A Life Inherited: Unraveling the Trauma of a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor

A few weeks ago, Rena Lipiner Katz's husband, Ron, posted about his wife's book in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. I was intrigued by the subtitle - Unraveling the Trauma of a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor. My ex-husband is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, ex being the key part of that sentence. Once he and I got divorced, I scoured the bookshelves of libraries and book stores, looking for anything I could read about inherited trauma. I'm not sure how my ex-husband behaves now, but at the time of our divorce, he acted more like a survivor than some of the survivors that I knew. I thought Katz's book would give me further insight. She started out so strong and I anticipated lots of ah-ha moments as I'd read through her memoir.

With the advent of improved diagnostic tools, research has shown that children of Holocaust survivors may have more intense stress responses than are found in the general population.

...

Perverse at it was, I felt I did not deserve to live in peace or know joy, and grief was my unconscious driver. 

While her story was well-crafted, it didn't give me enough of what I was looking for. The bulk of this memoir is about her first bad marriage and the toll that marriage took on her children and on her relationship with them. I wish she would have delved a little deeper into why she thought it was a good idea to marry a non-Jewish man who showed tendencies to be cruel even prior to their marriage. She addressed it, but too briefly for me.

He seemed to inhabit a world dominated by the ethos of those who knew no fear, and I needed to belong to them, not to my own. To be a member of this insular "Gentleman's Agreement" crowd - a synthesis of everything that had been written in the books of my childhood and vividly illustrated in my mind - was the antithesis of the Holocaust.

My former husband and his family called me "a Yankee" so perhaps something similar was going on and I wanted to know more. In Katz's case, at least from what she's shared, it seems as though her first husband was much more damaged than she was due to their respective upbringings.

Lots of the details of her divorce were pretty similar to mine even though in my case, the father of my children was the child of Holocaust survivors.

She mentioned a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder towards the end of the memoir "though obsessing about what I could not control was a useless, brutal exercise, it may have been protective, helping to shield me from feeling too close to the pain of my parents' history as survivors." And perhaps as a way to control things in what felt like an out-of-control life? That was my one ah-ha moment. Again, I wish Katz had given more examples of how this played out in her life.

I'm glad I read the book. I found it very interesting. It seems like Katz is in a very good place now. A Life Inherited just wasn't what I wanted or needed to be reading about. I've contacted Katz's husband and perhaps she will correspond with me so I can dig a little deeper.

 

Pineapple Street

The last several books I've read have been either so heavy or so dark, Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson was such a nice change of pace. Don't be fooled into thinking this is some frivolous family drama, though. Jackson got the idea for her debut novel after reading about the problem of wealth inequity. The stars of the novel are a family of one-percenters. Yes, the children independently, through inheritance, are each multimillionaires.

The genesis of the story was, in part, an article in The New York Times, “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism”, “about socially minded millennial heirs who feel like their inheritance is at odds with their morality”. This is the story of two generations of the Stockton family. The parents seem very comfortable with their wealth, with both what they've inherited and what they've earned by working. Their three adult children (and the siblings of the two older ones) are still trying to figure out how to reconcile that kind of wealth with the kinds of lives they want to live and the types of people they want to be.

I guess this story struck a chord with me because inherited wealth and wealth inequality is something that I talked about with my adult kids (close in age to the Stockton kids) all the time during our daily COVID Facetime calls. Does any person need to have billions? What about millions? What about inherited wealth? Shouldn't we find something to replace capitalism? If my kids were into reading this type of novel, it's one that I would suggest for them.

I also loved the novel because it was set in Brooklyn Heights (NYC). The author really evokes Brooklyn Heights. While I haven't been there in years, I could picture some of the streets that were described. And I could imagine the young people now living on the "fruit streets" of Brooklyn Heights.

I've heard lots of people applaud this book because it's light and funny. It was an easy read. I enjoyed Jackson's craft and character development. But was it light? Or funny? Not if you really stop to think about wha you are reading.

I highly recommend.

The Family Across the Street

 

The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope is a psychological thriller that is quite the page turner. This is the story about Katherine and John West and their their nearly 6-year old twins on Hogarth Street. Hogarth Street is usually a quiet street. The neighbors keep mostly to themselves. All except for Gladys who is the older, busybody neighbor who keeps her eye on everyone's comings and goings.

Told from four different points-of-view, most told in third person, the novel starts with the neighbors hearing a gun being shot inside the West house. Then it looks back to how that day has unfolded from the four different points-of-view. The book starts with longer chapters and then transitions to very short chapters, making it impossible to put down. The reader just wants to figure everything out. What exactly going on? And why?

The characters were all very authentic and their stories were absorbing. This is not my usual genre but it was an easy book to read and a nice change of pace for me. I'm pretty sure the book discussion about this book will be about whether we suspected how the story would end. (I had a strong feeling about two thirds of the way into the book but my prediction was not exactly how the story worked out.)

Women Talking

Women Talking is Miriam Toew's fictionalized account of the patriarchy and misogyny in the religious communities of Mennonites. She should know. She was raised in one and left when she was 18 years old. The story upon which the movie is based took place in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Women and girls, some as young as 3, were drugged with a cow tranquilizer, then raped and attacked at night, while they were sleeping. The women were told that it was demons attacking them. It wasn't until two of the men were caught in the act, the victims waking up, that a group of men finally admitted to perpetrating the brutal attacks.

My community book club decided to try something a little different for June. We selected Women Talking by Miriam Toews with the option to either read the book or watch the movie that is streaming on Amazon Prime. Because the book is typically better than the movie, and I was able to get the novel from the library without a wait, I read the book and only then watched the movie.

How did the movie compare to the book? Did I have a preference for one over the other?

The book was definitely a more complete story. In both the book and the movie, August, a failed farmer and the only male over the age of 12 that the women feel they can touch, is tasked with recording the minutes of the meeting where the women discuss if they should stay and do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. In the book, we get to learn August's story. In the movie, he is just another character in the story of the women.

The book was a little hard to follow. The names were unfamiliar and one was too similar to the next. It made it hard for me to keep the relationships between the women straight. In that respect, the movie was better. It was easier to follow which character was which and the relationships seemed less important. 

Both the book and the movie were pretty graphic. The story is horrific whether you're reading it or watching it. But the visuals in the book were, on some level, much more disturbing. Don't get me wrong. The book is incredibly disturbing as well. Hard to believe these attacks went on for such a long period of time.

As a funny aside, one of my fellow book club members was sitting next to me at a meeting yesterday where we had a decision to make regarding the synagogue. As I sat there thinking about our choices, I realized that they really came down to: should we stay and do nothing; should we stay and fight (renovate); or should we sell our building (leave). I turned to my friend and asked her if she'd read Women Talking yet. Didn't our decision remind her of the one the women needed to make, too. Some of the arguments were the same in both cases. Truly life imitating art.

 

Italy for Food Lovers

I wasn't sure if I was going to review Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers, a book co-written by travel guru, Rick Steves, and Fred Plotkin. Then figured, why not? My mouth was watering as I was reading.

I do recommend this travel guide with a sole focus on good eating in Italy for anyone who is planning a trip to Italy and wants to map out a food plan. While reading, I made note of what foods  are the specialities in each area we will be visiting as well as foods that might be in season while we're there. In a few cases, I also jotted down some of the restaurants they recommended. I'm carefully going through my notes and adding much of the information to the journal I am preparing for the trip.

I also paid attention to Italian words and phrases that will help me better understand menus and be able to order in Italian.

Counting down the days until our trip. Mangiamo!

 

Demon Copperhead

Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead is equal parts compelling and truly difficult to read. I mostly read at night before turning off the light to go to sleep. I'd get to the end of a chapter and would turn to the next chapter... and next another. But then the next day I had to force myself to pick up the book again. I wanted to see where she was taking the story, but I almost really didn't. Very conflicting feelings.

The subject matter is very difficult. Damon Fields is born to a single mother in Virginia, in the heart of Appalachia in the 1980s. His father died several months prior to his birth at a place called the Devil's Bathtub. As a result, Damon was always afraid of bathtubs. His mother was a poor struggling teen living in a single-wide trailer on the property of an older couple who are responsible for raising their grandson since his father is gone and his mother is in prison. Such is the life in Appalachia.

Damon is nicknamed Demon and his Copperhead comes from the vibrant color of his hair. (There's also some legend told about a copperhead snake, but that is debatable.) This is his story. It includes an abusive stepfather, time in foster care, child labor, star athlete, unrequited love, addiction, and then the kind of love that drags a person down. There was also a little bit of hope.

Reading about the foster care system and the addiction of all types of people was difficult to get through. Foster parents who took in kids for the money. Or for slave labor. Or for whatever their agenda was.

I've mentioned Renee's Reading Club, a Faebook group, before. That group is solely for recommendations. There's also an RRC discussion group where you can discuss books after you finish them or as you're reading them. Spoilers are allowed. After I finished reading this novel, I went to the discussion group and wrote my observations about the book and how I think living in a rural area with lots of poverty gave me a different perspective than had I stayed in my little metro-NYC area bubble. In the book, Demon has a running commentary about what he thinks about large cities (the word large being relative since he's mostly talking about Knoxville, Tennessee) and how city folk think about people in rural America. Kingsolver lives in Appalachia so she knows what she's talking about.

I'd love for my community book club to read and discuss Demon Copperhead. We're all transplants here from somewhere, and I'd like to see if they feel they have more of a connection to the setting in the novel after having lived here. This would make a great book club book.

Would I recommend this one? It's very  difficult to read, but if you can read it, it will force you to think about some of the uglier things in life which need to be addressed and not ignored.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

 Often when I start a book and it expires, whether from my Kindle or as an audiobook, I need to make a decision. Am I going to request the book or am I going to just let it slide - in other words, drop the book. There was never a though in my. mind that I'd drop Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I was so engaged with the characters in this novel and I needed to know how it would end. I immediately waitlisted it in both audio and e-book format, with a wait of 14 weeks for one and 17 weeks for another. I worried that I'd forget where I left off, but that didn't happen. Maybe because I only had to wait 10 weeks. Or because I was so involved in the story. I started out with the audio in February and finished up with the e-book this week.

Many say that Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a novel about video gaming. Video game development and the playing of video games is a major theme of this book, but the story is about so much more. It's a story about friendship, collaboration, partnership and identity. It's gotten mixed reviews. I loved it.

Over 30 years, much can change in relationships, twists, turns, spending every minute together to going for weeks, months without speaking. That was what I most interested in. The cast of characters were almost all flawed, but that didn't make me not care about them. I did. (The grandparents were the most lovable of the bunch.)

Sadie and Sam meet as kids in. a gaming room in a California hospital. (that has me wondering during which one of my daughter's hospital stays did I sit in a game room playing video games). Sam is a patient, recovering from a car accident. Sadie is visiting her sister. They bond over video games.

Fast forward several years. Their friendship wanes. Then, they meet up again in Boston while they're both in college. They are both still very much into gaming. Their friendship evolves.

I really don't want to say much more than this, but this book includes so many other themes. The title of the novel, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" reminds me of my mom drilling Macbeth into my head during my high school years. I was also reminded of my mom whenever the video game, Oregon Trail, was mentioned. I was already an adult when my mom introduced me to that game. I loved the idea of the game, playing it with my mom.

One of the questions in the discussion guide was "What video games have you formed an attachment to in your life, as a child and/or as an adult?" The question included a bit more but made me realize all the video games I've been attached to in my life. There are many more but these are the first that come to mind: Pong, Breakout, Tetris, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Cookie, and Dance Dance Revolution. Great memories go along with all of those.