A rare, vivid perspective on the impact of war.
Letters from a young Londoner to her lover offer an intimate chronicle of life on the homefront.
In 2017, McGowan purchased a large cache of letters written by Eileen Alexander (1917-1986), from 1939 to 1947, to Gershon Ellenbogen, her boyfriend, fiance, and, in 1944, husband. Deftly edited by McGowan and with informative chapter introductions by Crane, the letters offer a moving, sharply etched chronicle of wartime London, where Eileen lived with her family, joined the war effort, and eagerly awaited Gershon’s return from a post in Egypt. As Alexander herself noted, she was a lively, engaging correspondent: “letter-writing is undoubtedly my medium,” she wrote to Gershon; “when I’m writing (and particularly when I’m writing to you, my dear love) I have the feeling that I’m living my experiences all over again—but living them more richly, because they’re being shared with a friend.” Alexander’s wit and intelligence shine through reports of her work, their friends’ romantic entanglements, her reflections on religion, her sexual longing, and tidbits of gossip, some related to their mutual friend Aubrey Eban, who later became, as Abba Eban, the internationally renowned “Voice of Israel.” Awarded a first in English at Cambridge, Alexander laces her letters with literary references, and though nightly bombings often required sleeping in shelters, she and her friends were able to dine out, gather in one another’s houses, and attend the theater and movies, excursions that she recounted in detail to Gershon. The war certainly took its toll, psychologically and emotionally, but Alexander assured Gershon, “I’m a Girl of Simple Needs. The only things I must have are you,” friends, books, and “constant Hot Water.” As “depressing and exhausting” as the war was, Alexander wrote, “if I were asked to choose between death and a shameful peace—I would choose death,” she wrote. “The only price I couldn’t pay would be your life.”
A rare, vivid perspective on the impact of war.Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-288880-8
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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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