THIS FAMILIAR HEART:

 

AN IMPROBABLE LOVE STORY

 

by

 

Babette Fraser Hale

 

Memoir / Relationships / Aging / Grief

Publisher: Winedale Publishing

Date of Publication: April 2, 2024

Number of Pages: 312 pages

 

 

 

 

In this intimate rendering of a relationship, we learn how deceptive surface impressions can be.

Leon Hale, author of Bonney’s Place, was sixty years old, a “country boy” who wrote about rural Texans with humor and sensitivity in his popular column for The Houston Post and, later the Houston Chronicle. Babette Fraser at thirty-six was a child of privilege, a city girl educated abroad, struggling in her career while raising a young son. No one thought it could work.

Even Hale himself held serious doubts. But it did endure. The interior congruencies they discovered through a long and turbulent courtship knit them tightly together for the rest of his life.

And when he died during the Pandemic isolation period, searing levels of grief and doubt threatened Babette’s understanding of the partnership and marriage that had sustained her for forty years. Had he really been the person she thought he was? Had he kept secrets that would forever change her view of him?

In candid, evocative prose, she explores the distorted perceptions that often follow the death of a cherished spouse, and the loving resolution that allows life to go on.

 

 

 

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Excerpt from

 

This Familiar Heart: An Improbable Love Story

 

by Babette Fraser Hale

 

 

Babette is only about two minutes late getting to Harrigan’s. She’s not sure what to expect. Will she know the man when she sees him?

The foyer is gloomy after the bright sunlight of the parking lot, but she isn’t standing there long, blinking, when a tall figure in a faded blue jean jacket appears in the doorway to the even darker interior.

He is taller than she expected, and there is something about his face that doesn’t come into focus. He is speaking to her, though, so it must be him, but he seems to be looking around her at the same time.

They sit in a booth and order beer. Only one other table has occupants.

She initiates her rehearsed explanation, slipping her shyness into an envelope of words. A quick summary of her writing project, her work for magazines, her hope for fiction. How she has recently applied to the graduate creative writing program at UH.

The manager brings them their drinks.

Hale asks where she grew up. “Actually, the other end of the street I live on now,” she replies, smiling at the peculiarity. “The name changes, though.” She’s doing the usual dance around the fact of River Oaks. The affluence of the neighborhood carries implications of privilege that embarrass her.

He looks quizzical.

“It changes at Kirby Drive,” she adds. “Not too far from here.”

He doesn’t press for more.

She can see Hale’s mood is divided, half at ease, half edgy—and all the while glancing at her, the lightest brushing glance from pale blue eyes, sliding past. Kind eyes, she thinks. Maybe. She wishes they’d hold hers longer, although even the graze gives her a jolt.

As they talk, she discovers he comes from the part of West Texas where her father was born. Maybe that’s why the rhythm of his speech feels familiar. His accent is stronger, though.

She asks a few questions. Or, more accurately, she makes statements phrased as questions in the attempt to locate commonalities of outlook. This habit is so intrinsic to her, she hardly knows it’s happening. When he becomes a little prickly, she’s so surprised she moves quickly to something else. Afterward, she will retain the impression of his response, but not the offending subject.

He asks about her novel and she tells him as much as she can.

“Whose work do you like to read?” he asks.

“Walker Percy, at the moment. Have you read him?”

He has not. “Should I?”

“He’s a wonderful writer,” she says. “Sometimes his writing makes me anxious. Once in a while. Not his newest, The Second Coming. I really loved that.”

Hale is listening. The sliding gaze—on her, then away.

She decides it’s shyness that keeps him from meeting her eyes for long. But around him the air seems to glitter. There is something delicate but important about his attention. She keeps wanting to hold her breath, the way you do when an exceptional bird lights near you. Or a wild animal that would never cause you harm. She wills herself to relax onto her chair. It doesn’t quite work.

 

 

 

 

Babette Fraser Hale is the author of A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers, 2022 winner of the debut fiction award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her stories have received notice from Best American Short Stories, 2015 and the Meyerson Award from Southwest Review. In addition to writing fiction, Babette has been a magazine feature writer, columnist, contributing editor, book editor, and publisher. She lives in Texas.

 

 

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Visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page

 

For direct links to each post on this tour, updated daily,

 

or visit the blogs directly:

 

 

04/16/24	Jennie Reads	Review
04/16/24	Hall Ways Blog	BONUS Stop
04/17/24	Chapter Break Book Blog	Book Trailer
04/17/24	LSBBT Blog	BONUS Stop
04/18/24	The Real World According to Sam	Review
04/19/24	Book Fidelity	Review
04/20/24	It’s Not All Gravy	Review
04/21/24	StoreyBook Reviews	Excerpt
04/22/24	Bibliotica	Review
04/23/24	Boys’ Mom Reads	Review
04/24/24	Carpe Diem Chronicles	Review
04/25/24	The Plain-Spoken Pen	Review

 

 

 

 

 

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Synopsis

 

When Jan moves to Guatemala with her young daughter to run a medical clinic on the heels of her divorce, she knows the experience will be difficult and life-changing. But she doesn’t anticipate all the ways she will change. To make sense of her professional, personal, and parenting turmoil in a country with plenty of its own turmoil, Jan finds herself adopting a Maya worldview that weaves together concepts of duality (there can be no light without dark, no joy without pain), harmony with nature, and the importance of connecting to the past to understand one’s present self.

Awash with elements of Mayan mythology, history, and culture and innumerable revelations of the compassion, intelligence, and resilience of the Guatemalan people, Bird’s-Eye View is a coming-of-middle-age story that shows how viewing life through the prism of a different set of myths can help an individual understand the familiar tales they have unwittingly followed.

 

 

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Excerpt

 

Everything has a spirit

 

In an animistic cosmology such as the Maya world view, the natural and supernatural realms co-mingle, and all things are imbued with a sacred essence. Everything has a spirit—the rocks, the lake, the trees.

The spirits of trees are evidenced by the fact that they grow back when they are cut down, so it is forbidden to sit on a stump because that would be sitting on a spirit. Also, because the tree has a spirit, before cutting it or using its wood, one must ask permission of nature and wait until a full moon. If not, the tree’s spirit can harm the logger or his family.

I heard of a man who wanted to clear the land but did not recognize the hallowedness of the tree spirit, did not consult the guardian of nature, and did not wait for the full moon. Instead, he capriciously chopped what was in his way and stepped over the stump. The trunk tumbled, the branches broke, and the crown collapsed. Rising from the stump was not a spirit, but a ghost. The man only wanted to clear the land for his crops. He did not care for the wood he left on the ground, so he burned the stump and left the trunk there to rot. The stump’s ashes turned to mud, and its ghost haunted him.

If all natural objects have spirits, do intangible things such as relationships have them as well? If so, how had my relationship with Wade (my former husband) sprouted? How had it grown? How had it died?

For many years, the heartwood held our tree upright. Our daughter was a new branch that grew out. We bought a little house, delved into countless projects, and planted our garden. I sowed the seed of the idea of our little family traveling, living, and working in Latin America, perhaps because I thought if we were doing what we loved with each other, we would prune the decaying limbs and new growth would sprout. The early version of us lay inside, but layers that grew year after year made it harder to reach.

Holding on to the hope of reviving what was dying between us, I stayed at a job I hated for years to save money for our trip to Latin America. Every year that passed, I thought we were a little bit closer, but in reality, every year that passed, we were a little bit further apart. After a decade together, the heartwood rotted, and a hollow pith formed.

Still, by force of my will, our family held together. When Wade canceled our trip and soon thereafter split apart our family without consulting the powers that be, our marriage was felled.

Was the spirit of our failed marriage left standing? Did it haunt him the way it haunted me? And yet, out of the stumped of what had been carelessly cut, new life was emerging.

 

 

About the Author

 

Jan Capps has been a public health advocate for immigrants, farmworkers, domestic violence victims, and people of color in the US, Guatemala, and Mexico for over thirty years, focusing on building local capacity and health equity. During her two stints living in Guatemala, she organized and trained community health workers and midwives, managed a medical clinic, and studied the Maya Tz’utujil language. She has presented, trained, and written for national audiences. Her greatest joy and most humbling experiences have been being a mother and watching her glorious daughter grow and launch into the world.

 

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Synopsis

 

Dwell Time is a term that measures the amount of time something takes to happen – immigrants waiting at a border, human eyes on a website, the minutes people wait in an airport, and, in art conservation, the time it takes for a chemical to react with a material.

Renowned art conservator Rosa Lowinger spent a difficult childhood in Miami among people whose losses in the Cuban revolution, and earlier by the decimation of family in the Holocaust, clouded all family life. After moving away to escape the “cloying exile’s nostalgia,” Lowinger discovered the unique field of art conservation, which led her to work in Tel Aviv, Philadelphia, Rome, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Charleston, Marfa, South Dakota, and Port-Au-Prince. Eventually returning to Havana for work, Lowinger suddenly finds herself embarking on a remarkable journey of family repair that begins, as it does in conservation, with an understanding of the origins of damage.

Inspired by and structured similarly to Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, this first memoir by a working art conservator is organized by chapters based on the materials Lowinger handles in her thriving private practice – Marble, Limestone, Bronze, Ceramics, Concrete, Silver, Wood, Mosaic, Paint, Aluminum, Terrazzo, Steel, Glass and Plastics. Lowinger offers insider accounts of conservation that form the backbone of her immigrant family’s story of healing that beautifully juxtaposes repair of the material with repair of the personal. Through Lowinger’s relentless clear-eyed efforts to be the best practitioner possible while squarely facing her fraught personal and work relationships, she comes to terms with her identity as Cuban and Jewish, American and Latinx.

 

 

 

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Praise

 

“A masterful revelation about life and art imitating each other in maintenance and repair.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“DWELL TIME evokes a visceral, vibrant, complex materiality. From her mother’s aging body to the spectacular architecture of Cuba to the history of marble, concrete, and plastic, Lowinger brilliantly unlocks the stories that always reside in the material. DWELL TIME is as intellectually engaging as it is profoundly moving.” —Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward, a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of the Year

“Rosa Lowinger’s DWELL TIME is the story of a family, a mother-daughter relationship, but forged of what seems like new building materials entirely. An artist has many duties, among them to conserve the traditions and innovations of the past but also to “make it new.” This memoir does just that, and delivers on its final promise, that of repair.” —Gary Shteyngart, the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure and novels that include Super Sad True Love Story, Absurdistan, and Our Country Friends

“DWELL TIME is a multi-generational family memoir that reads like a panoramic, deeply moving roman-fleuve—taking the reader from Eastern Europe through Havana, Miami, Manhattan and Los Angeles, amid revolution, war, upheaval and exoduses. That it’s written by a revered conservator of art makes perfect sense, because Lowinger’s profession has given her a complex understanding of the past, of the contingencies of history, of the differences between surface and interior. One of art conservation’s creeds is: ‘You can’t repair what you don’t understand.’ This beautiful book is an act of understanding as a work of art.” —Randy Kennedy, New York Times arts writer and bestselling author of Presidio

“In DWELL TIME, art conservator Rosa Lowinger delves deep into a profound insight lying at the heart of her profession: when you understand how something got broken, you cannot help but soften to it. And when you soften to the damage done to an object of art, you soften to the damage others have done to you. Bit by bit, you begin to let go of the pain of the past, learning to live more fully in the present. Deeply personal and profoundly moving, DWELL TIME transcends the field of art conservation, applying its lessons to family and beyond.” —Barry Michels, bestselling author of The Tools and Coming Alive

 

 

Interview with Rosa

 

What made you decide to write a Memoir and share your story?

 

In 2009, when I had the Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, I came across the memoir The Periodic Table by Primo Levi. As I read the way he structured a family story around the metaphor of chemistry, I realized that I had a similar book in me, about conservation. Initially, I thought of it entirely as a way of showing the world what the conservation field is all about, because there are no books out there AT ALL that display our work in a way that is true and makes sense. Our profession is rife with powerful metaphors about damage and repair, and I felt that telling that story would resonate with so many people. I thought about this book for years and years but put it on the back burner as I built a business, which is now the U.S.’s largest woman-owned materials conservation practice. Then, the pandemic happened. Suddenly I found myself with time to write and reflect. I began a novel, hired a writing coach to help me structure it, and out of the blue I mentioned this idea for a memoir. She said, “stop everything and write that book proposal.” As I began to unpack the conservation material, a story about my family burbled through the narrative. It centered around my troubled, volatile, and extremely abandonment-averse mother. I realized that our family’s loss of Cuba, a country that my grandparents had moved to in the 1920s traumatized my family irrevocably and made my parents difficult to live with. As I wrote, I began to see the healing metaphor within this subject matter as a way to understand my family history of double exile. Art Conservation teaches us that the basis of all repair is understanding the source of damage. My goal with this memoir was to use this knowledge I have to unravel and learn to understand the intergenerational trauma at the foundation of our family life.

 

What is the definition of Dwell Time and why did you pick it as the title of your book?

 

In conservation, the term dwell time refers to the amount of contact time a chemical material needs to work. It is a measure of action on something you are trying to remove— soap on dirt, solvent on a stain, paint stripper on a varnish. The term dwell time also refers to the total time a person spends in an airport, or looking at a web page, or the time a family lingers at a border, waiting to get into a country, or the time you live in a city before moving on. I chose this title because it perfectly describes how I was trying to clean away the murkiness that made my family difficult to understand. Metaphorically, Dwell Time can also mean the amount of time you need to work on a problem. As I write in the book: We repair and make reparations by taking the risk of going past our own immediate emotions. Acting is its own salvation. You take the harsh decision or material, blend it into a gel, and watch the magic happen. The content of this book is like one of those solvent gels. That’s my hope, anyway.

 

What exactly is an art conservator and why did you pursue this career? How is it connected to your personal history?

 

Materials conservators (this term is more esoteric, but it’s used to include both art and architecture) repair, preserve, and perform preventive maintenance and basically enhance the longevity of all built heritage, which includes artworks, natural history collections, books, media, film, sculpture, paintings, murals, textiles, costumes, tapestries, archeological sites, and historic buildings and their materials. Our work blends art, science, and good hand skills. We are trained in the science of chemical deterioration and repair, and we work within specialties, like doctors. In public building restoration projects, for example, we are the ones who determine how stone or metals are treated, how terrazzo floors are repaired and salts leaching through tiles are addressed, yet we are often relegated to the sidelines and the architects get all the credit, even though they do not have the technical knowledge about materials that we have. In art, the curators, gallerists and fabricators get all the attention, yet it is only we (conservators) who know what to do when someone puts their elbow through a painting, or an outdoor sculpture starts to rust. I pursued this career because I fell into it. I was studying art and not very good at it. A professor recommended the field to me. I got into grad school by default and found that the field dovetailed with my sensibilities. It was all a bit subconscious I imagine. As a conservator, you are a servant to a work of art, never the protagonist. It’s got an odd humility to it, work done in the service of someone else’s aesthetic. I was raised to be beholden to others’ visions, my mother especially.

 

 

About the Author

 

Rosa Lowinger is a Cuban-born American art conservator and founder of RLA Conservation of Art + Architecture, LLC. (www.rlaconservation.com), the U.S.’s largest woman-owned materials conservation practice. She is also a published author, most well-known for Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub (Harcourt, 2005), a book on Havana’s pre-Castro nightclub era currently optioned for television by Keshet International, the company responsible for Homeland, Our Boys, and The Baker and the Beauty. Other fictional works by Rosa include The Encanto File, a play produced off-Broadway by the Women’s Project and Productions and published in Rowing to America and Sixteen Other Short Plays, edited by Julia Miles (Smith & Kraus, 2002), and The Empress of the Waves, a short story published in the anthology Island in the Light/Isla en la Luz (Trapublishing, 2019).

Rosa’s academic and professional distinctions include the 2008-09 Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, where she researched the history of vandalism, graffiti, and street art; and Fellow status in the American Institute for Conservation and the Association for Preservation Technology. She holds an M.A. in Art History and Conservation from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, lectures regularly at numerous universities around the country, and serves on the boards of the Amigos of the Cuban Heritage Collection at University of Miami, Florida Association of Museums, the Partnership for Sacred Places, and the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals.

Rosa co-curated the exhibits Promising Paradise: Cuban Allure American Seduction (Wolfsonian Museum, 2016) and Concrete Paradise: Miami Marine Stadium (Coral Gables Museum, 2013). She writes regularly for academic and popular media about conservation, the arts, and Cuba. Her 1999 cover story on Havana for Preservation spawned a career in cultural travel that has taken her to Cuba over 100 times since 1992. Rosa lives in Los Angeles and Miami.

 

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Synopsis

 

Find out how I, a nobody from the state of Rhode Island, was invited to travel Europe with the son of the richest man in the world at the time. We drove 19,965 miles through 12 different European countries in 10 weeks. We dined with Kings and Queens in Denmark, we gambled with the Shah of Iran in Monte Carlo, we had high tea with her Imperial Highness of Iran Princess Farah in Paris, we were rescued out of handcuffs by Shirley Temple Black during the Russian Invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Brigitte Bardot – The sexiest women in the world at the time – “Would you please dance with me? And that does not even scratch the surface of this mind-blowing adventure of 10 lifetimes that took me an additional ten years just to process.

How did my companion turn a ship around in the middle of the ocean just because we missed its departure? Within 8 hours of sending his dad to Iran, how did 30-$100 bills get hand-delivered to our hotel room in Switzerland even though no banks or wiring offices were open? After being told by the telephone company in Nice, France, to put my call through to the USA, how did my companion from the first payphone have me talking to my dad in the USA in 30 seconds flat?

How did Israel in 1948 get the oil needed to survive when no country in the world could or would sell the oil? Is it true that his father had permission from the Israeli government to build an entire city in Israel to move the total Jewish population from Tehran, Iran, to Israel at his own expense?

I was one of only eight people in the world who knew about this history-changing plan as I saw the actual blueprint of the city, which cost more than I would earn in my lifetime. Wait till you hear of the story of the 100 suitcases or the one about the prisoner who returned voluntarily to Dachau, a German concentration camp after escaping and being free.

If “Nothing Boggles the Mind of Simple Men like The Truth, ” I promise that you will be glad that you read it because as you do, you will come to realize it must be true because nobody could make this story up.”

 

 

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Excerpt

 

I got the call at work. I recognized Moritz’s voice immediately from his German accent. His voice was thick with grief. He could barely get the words out.

“It’s Maurice,” he said. “He’s gone.”

Gone? As in dead? I couldn’t seem to process the information. I stared blankly at the wall of my shop, specifically at a poster for Goodyear Tires. “How?” I managed to ask.

“Massive heart attack.”

A heart attack? It seemed such an unglamorous way to go, so incongruous with the enchanting no-holds-barred way Maurice had lived his life. I did the math in my head: he was only fifty-two.

I kept the call brief, thanked Moritz, one of Maurice’s other close friends from Munich, Germany, clearly in a similar state of shock, and hung up the phone.

I sat down in a chair and let the first wave of emotion wash over me. True, I hadn’t seen him in years, but I still thought of him as my best friend, and now that cherished friend was dead—the man who had opened the world up for me in ways I never imagined possible. Now, nearly 26 years after the fact, I had to remind myself that the time we spent traveling around Europe just after college was not a dream, that I did not imagine Maurice. But in truth I knew I had not. In the deepest depths of my mind, I could not have conjured up the times we had together.

 

 

Review

 

Wow is the first word that comes to mind. This stroll down memory lane for a trip taken by Gary and Maurice was terrific. While I would like to say it is hard to believe all of this happened and the details that Gary remembered, I don’t doubt a word that was written.

This is also a story of an unlikely friendship. Maurice is from a wealthy Iranian family, and Gary is from a small New England family. But this is what made it work. They each brought experiences to the table that the other may not have ever experienced had it not been for this friendship. Maurice’s experiences were ones that many of us might only dream of – meeting royalty, staying in nice hotels, and gambling with other people’s money. But Gary brought humble beginnings and family to the table. Despite all that Maurice’s money could buy, it can’t purchase home-cooked meals and close-knit family ties.

Their jaunt around Europe was one that most of us would not experience, or at least parts of it. I believe that most of us touring Europe would see other parts of the countries. However, this was 1968, and the times were different. I loved how you could send mail to a hotel, and they would hold it for you, whether you checked in or not. I’m unsure what sort of mail you would need to have sent this way, but it was intriguing.

This friendship and adventure across Europe was a joy to read. I imagined what taking this journey must have been like and that relieving these memories brought back some happy times.

We give this book 5 paws up.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

In 1965, Gary Orleck graduated from Babson College—a small but outstanding business college with students from around the world—in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and set out along Route 66, working his way around the US for four months. Most helpful was an agreement he had with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company that he could work in any store during his travels, but he could not be paid locally. Instead, his pay was sent to his home later. Gary was well-versed in the tire business because his father owned the largest Goodyear Tire and Service store in New England.

For a young boy from Rhode Island, this was a life-changing experience. Gary was present for the Watts Riots and the world premiere of Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch and Fernando Lamas at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. He arrived in San Francisco the day topless was approved. The four-month trip wet Gary’s appetite for more traveling. While driving home from California, he made a promise to himself: to drive around all of Europe the next year.

Gary bumped into a college student who graduated with him. The student was from Iran, a country most Americans had never heard of. Gary didn’t know it at the time, but his friend was from the wealthiest family in the world. His friend had lived in Switzerland for four years of boarding school, four years of college in London, and seven summers in the South of France for summer school. He asked Gary to join him that following summer to drive through Europe—his friend offering to be his tour guide since he knew Europe like the back of his hand.

At first, Gary was hesitant because of his friend’s perceived reputation, but he was very persuasive, promising to be the best tour guide ever. Reluctantly, Gary agreed, which led to the most mind-blowing experience—a ten-week trip through 12 countries and 19,920 miles of earth-shattering adventures that included turning a ship around in the middle of an ocean, dining with the King and Queen of Denmark, and the King and Queen of Belgium, meeting The Who backstage, being entertained by the Empress of Iran Empress Farah in Paris, gambling with the Shah of Iran in Monte Carlo, and even being rescued by Shirley Temple Black after being arrested during the Czechoslovakian Revolution in the summer of 1968.

Gary says, “It took ten years for me to process that trip—five years of research plus five years of writing—because I wished to share the greatest adventure a young naïve boy from Rhode Island could ever imagine happening. So, fasten your seat belts for a ride inside the elite world of the rich and famous, and join me on the trip of my lifetime. A trip you will never forget. I promise you that!”

 

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Synopsis

 

Raised by two loving parents in New Delhi, India, Kanchan Bhaskar has always been taught that marriage means companionship, tenderness, and mutual respect—so when she enters into an arranged marriage, this is the kind of partnership she anticipates with her new, seemingly wonderful, husband. But after they marry, she quickly discovers that his warmth is deceptive—that the man beneath the bright, charming façade is actually a narcissistic, alcoholic, and violent man.

Trapped in a nightmare, Kanchan pleads with her husband to seek help for his issues, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Indian law is not on her side, and as the years pass, she finds herself with three children to protect—three children she fears she will lose custody of if she leaves. Almost overnight, she finds herself transformed into a tigress who will do whatever it takes to protect her cubs, and she becomes determined to free them from their toxic father. But it’s not until many years later, when the family of five moves from India to the United States, that Kanchan is presented with a real opportunity to leave him—and she takes it.

Chronicling Kanchan’s gradual climb out of the abyss, little by little, day by day, Leaving is the empowering story of how—buoyed by her deep faith in a higher power and single-minded in her determination to protect her children best—she fought relentlessly to build a ramp toward freedom from her abuser. In this memoir, Kanchan clearly lays out the tools and methods she utilized in her pursuit of liberation—and reveals how belief in self and belief in the Universe can not only be weapons of escape but also beautiful foundations for a triumphant, purpose-driven life.

 

 

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Excerpt

 

Preface

 

I grew up in New Delhi, India, and my dreams were built on the romance and jubilation in which I was brought up. I imagined my married life to be as blissful and tender as that of my parents, who truly cherished and treasured each other and nurtured their four offspring with love and warmth. They lived more as partners than as a traditional Indian husband and wife.
Having been raised in this progressive environment, I acquired a unique perception of life—a woman was an equal partner in a marriage, one to be honored and valued. Marriage meant love, companionship, and caring. I couldn’t fathom it being any other way. Violence of any kind in marriage was unthinkable. A woman was to be respected—period.

My future husband would not share these perceptions. I found myself in an arranged marriage to a bright and deceptively-charming man, who revealed his true nature only after our wedding. The first time he hit me, my world spun upside down. When it righted, I had gotten myself stuck in a tumultuous, abusive relationship with a narcissistic alcoholic, in whose captivity I was trapped for more than twenty years.

The desperate mother of three innocent children who were casualties of these circumstances, I had to get away, but my escape had to be carefully planned with no room for error. If I divorced, I’d lose one or all of my children to the man I needed to escape from, which was not an option.

There had to be a way out.

I searched until I found it.
This story narrates how I built a ramp to climb out of the abyss, little by little, using a myriad of tools to bring me closer to freedom. Although I was alone in my fight for survival, I had deep faith in the higher power which presented me with collaborators in the form of angels and mentors to light my way.

My work was slow but steady. The ramp collapsed a few times and had to be rebuilt stronger. I shaped myself into a resilient woman, a tigress who could fend for her cubs. It wasn’t easy, and each day was a struggle, yet I remained determined in my single mission to protect my children and provide them with the best, as I had been provided with. This focus gave me the courage and spirit to keep forging ahead relentlessly.

Belief in self and belief in the Universe became my weapons of ultimate escape, the foundation for my liberation and re-earned dignity.

The story doesn’t stop with gaining my freedom but describes my continuing journey on the path of spirituality. In this book, I share my dawning realizations and the period of self-resurgence, which resulted in a triumphant, purpose-driven life.

Belief in spirituality provided the foundation and a new beginning on the path toward the emancipation of mind and soul.

Today a free woman, I’m happily settled in Chicago, living life on my own terms. I walk with my head high and chin up. The first flowers of spring in their divine colors make me smile. I can laugh again at a joke, find stillness in trees, and plan without fear, making up for the lost time.
I’m reminded of my favorite lines, my motto, from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

Reprinted from Leaving: How I Set Myself Free from an Abusive Marriage with the permission of She Writes Press. Copyright © 2023 by Kanchan Bhaskar

 

 

About the Author

 

Kanchan Bhaskar (Kan-chan Bhas-car), an Indian-American, is a first-time author. She holds a Master’s Degree in social work and a certificate in life coaching. She is also a certified Business Coach. Being a successful Human Resource professional, her expertise is in training and mentoring. She is a certified advocate, speaker, and coach for victims and survivors of domestic violence. Kanchan lives in Chicago.

 

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Synopsis

 

This memoir explores how Jeremy, a privately educated schoolboy, comes to reject his comfortable rural Surrey background to end up in the squats, drugs and hippy scene of 1970s Hornsey Rise.

The central theme of the book is Jeremy’s need to escape from the intense relationship with his alcoholic, charismatic and mentally unstable mother, her lovers, his ageing, ailing father, and about his romantic relationships.

Of particular interest is the way this memoir explores how a 1968-style vision of the world collapsed in the 1970s, and its implications for Jeremy and many of his generation. Their visionary countercultural world is not going to happen.

A journey about discovering what really matters in life. The Way to Hornsey Rise is a moving and very personal story, laced with intriguing observations about society, which all adds to its universal appeal.

 

 

Holland Park Press (UK) * Bookshop * Amazon

 

 

Praise

 

‘Jeremy Worman’s memoir is a compulsive read. The memoir really grips you from the start with Worman’s description of his horrifying relationship with his abusive alcoholic mother. The memoir rips away the veneer of the British upper-middle classes, showing them to be venal, despairing, corrupt.’ – Francis Gilbert

‘Surprising, even shocking, above all beautifully written. Do read it. You won’t be disappointed.’ – Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson

‘The Way to Hornsey Rise slips down like a glass of real lemonade on a hot afternoon, its sweet and bitter notes beautifully balanced. A sentimental education without illusions.’ – Ferdinand Mount

‘Taking us from the class-bound stockbroker belt suburbs of Surrey in the 1960s, all minor public schools and gin sozzled adultery, to the squats of North London in the 1970s, reeking of dope and the aroma of slowly decaying hippy idealism, this is a book rich in period detail and atmosphere, and its account of a young man’s painful progress from innocence to experience as compellingly universal as it is highly specific of a time and place.’ – Travis Elborough

 

 

Excerpt

 

The leaves were turning soft yellow.  I had arranged to meet Ma outside the Turkish cafe on Beaumont Road, assuming she made it.  She had told me last week: ‘I’m determined to find my way on public transport; I’d be embarrassed to ask a taxi to take me to that part of town.’  But unlike, say, the floor directions of expensive department stores, tube maps and bus timetables were not her natural territory.  There were few people around and certainly not Ma.  I crossed the road.

‘Darling, it’s me.’  An emerald-ringed finger pointed from the opened window of a black cab.

The taxi stopped.

‘I thought this would be the safest way,’ she said.

‘Quite right.  You can’t walk for twenty paces around here without being mugged.’

‘That’s what I feared.’

‘It was a joke, Ma.’

The cabby jumped out and opened the door for her.  An emblem of Home-Counties style stepped into one of the poorer boroughs of London: well-cut black slacks, dark-green silk blouse, short beige jacket and tartan beret.  Red toenails glowed in brown leather sandals.

‘Such an interesting drive, John.’  She gave him a five-pound note.

He touched his dark crew-cut hair, which contrasted with his ocean-blue polo shirt, and shook Ma’s hand.  ‘Enjoy your adventure, Madam.’

A Spurs pendant swayed on the dashboard as he drove off.  Ma and I looked at each other.

‘Well, what do you wear when you’re visiting your son in a down-at-heel area?’

‘You look perfect.’

‘You haven’t kissed me yet.’

I did.

‘Fresh coffee back at the flat, and I’ve planned lunch.’

‘Perhaps you could get together a team to tidy the place?’ she said when we reached the entrance gates to Welby House.

I marshalled her quickly across the yard without bumping into anyone I knew.  Fortunately the stairs had been recently washed with disinfectant and she followed me but said nothing.  She went into the living room and sat on the blue armchair.  ‘Very airy space.  Will you get a few friends to live with you?’

‘I’ve tried.  Welby House seems to frighten them off.  Traitors!’

‘You’ll find someone; I’m sure you will.’

‘I’ll go and make the coffee.’

She got up and looked out of the window.  A few minutes later I carried in the old pewter tray from Egham, and two matching cups and saucers, Staffordshire bone china, unchipped, which I had bought last week from the PDSAs second-hand shop in Islington.  I poured from the cafetiere.

‘Help yourself to the baklavas,’ I said.

She nibbled one.  ‘Lovely.  I’m pleased you haven’t given up all the pleasures of the good life.’

‘Why would I?’

‘I thought you squatter types rejected everything.’

‘Turkish cakes are allowed.’

She put down her plate.  ‘I was thinking of travelling again, Jeremy; I might stay with people I haven’t seen for years.’  She stood in the middle of the room.  ‘I don’t know how you ended up here.’

‘I didn’t want to live a Surrey sort of life any more.’

Her gaze peeled off my squatting dreams and exposed my fears.  How could I have any vision of my own if she did not approve it?  Was my real terror not that I had rejected her but that she had rejected me?  I saw this place through her eyes: the torn section of flock wallpaper around the chipped door; the semi repainted living room, in a special-offer Dulux Sage Green, from the hardware shop on Holloway Road; the loose floorboards; the stained carpet.

Where’s the bathroom, darling?’

‘Up the stairs; first door on the right.’

What could I trust if she was not in my life?

Ma came back from the bathroom. ‘I forgot to give you the champagne; let’s have it now; it’s still quite chilled.’  She took it out of her Liberty-print bag.

I got two glasses from the kitchen, rubbed them with the drying-up towel, and rushed back.  She pushed out the cork, which bounced off the ceiling, and filled our glasses.

‘To your new life,’ she said.

‘Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for lunch.’

The stale smell of the flat followed me to the kitchen.  How had I landed up here?  Why did I want Ma to see this place?  Was I trying to shock her?  Was I saying, ‘Just look how much I have rejected your fucking pretentious Surrey world?’  Five minutes later I carried in two plates.

‘Voila.’

We sat at the table and talked about family things, which seemed to come from a distant world.  The champagne intensified my sense of disjuncture.

‘We’re going to grow organic vegetables and sell them,’ I said.

‘Here?’

‘Yes.’

‘How sweet.’

‘It’s not “sweet”; it’s changing the way we think about the city.  Do you want to see the allotment?’

‘I know what vegetable patches look like, darling.’

After lunch we looked out at the square.

‘Come home for a few months if you want.’

‘I like it here.’

‘Do you mind if I pop off?  I’ll get a cab to Simpson’s; I need a new outfit for the autumn.’

‘If we walk to Archway Road, you’ll find one more easily.’

‘No.  I feel quite safe.  It’s not as rough as I expected; if I need help I’m sure the natives will be charming.’  She picked up her bag.  ‘Thanks for showing me your experiment in living.  Come and see me soon.’

‘I will.’

We kissed and she left.  As the door shut, I felt terribly alone and wanted to hear her voice again.  I recalled that day years’ ago at Miss Fish’s when she was late collecting me.  I had been looking out for her at the small landing window and pictured her face but could no longer hear her voice.  The silence made a void in which I was nothing.  Then I saw her face again, and heard different voices speak from her mouth, but none of them was hers.  It was as if she no longer existed.  Perhaps she had found another voice with which to speak to a boy just like me.

 

Excerpt from The Way to Hornsey Rise © Jeremy Worman 2023

 

 

About the Author

 

Jeremy Worman is a writer and critic who taught English Literature to American BA students for twenty-five years at Birkbeck, University of London, Cambridge University and Hackney Adult Education Institute.

He was awarded a First in English from Birkbeck, and has an MA (Distinction) in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, an M. Litt from Cambridge University and a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths (2021) where Blake Morrison was the supervisor for this memoir; the examiners were Francis Spufford and Sir Jonathan Bate.

Jeremy’s short-story collections, Fragmented (2011) and Swimming with Diana Dors and Other Stories (2014), were published by Cinnamon Press. His short stories and poems have been published widely in, amongst other places, The London Magazine, Ambit, The Frogmore Papers, the Cork Literary Review.

He has reviewed for The Observer, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman and many other publications.

 

Website

 

 

 

 

Synopsis

 

In 1957, when Amy Turner was four years old, her father had to be talked down from a hotel ledge by a priest. The story of his attempted suicide received nationwide press coverage, and he spent months in a psychiatric facility before returning home. From then on, Amy constantly worried about him for reasons she didn’t yet fully understand, triggering a pattern of hypervigilance that would plague her into adulthood.

In 2010, fifty-five years after her father’s attempted suicide, Amy—now a wife, mother, and lawyer-turned-schoolteacher—is convinced she’s dealt with all the psychological reverberations of her childhood. Then she steps into a crosswalk and is mowed down by a pickup truck—an accident that nearly kills her, and that ultimately propels her on a remarkable emotional journey. With the help of Chinese Medicine, Somatic Experiencing, and serendipities that might be attributed to grace, Amy first unravels the trauma of her own brush with death and then, unexpectedly, heals the childhood trauma buried far deeper.

Poignant and intimate, On the Ledge is Amy’s insightful and surprisingly humorous chronicle of coming to terms with herself and her parents as the distinct, vulnerable individuals they are. Perhaps more meaningfully, it offers proof that no matter how far along you are in life, it’s never too late to find yourself.

 

 

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Praise

 

“. . . an intriguing memoir . . . that many readers will find relatable. . . . A frank and engaging portrait of one family’s struggles with mental illness.”—Kirkus Reviews

“In lyrical and vivid prose, Amy Turner reckons with her family secrets and how they dug their roots deep into her psyche. With trauma as the inciting force, Turner courageously comes to terms with her past and present, showing us how choosing to lean into the scars can reveal paths forward. On the Ledge is a compelling read, told with grace, vulnerability, and depth.”—Rachel Michelberg, author of Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver

“This remarkable story of a woman’s journey toward healing after a random, shocking accident takes us back in time into the home of an unusual family and the seminal event that shaped them all. In peeling back layers of trauma and revisiting key moments from her past, Turner comes to a new understanding of what it means to be a daughter, a mother, a woman, and a seeker of truth. This is a riveting story of courage and redemption. And dare I say that parts of it are very, very funny?”—Hope Edelman, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Motherless Daughters and The AfterGrief

“On the Ledge is an extraordinary memoir of the way trauma harms both body and soul. Amy Turner’s near-miss with death at the age of fifty-seven propels her on a journey back through family history, leading to a new understanding of how her father’s attempted suicide and her mother’s determination to ‘move on’ has shaped—and limited—her since the age of four. Inspirational and beautifully told.”—Susan Scarf Merrell, author of Shirley: A Novel, now a major motion picture

“Absorbing, direct, humorous, horrific, On the Ledge explores the edge of madness as an artful memoir that also addresses two growing contemporary concerns: suicide and addiction. Timely, significant, well written, this is a courageous and engaging account, neither didactic nor sentimental, that belongs on school shelves as well as in the home.”
—Joan Baum, host of NPR’s Baum on Books

 

 

Guest Post

 

Thank You Notes

 

By Amy Turner

 

My father was a firm believer in writing thank you notes and always did so promptly in response to even the smallest gestures of kindness. My husband and I used to joke that my father’s note thanking us for his weekend visit to our home would probably arrive in the mail before he left.

I didn’t follow my father’s example as assiduously as I should’ve, but writing a thank you note after a memorial for my brother led me to write my memoir. How I wish my father were still with us so that I could thank him.

My brother died unexpectedly and suddenly in late September 2010. After struggling with alcoholism ever since his mid-twenties, Harold had been sober for the last three years—the longest period of sobriety he’d achieved since he’d started drinking thirty years earlier. I would’ve been sad but not surprised if he’d died at any other time in the previous thirty years. But in late September 2010, I was shocked.

My brother’s death occurred two months after another shockingly random event in my life. I’d been crossing the street at a pedestrian crosswalk when I was mowed down by a pickup truck. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer any broken bones or internal injuries, but my concussion, shoulder injury, and other physical issues required ongoing treatment. Lucky for me, I ended up in the care of an acupuncturist who was also training in Somatic Experiencing and other body-oriented trauma-release therapies.

After the accident, my therapist and acupuncturist urged me to write about the accident, but, petulant as a toddler, I resisted for reasons even I didn’t understand.

Ten months after my brother Harold’s death (and a year after the accident), we held a memorial service for him, where our high school English teacher appeared out of the blue. I hadn’t seen her in over 40 years and had no idea how she’d learned of the service. Her beautiful tribute to my brother as a teenager and recitation of Wordsworth’s “Splendour in the Grass” moved us all.

I began my thank you note to our teacher with my brother’s memorial and my feelings of loss. He had shown promise as a teenager and Harvard College student, but his addiction, our family’s legacy, prevented him from utilizing his many personal gifts. As I wrote about my brother, I also described my accident. It was appropriate to do so because my acupuncturist was also strongly connected to this teacher in a series of serendipities too involved to recount.

As I wrote, a channel within me suddenly cleared and out poured connections, memories, and reflections to which I’d never before had access. Like my father, I’d been a blocked writer and given up my dream of writing in my twenties. But my father had soldiered on.

As my writing was soon beyond the bounds of a thank you note, I sent off my message to her and kept writing. I had no idea that ten years later, this initial breakthrough would result in my memoir, On the Ledge.

I’m sure my initial outpouring was prompted by the work I’d done in trauma-release therapy. It allowed space and distance to grow within me, an area of emotional safety from which I could suddenly express myself. But now that the book is published and out in this world, I think I also understand why over the course of the next ten years I’d felt such an urgency—an imperative– to write what became On the Ledge

I believe that I couldn’t leave these two random events—my brother’s death and the accident—to remain outliers in my experience. I was compelled subconsciously to integrate them into the larger context of my life. As I wrote, my story became that of confronting one’s vulnerability—staring into the windshield of an oncoming truck and facing my brother’s sudden, unexpected loss.

In trying to process these two events, I was brought back to the seminal event in my family’s life: When I was four and a half, my father climbed out onto the ledge of his hotel window and threatened to jump. He was talked down after twenty minutes by a passing priest and then hospitalized for a year. For me, his sudden disappearance and, upon his return, my worries about his mental state created a fear of vulnerability that I’d spend a lifetime trying to suppress…

Until, finally, I began to write and in the process find the freedom I’d so long sought.

 

 

Guest Review by Nora

 

“My test, in the end, was half-hearted. Perhaps even then I sensed the truth: They weren’t capable of saving me. They were too busy trying to save themselves.” – “On the Ledge,’ by Amy Turner.

A look at the way that the cycle of addiction and depression can affect multiple generations, ‘On the Ledge,’ by Amy Turner is a memoir with an emotional kick. Amy was only four years old when her father’s suicide attempt put him into a psychiatric hospital. Forced to come to terms with the fact that her father was acting differently for reasons that she couldn’t yet understand, Amy spent the rest of her childhood trying her best not to upset him.

Between her emotionally fragile father and a mother whose rigorous control of the household was her way of staving off her latent alcoholism, Amy was raised in an environment that provided trauma that she would spend many decades unpacking.

It wasn’t until 55 years later, however, that Amy would get the best chance of understanding how her parents thought. In 2010, Amy was crossing a crosswalk after picking up her dry cleaning when she was hit by a pickup truck. For a while afterward, Amy lay on the pavement, unable to move, worried that she was going to suffocate on the plastic drycleaning bag that had ended up over her face.

After being taken to the hospital and cleared to go home, Amy was surprised to find that the psychological trauma from the accident seemed to be affecting her more so than the physical trauma. This memoir is a thesis on emotional trauma and healing one’s inner child.

Amy Turner writes with both talent and experience that I think a lot of readers could benefit from. For anyone who has been through trauma in their lives, this book is for you. A courageous woman with her gripping true story. I could not put it down!

 

 

About the Author

 

Amy Turner was born in Bronxville, New York, and is a graduate of Boston University, with a degree in political science, and of New York Law School, with a Juris Doctor Degree. After practicing law (rather unhappily) for twenty-two years, she finally found the courage to change careers at forty-eight and become a (very happy) seventh grade social studies teacher.

A long-time meditator and avid reader who loves to swim and bike, Amy lives in East Hampton, New York, with her husband, Ed, to whom she’s been married for forty years. They have two sons. On the Ledge is Amy’s first book.

 

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Giveaway

 

This giveaway is for 2 print copies and is open to the U.S. only.

This giveaway ends on October 5, 2022 midnight, pacific time.

Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Synopsis

 

“I spent the first three years of my life unaware of the disaster that had befallen my family.” Annette Libeskind Berkovits writes: “I was shaped by the aftermath of the Holocaust…I adapted…grew a protective shield for self-preservation, then put on a smile and moved forward to meet the world on my own terms.”

She was born in exile among the red poppy-strewn foothills of the Himalayan Mountains and raised in Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Annette and her parents returned via cattle train to Poland only to discover that the Nazis had murdered almost their entire extended family and reduced their homes to rubble. After her parents obtained exit visas from the Soviet authorities, she became a teenage immigrant to two different countries in the space of two years.

Israel, a country barely ten years old – rough, sweet, vibrant, with its brilliant sky and azure sea – was like stepping into Technicolor after Poland’s dreary grays. Annette fell in love with it. But just two years later Annette’s life was upended again when the family was driven to emigrate to America.

Leaving the blue of Israel behind Annette was greeted by the green patina of the Statue of Liberty as the ship reached New York harbor. Her father and an Auschwitz survivor aunt welcomed the family with excitement, but many obstacles lay ahead.

The American immigrant experience is realized here from a perspective of a young girl. New languages, customs, and cultures, learned at lightning speed while mastering the normal angst of adolescence, make this a vivid and immersive memoir, rich with the detail of everyday life.

Annette graduated from one of the most selective public high schools in America and later became an internationally respected wildlife conservation educator and a writer of memoir, poetry, and historical fiction. Her brother, Daniel Libeskind, the internationally renowned architect, is very much a part of her story.

 

 

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Excerpt

 

During the mid-40s and 50s there was no organization more feared or more powerful in Poland than the UB, the Ministry of Public Security—the secret police. More than 30,000 of its employees were installed in every community to serve as a listening post for the faintest signs of political opposition. Everyone was considered a suspect under the UB’s lidless gaze. To maintain its grip, the communist government depended on neighbor denouncing neighbor. Within a decade more than 300,000 people were arrested and 9,000 executed for alleged anti-government activities.

In our home conversations were usually whispered, especially if they related to money, to our friends or neighbors, or things about our plans for the future, to anything of importance. “Sha, sha,” Mama usually cautioned with a finger to her lips and a look of concern on her crinkled forehead. “Even the walls have ears.”

It wasn’t until much later that I understood the reason for the secrecy. In communist Poland any neighbor could have been a spy and even the most innocent remark could have landed my parents in jail, or subjected them to relentless scrutiny and endless questioning by the authorities. As uncomfortable as such a life must have been for my parents, we kids felt a part of our own little secret society, taking comfort in our togetherness and a shared sense of purpose; us against unfriendly neighbors and a hostile city. In Poland we were keenly aware that we were Jewish, like none of our neighbors. That meant that many of our relatives were killed

during the war, that my parents spoke Yiddish, but only at home, and that Israel was where some of my mother’s relatives lived. It also meant that our neighbors thought we had horns and lice on our heads, and piles of money under our mattresses. At least this is what I surmised from the frequent derogatory comments thrown our way.

 

 

About the Author

 

Annette Libeskind Berkovits is the author of two acclaimed memoirs: “In the Unlikeliest of Places: How Nachman Libeskind Survived the Nazis, Gulags and Soviet Communism” a story of her father’s survival, and “Confessions of an Accidental Zoo Curator.” She has also penned a poetry book, “Erythra Thalassa: Brain Disrupted” and a historical fiction novel, “The Corset Maker.” “Aftermath” is her latest release.

 

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BLACK AND WHITE:

 

Tales of the Texas Highway Patrol

 

by

 

BEN H. ENGLISH

 

Law Enforcement Biography / Memoir / Ethics & Morals

 

Publisher: Creative Texts Publishers
Pages: 250 pages
Publication Date: June 7, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

You know, I never saw an officer, an EMT, a fireman, or an ER crew ask anyone what their politics were and then refuse to care for them because of their answer. The color of skin pigment, the last name, the amount of money in a bank account, none of that mattered.

All that mattered was someone needed help, and they had the skills as well as the burning desire to do so.

Yes, they are only human and internally flawed and prejudiced as any other. But their true nature, their crowning glory in mortal life, is their ability to rise above those flaws and prejudices when called upon.

In a world of hungry, destructive wolves, they stand as the sheepdog who serves and protects the flock.

 

 

 

Amazon

 

 

 

For autographed and personally inscribed copies, please contact:

 

 The Stable | Front Street Books

 

 

 

 

RADIO INTERVIEW:

Alpine Radio-Texas KVLF station owner Martin Benevich interviews

Ben H. English about Black and White: Tales of the Texas Highway Patrol and more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben H. English is an eighth-generation Texan who grew up in the Big Bend. At seventeen he joined the Marines, ultimately becoming a chief scout-sniper as well as an infantry platoon sergeant. Later he worked counterintelligence and traveled to over thirty countries on four continents.

At Angelo State University he graduated Magna Cum Laude along with other honors. Afterward Ben had a career in the Texas Highway Patrol, holding several instructor billets involving firearms, driving, patrol procedures, and defensive tactics.

After retirement, he decided to try his hand at writing. His first effort, Yonderings, was accepted by a university press and garnered some awards. His second, Destiny’s Way, led to a long-term, multi-book contract.  This was followed by Out There: Essays on the Lower Big Bend and now his second fictional work, The Uvalde Raider.
His intimate knowledge of what he writes about lends credence and authenticity to his work. Ben knows how it feels to get hit and hit back, or being thirsty, cold, wet, hungry, alone, or exhausted beyond imagination. Finally, he knows of not only being the hunter, but also the hunted.

Ben and his wife have two sons who both graduated from Annapolis. He still likes nothing better than grabbing a pack and some canteens and heading out to where few others venture.
Just as he has done throughout most of his life…

 

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Visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page

for direct links to each stop on the tour, updated daily, or visit the blogs directly:

 

8/29/22	Notable Quotables	Chapter Break Book Blog
8/29/22	Review	That’s What She’s Reading
8/29/22	BONUS Promo	Hall Ways Blog
8/30/22	Excerpt	Shelf Life Blog
8/30/22	Review	The Clueless Gent
8/30/22	BONUS Promo	LSBBT Blog
8/31/22	Guest Post	It’s Not All Gravy
8/31/22	Review	Forgotten Winds
9/1/22	Scrapbook Page	Book Fidelity
9/1/22	Review	Rox Burkey Blog
9/2/22	Audio Interview	StoreyBook Reviews
9/2/22	Review	Boys’ Mom Reads!

 

 

 

 

 

 

blog tour services provided by

 

 

 

Synopsis

 

In September 1939, Britain declares war on Germany. Bernard Sandler, a 17-year-old schoolboy from Yorkshire, is on a school trip to the United States and consequently finds himself unable to return home, separated from his close-knit Jewish family in Britain.

Stranded in cosmopolitan New York for an unknown duration, he must grow up quickly. He discovers the pleasures and excitement of Broadway theatre and jazz while developing his own social circle at New York University. But just as he finds his independence, the United States declares war in December 1941, which changes his life once again. Bernard is drafted into the United States Army, joining the 26th Infantry “Yankee” Division. Eventually, he returns to Europe, serving on the front lines alongside General Patton’s Third Army during the brutal Lorraine Campaign in Northern France in the fall of 1944.

The book also follows the remarkable story of Bernard’s family in England, and the fate of his wider family in Latvia (whom he visited in an epic journey in 1937, also as a schoolboy), during this period.

The English GI is a moving personal story about coming-of-age, the powerful bond of families, and the tragedy of war.

 

 

Amazon

 

 

Review

 

This is the first graphic novel I have ever read, and I have to say I was blown away by this author’s depictions of his grandfather’s journal and memories of WWII. I enjoyed each frame of the story and was swept away to the 1940s and his life in the US and how it was very different from England, away from family.

I enjoyed the snippets from Bernard’s journal interspersed between the drawings. While a graphic novel doesn’t tell the story in long chapters and descriptions, this book caught the energy of that timeframe, and each frame added to the history that some of us may know, but not in great detail.

This will be a book that his family can treasure for years to come and retain that historical information for the family records.

If all graphic novels are like this, I may find myself picking up another one in the near future.

We give this book 5 paws up.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

My grandfather came from a close-knit Jewish family in Leeds, England. In the summer of 1939, he had the amazing opportunity to go on a school trip to the United States. Soon after, Britain declared War, and he was unable to return. The graphic novel depicts his whole experience, from naive schoolboy alone in the vast metropolis of New York – through to his eventual call-up to the US Army, including him being sent back to Europe, serving in the brutal Lorraine Campaign in 1944 under Patton’s Third Army.

Jonathan Sandler studied Politics at Leicester University and has spent a large part of his career working in the software industry, leading and managing complex projects. Jonathan, a keen sketcher,  has always been passionate about World War Two History and Graphic Novels. In 2020, he combined these dual interests and commenced work on The English GI, which graphicmemoir.co.uk published in 2022.

Jonathan lives in North West London with his wife and three children.

 

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