An affecting portrayal of youthfulness stained by war.
A woman chronicles her childhood in Germany during and after World War II in this debut memoir.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the members of Yearman’s family knew their lives in Germany would be transformed. Two years later, their town, Kiel, would be regularly bombed by British warplanes. In 1941, the author’s father explained to her that he had no choice but to send her away temporarily—all children between the ages of 6 and 10 living near military targets were compelled to relocate to the countryside. Yearman was sent to Seidel, a small farming village 300 miles east, and she was taken in by Anna Arndt, a kind woman who lived with her parents. The author was 6, attending school for the first time, and was fortunate to avoid the fate of so many of the era’s displaced children, who were exploited for free labor. Yearman’s temporary arrangement became a long-term one, and she fled Seidel with her new family in 1945 to avoid invading Soviet troops, briefly settling in Swinemunde, a Russian-occupied territory that was relatively stable. It was dangerous for her custodians to amble about freely because of the hostile Soviet forces. So Yearman spent much of her time scavenging for their food (“In general, the Russian soldiers had the decency to leave children alone”). The family eventually returned to Seidel, but it was now technically a Polish territory under Soviet rule and became too perilous. Warned by a Russian soldier of German descent of an imminent raid, they fled yet again. In her engrossing book (written with debut author Hanisch), Yearman recalls that she would not return to her father until she was 11, with her mother now dead from diphtheria. The prose artfully combines an unflinchingly honest account of Yearman’s travails with beautifully poetic descriptions. After she watched a ferry that departed from Swinemunde explode from contact with a mine, she observed the wreckage: “A carcass of a cow. I understood that animals died. I knew that. Then I realized, with clarity, that the people on that ferry had died too, just like the shattered cow floating in the water.” Yearman’s remembrance, which features some family photographs, is poignant, filled with vivid details but unembellished by maudlin sentiment. She allows the genuine power of her autobiographical drama to speak for itself.
An affecting portrayal of youthfulness stained by war.Pub Date: June 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-89121-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Third Path Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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