evil. On a more personal level, though, she was taking God to task for his ostensible abandonment of her in particular. She then had an overwhelming moment of mystical epiphany, sincerely believing that God had furnished her with an answer. This remembrance is co-penned by S. Mitchell Weitzman, Lucia’s son, and the intimacy and affection of their relationship emanates from every page. However, the narrative jumps back and forth between Lucia’s childhood and adulthood, and these quick chronological transitions can be disorienting. The poignancy of her revelations, though, and her lifelong quest to rediscover her lost self will enthrall even readers who are skeptical of all things mystical. Although there’s no shortage of stories out there recounting the depredations of the Holocaust, it’s especially stirring to see one from the double perspective of youth and adulthood.
A beautiful, meditative account of literary and historical merit.Pub Date: May 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9961177-0-8
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Solomon Berl Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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