An acclaimed writer on her mother's tumultuous life as a Jewish
immigrant in 1930s New York and her life-long guilt when the
Holocaust claims the family she left behind in Latvia
A story of love, war, and life as a Jewish immigrant in the squalid
factories and lively dance halls of New York's Garment District in
the 1930s, My Mother's Wars is the memoir Lillian Faderman's mother
was never able to write. The daughter delves into her mother's past
to tell the story of a Latvian girl who left her village for
America with dreams of a life on the stage and encountered the
realities of her new world: the battles she was forced to fight as
a woman, an immigrant worker, and a Jew with family left behind in
Hitler's deadly path.
The story begins in 1914: Mary, the girl who will become Lillian
Faderman's mother, just seventeen and swept up with vague ambitions
to be a dancer, travels alone to America, where her half-sister in
Brooklyn takes her in. She finds a job in the garment industry and
a shop friend who teaches her the thrills of dance halls and the
cheap amusements open to working-class girls. This dazzling life
leaves Mary distracted and her half-sister and brother-in-law
scandalized that she has become a good-time gal. They kick her out
of their home, an event with consequences Mary will regret for the
rest of her life.
Eighteen years later, still barely scraping by as a garment worker
and unmarried at thirty-five, Mary falls madly in love and has a
torrid romance with a man who will never marry her, but who will
father Lillian Faderman before he disappears from their lives.
America is in the midst of the Depression, Hitler is coming to
power in Europe, and New York's garment workers are just beginning
to unionize. Mary makes tentative steps to join, despite her
lover's angry opposition. As National Socialism engulfs Europe,
Mary realizes she must find a way to get her family out of Latvia,
and she spends frenetic months chasing vague promises and false
rumors of hope. Pregnant again, after having submitted to two
wrenching back-room abortions, and still unmarried, Mary faces both
single motherhood and the devastating possibility of losing her
entire Eastern European family.
Drawing on family stories and documents, as well as her own
tireless research, Lillian Faderman has reconstructed an engrossing
and essential chapter in the history of women, of workers, of Jews,
and of the Holocaust as immigrants experienced it from American
shores.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
