4 comments about A Bruised Child: A Story of Emotional Child Abuse and the Courage to Heal.

1. words can't describe how much i despise this book. I actually threw it against the wall before it made its way to the garbage can. I read 3 pages. If you want to hear inane commentary of every single cognitive process this guy had over the course of his childhood then go for it. I doubt the author has recovered at all from his abuse and seems to desperately try to turn his tragedy (whatever it was) into something interesting. Very self indulgent. I felt as if he was dictating a psychotherapists cold analysis of himself to the reader. If you are looking for insight into the patterns and recovery of abuse, look elsewhere. Read Judith Herman's "Trauma and Recovery".



2. When your children stop talking to you, you gotta think what you have done to them when they were young or even after they have grown up. All the physical and psychological abuse... do you realize what you have done to them? Can you dare to disagree with your parents? I think NOT. NOTHING... NOTHING... NOTHING can heal all the wounds and bruises... THERE IS ONLY HATE!



3. When your children stop talking to you, you gotta think what you have done to them when they were young or even after they have grown up. All the physical and psychological abuse... do you realize what you have done to them? Can you dare to disagree with your parents? I think NOT. NOTHING... NOTHING... NOTHING can heal all the wounds and bruises... THERE IS ONLY HATE!
   
   THE SWEETEST REVENGE TO THESE KINDA PARENTS - avoid them...
   
   All parents should read this book.



4. Usually I read books that have made me cry (as well as everyone I let borrow the books after me)
   like for example, Dave Pelzer and Marcia Cameron, books like those will make you balw your eyes out when you read what horrible things they went through. However, this book quotes from the Bible a lot, so it can be spiritual. However, I thought it was going to be a book that would depress me after reading it, but it didn't. It was helpful, and the things he described that his mother and father said to him (verbal and emotional abuse as he put it) didn't seem that bad. I think that the time and era that the author grew up in is a time when people didn't know anything about the proper way to adress their families. Children just did what they were told and that was it. It didn't seem that bad. Also, this book read like a textbook in a way too because it stated what the "correct" way to talk to a child was, especially in this day and age.
   It was a good book, but not what I had expected.. Still a good read. Very spiritual and Bible- oriented.

5 comments about Golden Boy.

1. Upon purchasing this book I expected a glossy, inch deep journey through the life of one of our generations most high profile non-heavyweight fighters. Much to my suprise and enjoyment, the writer, Tim Kawakami sifted through the carefully cultivated image that we have glimpsed from De La Hoya via his tv and other print appearances and uncovered what makes the fighter tick. The reader actually gets to witness the true insecurities and heartbreaks that fueled Oscar's rise to the top of the boxing food chain. While the prose is niether poetic or flashy, the author provides rare glimpses of an unfiltered Oscar during his formative years in boxing. Defintely a must read for any De La Hoya fan, but maybe not for the general reader.



2. Tim Kawakami turns in a decent re-telling of Oscar De la Hoya's rise to boxing fame & fortune, interviewing many of the prime movers & shakers to come in & out of the Golden Boy's orbit up until 1999. The author paces the tale well, giving the reader a real flavour of the personalities & their motivations & machinations within 'Oscar's World'.
   Having said that, you sense from his writing Kawakami doesn't like his subject too much, either as a boxer or human being. He seems overly critical of De la Hoya both outside of & within the ring. In his reviews of some of the fighters' biggest tests during this period, he seems to constantly look for reasons other than being better than his opponent for De la Hoya to have triumphed. Maybe to some extent this is valid, but Kawakami seems more inclined to veer towards negative interpretations of events without exploring more positive possibilities.
   The books biggest disappointment (though this can't be blamed on the writer) is in the timing of its conclusion. It ends abruptly just prior to De la Hoya's fight versus Ike Quartey; the Golden Boy's career reaching its most exciting period with big fights against the likes of Trinidad, Mosley & Vargas still to come. This time in Oscar's life also saw him getting married, becoming a successful boxing promoter & seemingly developing into a more rounded human being. Growing up, in other words.
   I would be interested to read Kawakami's interpretation of these times in De la Hoya's life, maybe in an updated edition of this title or in a completely new book. That said, this is a good insight into the workings of both the business of boxing and the early career of the Golden Boy.



3. Kawakami writes reasonably well, and the book is a good read, but far from the best boxing book I've picked up.

   The most interesting aspect is the nasty side of Oscar we get to read about - behind all the glossy marketing, the lad is a fighter after all, and his strained relationship with his father seems sourced as a pivotal aspect in his temperament.

   Oscar seems to betray everyone who helps him along the way, and is painted as a ridiculously impressionable young man, desperately looking for people to tell him how to live his life. The book paints an interesting picture of America's Golden Boy, leaving him looking less than innocent at the end.




4. As an Oscar de la Hoya fan, I try to get my hands on anything that is written about this boxer who I consider to be my role model.This book truly didn't disappoint me. Kawakami goes into such detail in Oscar's life from the time the "Golden Boy" was just a shy little kid to the present rich and highly desired champion. Kawakami gives his reader in depth knowledge ranging from Oscar's private life, which he seems to totally know all the women in Oscar's life, to a side one is not accostumed to seeing and knowing of the Golden Boy like his leaving of managers to managers that payed the De la Hoya's more money and a sense of ruthlessness.In the end, this is what makes the Book so great because it says about both sides of the story: the good and the bad of Oscar de la hoya. A very unbiased book, that doesn't have information that makes Oscar look like a Saint or Satan, but makes Oscar look human.A must have for the hardcore Oscar de la Hoya fans like me or for any other person interested in a book that you will not put down until you finish reading it!



5. Even though I like to look at Oscar, this book was well-written enough to counter my complaint with the lack of pictures.

   Oscar's psyche is explained with an observant's P.O.W. which makes for an unbiased biography. The readers leaves with the understanding of the unfortuate shallowness, coldness, and (IMO)a little sympathetic.

2 comments about Rescued Images : Memories of a Childhood in Hiding.

1. I consider myself to be a student of the holocaust. As such, I have read many books and look at documentaries/movies and yet with every piece of media about the subject I learn new information, new sets of experiences about this horrible time in history. This book stands out among all the rest. I won't go into detail - it needs to be read the others have detailed the experiences of this girl, and her parents (to a lesser extent) but I came away from this book understanding huge conclusions....That you didn't need to be in a concentration camp during the war to have your life ruined, to have your family torn apart, and the most monstrous of all - that while there were 6 million Jews kills, 11 million overall, each of those people would have many stories to tell and, as this book clearly illustrates and raises the question as to how many who WERE NOT in concentration camps and survived are out there to tell their numerous stories?
   
   The possible numbers are mindboggling...so to be a student of the holocaust is to take on a life-long education process of which I'm at the very beginning. But as the author I'm sure would agree, we must not forget.....



2. People of my generation or younger, born after the mid nineteen-sixties, are caught in a strange place when it comes to learning about, and relating to, the events in World War II Europe. We come too late for direct experience, yet before the greater distance of the generation following us. In a sense, we will, if we are thinking people, shoulder the task of passing on the facts, impressions, and enormous lessons from this period, but without first-hand knowledge. "Rescued Images" is a remarkable book which should do much to provide us with a tool which is both entertaining (as extraordinary as that may seem) and profoundly moving. Jacobsens gentle, yet strong voice, is made even stronger by her montages, which are simultaneously beautiful as they are emotionally raw. When she is old enough I will sit with my daughter and we will read this book together, in honor of the triumph of the human spirit, and in memory of the worst of human failings. Parents and schools should add this volume to their shelves, it will remain timeless.

5 comments about The Next Better Place: A Memoir in Miles.

1. This is a wonderful book. "A road trip with an alcoholic father and a child? Must be a downer," you'd think. Not so. Never sliding into self-pity, the author just lays out a personal cross-country saga in mesmerizing detail. At times heartbreaking, this book is ultimately an inspirational story of survival by a child who deserved better. I've read a lot of travel narratives, and this is as good as they come.



2. This wonderful hitchhiking odyssey is all thumps up (or outstretched as the young boy would tell us). What a romp across 1960 America. It's the kind of book I'd love to see as a movie. Sure lends itself to the big screen because I have read few more visual stories. This is fun all the way to California and back! What a roll of the camera . . . and sentence.



3. I would normally give this book 5 stars, except I have a strong sense that this book is a fictional fraud.
   
   It's the story of an 11 year old boy who hitchikes the country with his alcoholic, dead-beat father in search of a better life in California. Of course, California is no better than any other place they've been and they take buses back to Albany where his mother lives with his two sisters, only to ***spoiler*** go back out on the road again with his father at the end of the book.
   
   The book is well written and engaging, but only if the book is true, which I doubt. The book often states what a good storyteller the father is and how good said father is at making up things to get what he wants out of people. The author continually expresses his desire to be on the radio or in movies, not to mention how often he embellishes stories, so I wouldn't be surprised if the book was just one big lie.
   
   From the outset, the author states how he went 2 entire months without a bowel movement, which I don't even know is medically possible, much less didn't land him in the hospital. Plus he recounts in great detail names, places, and events that happened 40 years ago. And somehow, all these events involve sexual predators, thieves, and other ne'er-do-well's. Never any average people. Nah, I don't think the book is true.
   
   But if it is true, it's really well done.



4. Smiling ghosts of Mark Twain and Jack Kerouac hover over many pages of Michael Keith's "The Next Better Place." This captivating book places Keith squarely in the same row with America's finest writers of the road adventure story. Which is to say that "The Next Better Place" is so much more than a memoir-cum-novel of a precocious son traversing America's great expanses with an ageing picaro of a father. Keith knows when to embroider his book's perfectly intoned dialogue, tremulous details, and charming teenage bravado with both lyrical pathos and hints at the perverse. The greatest American road novel, Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," also came to mind as I devoured Keith's book, and I can only hope that Keith will soon reward his readers with another one.



5. I ENJOYED THIS BOOK VERY MUCH,HOWEVER I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED ABOUT MR. KEITH'S DATES. HE SAYS THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE IN 1959, WHEN HE WAS 11 YEARS OLD. HOWEVER ON THE "AUTHORS NOTE" PAGE IT GIVES HIS YEAR OF BIRTH AS 1945, WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE HIM 14 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME OF THESE EVENTS. ALSO HE MENTIONS SEVERAL TIMES THE SONG FROM THE MOVIE "THE MAGNIFICANT 7". HOWEVER THAT MOVIE WASNT RELEASED TILL THE EARLY 1960'S. NO BIG DEAL. JUST BAD PROOF READING BY THE PUBLISHERS.

1 comments about Mountain Born, Mountain Molded.

1. Mountain Born, Mountain Molded by Larry G. Morgan is a wryly written personal memoir of growing up in the Nantahala region of western North Carolina from 1945-1955 as the fifth in a family of ten children. Childhood memories, simple games kids played long before popular culture became overloaded with atrociously [spendy] collectible toys, and the refreshing wonder of the great outdoors are all recalled in this memorable, nostalgic, and highly recommended narrative.

No comments about Black Diamonds: A Child's Joy & Loss: The Val and Sudie Dunn Family.

4 comments about ThingsThat Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China.

1. I was sent a copy of this book by my mum from Australia last year and only recently had the chance to finally read the book.
   
   It's no wonder that this book is an award winner (2000 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize). Kwan keeps you rivetted to his story, told through eyes of a young boy growing up in very turbulent times. In spite of coming from a wealthy family, it cannot save him from the terrors and turmoil brought to Northern China in the 1930s and 1940s, nor from the racial judgement passed on him for being half-Chinese and half-White.
   
   How Kwan manages to survive is quite amazing. He is abandoned by his own mother and faces major abuses at school. Then, war begins and he begins to witness the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China. Finally, after the Japanese are defeated, he nearly loses his father to the KMT government that his father has faithfuly served through the resistance movement. He is not even safe from his own family, who try to use him as a means to extort his father for money that no longer exists.
   
   An absolute must read for anyone interested in China, the Japanese invasion of China, and a boy's coming of age.



2. I read a review and an excerpt of this book in Toronto last summer, and waited anxiously for it to be published here in the States. I read it in two days, gulping it down excitedly; then I re-read it slowly, informed of the story but savoring the beautiful prose. I wrote Mr. Kwan a "fan letter," only to learn today in this forum that he passed away. I was hoping for a sequel.



3. An extraordinary story told with well controlled language and subtle understatements. The book chronicles the lives in a previledged, but also marginalized, world where everyone is deeply enshrouded in his or her own loneliness : the western expatriates in China, the mixed-blood children like the author himself, the western women married to Chinese men but unable to summon any love for the country or its people, the well-cultured mem ostracized by the society for their marriages to western women. Each of them, making good-intentioned efforts to connect, failed miserably because of their own deep-rooted prejudice, social barriars imposed by other people, or simply the uncontrollable historical whirlwinds. Outside this walled-in existence, a war is raging on with unimaginable callousness. The wall would eventually crumble down and the fineness of the Legation Quarter be swallowed by the brutal and rancid humanities of that era. Reminding us at times of Proust and Graham Greene, this remembrance of things past documents, in a hushed voice, an extraordinary age and all the human efforts to stay emerged in the midst of sweeping torrents. Warmth and friendship flicker from time to time in this vast emotional void : the author's attachment to his down-to-earth and understanding nanny Shu Ma, his natural bonding with the reticent peasant Xiao Hu, and the unusual and quiet friendship between the boy and the Japanese Admiral. Language in the last couple chapters slips a little bit and becomes less disciplined. But overall this is a wonderfully written memoir. Saddened by the news of the author's death couple weeks ago, I was especially grateful for the gift he left with us in the form of this book.



4. I bought Michael David Kwan's "Things That Must Not Be Forgotten" after reading a glowing review in the Washington Post. I was not disappointed. It is a moving, understated memoir about Mr. Kwan's childhood years starting shortly before the outbreak of World War II and ending as the Kuomintang was breathing its last in mainland China. Although young David was fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family as a "half-caste" child of a Chinese father and a Swiss mother (who abandoned the family very early in David's life), he was never considered to be a true part of either the white and Chinese communities. The editorial reviews give a good overview of the content of the book and the increasing difficulties that David and his family endured under the Japanese and even more so under the corrupt Nationalist Chinese government. The narrative is brisk and engaging; it is probably the best work of non-fiction that I have read in quite some time.

   Sadly, on May 20th of this year Mr. Kwan suffered a fatal heart attack just two weeks before the official U.S.-publication of this book. We are all very fortunate that he was able to give us such a memorable farewell gift.

   "Things That Must Not Be Forgotten" won the 2000 Kirayama Prize for non-fiction, beating out such well-received books as Herbert Bix's "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan," Helen Zia's "Asian American Dreams" and Chanrithy Him's "When Broken Glass Floats."

5 comments about Falling Leaves.

1. This book was amazing! It was so heartbreaking, but it is a great read. I had to read this book for my Sociology class and it definitely gives me a new perspective on family life.
   
   Thanks Adeline Yen Mah!!!!



2. Although there are hundreds of reviews, I had to review this book because it had such an impact on me. I think this book is wonderful. It is a captivating story. I read it complete in one night, I just could not put it down!
   
   Adeline is a beautiful story teller, with an exceptional eye for detail. Although I loved the book, there was a strange voice that would creep into the story. Almost as if there was a repressed part of herself that could not hide from this book: it is a young Adeline still hoping to be the apple of her father's eye; and for her family to appreciate, love and respect her.
   
   It is a sad story that shocks readers with the inhumanity that families can inflict on one of their own. It is still beautiful and hopeful, even in its most miserable moments.
   
   Highly recommend



3. This book was beautifully written and gripping from the start. The reviewer who complained of Adeline's "whining" tone, is being unfair. I don't see her as whiny, but rather somewhat detached as she recounts the emptiness of her childhood. In fact, I want her to scream and kick and rebell, maybe even whine, yet she does none of that. Whining is even more emotion than I think she allows herself to feel. She endured a childhood with certain material wealth but vastly lacking in emotional wealth.
   Adeline takes the emotional abuse because she knows nothing else. Her father is the true villain for caring more about his trophy wife than his own family's happiness. He is oblivious to his children's emotional needs. He disappoints more than the stepmom for choosing to abandon children that he chose to bring into the world. He manipulates and plays them one against the other for his own selfish desires.
   After long periods of thinking about this book, I've come to my own understanding of why she managed to salvage a happy life out of such a miserable upbringing. It is the very belief, albeit blatently false, that her family would one day accept her, that makes her continue to push for their love and not give up. Children are frequently unable to find fault with their loved ones. It is that very "innocence" that protected her from worse harm, the knowledge that acceptance would never, ever, be forthcoming.



4. The heartbreaking story of an unwanted, abused, neglected child who never ceases to try and earn her family's affections. If you have ever experienced these feelings,no matter what your race, you will LOVE this book. It moved me to tears and I could not put it down once I started reading it.



5. ...with that whine? Self serving, whiney, horrible. I just don't get it. No comparison to anything by Frank McCort, Amy Tan or anyone like them.

1 comments about A Place at the Table: The True Story of Two Men -- Best Friends in Their Youth, Reunited in Adversity.

1. This is a tale of two young boys, one caucasion and one African-American, who were unlikely friends in North Carolina farmland in the late 40's and early 50's. The bond created between these two boys was strong enough to carry on to their high school years when they encountered the trials and tribulations of a newly integrated school. Together they were able to overcome these hardships and continue a relationship through adulthood, keeping in contact and sharing experiences as each man fought his own life threatening disease. This story is an inspiration and an education for all.

5 comments about A Joyful Noise: Claiming the Songs of My Fathers.

1. The author gave a birth of her daughter in ' 89, so did I deliver my third kids . This may be only one common thing to share between her , except both are Shubertian.
   Jewish and Japanese are often compared, and they are conspicuously differnt in the spiritual distance of each individual from the history of their own people. We , Japanese ,are genious of forgetting and we could change the attitude toward US so dramatically that Ruth Benedict couldn't help studying Japanese war captives. Whereas Jewish people,language wise, music wise , are trying to carry on the tradition, even though great constraint between the host country culture and also between generations of their own people.
   And 'an die Music'. Tan Dun, a Chinese composer living in NY,once said,' Western music develops horizontally'. I also admit, music are differnt in East and West, maybe because of Eastern ear VS Western ear. But when lyrics intermediate sounds and internal reality that words evoke , what type of ears you may have, you can enjoy music of differnt culture. So many operas, lied, Italian songs and hymns apperared in this books have told me so.



2. The author gave a birth of her daughter in ' 89, so did I deliver my third kids . This may be only one common thing to share between her , except both are Shubertian.
   Jewish and Japanese are often compared, and they are conspicuously differnt in the spiritual distance of each individual from the history of their own people. We , Japanese ,are genious of forgetting and we could change the attitude toward US so dramatically that Ruth Benedict couldn't help studying Japanese war captives. Whereas Jewish people,language wise, music wise , are trying to carry on the tradition, even though great constraint between the host country culture and also between generations of their own people.
   And 'an die Music'. Tan Dun, a Chinese composer living in NY,once said,' Western music develops horizontally'. I also admit, music are differnt in East and West, maybe because of Eastern ear VS Western ear. But when lyrics intermediate sounds and internal reality that words evoke , what type of ears you may have, you can enjoy music of differnt culture. So many operas, lied, Italian songs and hymns apperared in this books have told me so.



3. "A Joyful Noise," Deborah Weisgall's serious and brooding memoir, is far from a fluffy celebration of music and Judaic heritage. Its subtitle, "Claiming the Songs of My Fathers," more accurately captures the sense of conflict and struggle which permeates the life of a talented, tormented and frustrated young woman, who at once soars with the rich musical background of both her father and grandfather but simultaneously is denied participation and validation because of her gender. "A Joyful Noise" elicits both compassion and anger from the reader; one senses that had the author been born some twenty years later she would have had much more direct access to both her own talents and her clearly-articulated love for her heritage. The author does not disguise the central theme of her memoir. After a disappointing experience at a Passover seder, Deborah expresses her yearning to join her father and grandfather as full participants in both music and heritage. "I hummed the songs as quietly as I could, aching to get them right, afraid that my father would hear my wrong notes and correct me. They ran perfectly through my head but not from my mouth. I loved them. I wanted them." Yet, she understands that her ambition does not correspond with the very heritage she so deeply desires. Segregated, minimized and isolated due to sexist traditions and practices, Jewish women have had to sublimate their otherwise honorable ambitions into other avenues of expression. Sensing that possibility, even as a child, Deborah laments: "My desire was as strong as theirs; my voice was not. My breath stalled against my vocal cords, and the back of my throat throbbed from stopped-up songs and angry tears. I wanted to sing. I wanted to be heard." Weisgall's quest for authenticity, for voice, occurs during a period of national affluence and cultural indifference in the 1950s and on the cusp of our nation's profound social revolution of the 1960s. Deborah comes of age in a tension-riddled family; her non-religious mother, Nathalie, is indifferent to housework, and her beloved father, Hugo, consistently produces operas which are artistically gifted but critical failures. The Weisgalls constantly move from their Baltimore roots, whether it be to Maine for summers, or from college town to another, where Hugo can sustain his family's material needs while he tries to fulfill his own battered expectations as an artist. Deborah realizes the discored in her family is real; her mother's physical beauty cannot hide her bitterness just as her father's rapture with musci cannot hide his own frustration with failure and betrayal. Looming like a dense cloud over the family is the Holocaust, whose disruptive horror has created a permanent sense of dread and loss. In a desultory search through her parents' closet, Deborah discovers a shoe-box stuffed with raw and brutal photographs of cocentration camp victims. She understands in a visceral sense the impact of genocide on her father, who directly witnessed the horrific scenes while he served as a translator for the liberating United States Army during World War II. The Weisgalls are derivative survivors, having lost their past, their roots, their culture through the Holocaust. The author is able to trace the genesis of family friction to this loss of place. Nathalie, a lover of beauty, flounders in America; Hugo, linked in memory to his childhood in Czechoslovakia, wrestles with his own struggle to match his father (Abba) without the support of cultural stability and identity. The memoir is not without its faults. Unless one has a solid grasp of opera and classical music, Weisgall's detailed descriptions of her artistic passion tend to overwhelm the reader. Deborah's ultimately successful climb to identity occurs too abruptly, as well. Her ultimate chapters, which recount her experiences as Radcliffe and her emergence as an independent, secure woman, appear rushed and lack the elegant detail so prevalent throughout descriptions of her childhood. Nevertheless, this serious and introspective work deserves the critical praise it has garnered. "A Joyful Noise" deftly interweaves music, religious heritage and family into a tapestry both instructive and inspiring.



4. "A Joyful Noise," Deborah Weisgall's serious and brooding memoir, is far from a fluffy celebration of music and Judaic heritage. Its subtitle, "Claiming the Songs of My Fathers," more accurately captures the sense of conflict and struggle which permeates the life of a talented, tormented and frustrated young woman, who at once soars with the rich musical background of both her father and grandfather but simultaneously is denied participation and validation because of her gender. "A Joyful Noise" elicits both compassion and anger from the reader; one senses that had the author been born some twenty years later she would have had much more direct access to both her own talents and her clearly-articulated love for her heritage. The author does not disguise the central theme of her memoir. After a disappointing experience at a Passover seder, Deborah expresses her yearning to join her father and grandfather as full participants in both music and heritage. "I hummed the songs as quietly as I could, aching to get them right, afraid that my father would hear my wrong notes and correct me. They ran perfectly through my head but not from my mouth. I loved them. I wanted them." Yet, she understands that her ambition does not correspond with the very heritage she so deeply desires. Segregated, minimized and isolated due to sexist traditions and practices, Jewish women have had to sublimate their otherwise honorable ambitions into other avenues of expression. Sensing that possibility, even as a child, Deborah laments: "My desire was as strong as theirs; my voice was not. My breath stalled against my vocal cords, and the back of my throat throbbed from stopped-up songs and angry tears. I wanted to sing. I wanted to be heard." Weisgall's quest for authenticity, for voice, occurs during a period of national affluence and cultural indifference in the 1950s and on the cusp of our nation's profound social revolution of the 1960s. Deborah comes of age in a tension-riddled family; her non-religious mother, Nathalie, is indifferent to housework, and her beloved father, Hugo, consistently produces operas which are artistically gifted but critical failures. The Weisgalls constantly move from their Baltimore roots, whether it be to Maine for summers, or from college town to another, where Hugo can sustain his family's material needs while he tries to fulfill his own battered expectations as an artist. Deborah realizes the discord in her family is real; her mother's physical beauty cannot hide her bitterness just as her father's rapture with musci cannot hide his own frustration with failure and betrayal. Looming like a dense cloud over the family is the Holocaust, whose disruptive horror has created a permanent sense of dread and loss. In a desultory search through her parents' closet, Deborah discovers a shoe-box stuffed with raw and brutal photographs of cocentration camp victims. She understands in a visceral sense the impact of genocide on her father, who directly witnessed the horrific scenes while he served as a translator for the liberating United States Army during World War II. The Weisgalls are derivative survivors, having lost their past, their roots, their culture through the Holocaust. The author is able to trace the genesis of family friction to this loss of place. Nathalie, a lover of beauty, flounders in America; Hugo, linked in memory to his childhood in Czechoslovakia, wrestles with his own struggle to match his father (Abba) without the support of cultural stability and identity. The memoir is not without its faults. Unless one has a solid grasp of opera and classical music, Weisgall's detailed descriptions of her artistic passion tend to overwhelm the reader. Deborah's ultimately successful climb to identity occurs too abruptly, as well. Her ultimate chapters, which recount her experiences as Radcliffe and her emergence as an independent, secure woman, appear rushed and lack the elegant detail so prevalent throughout descriptions of her childhood. Nevertheless, this serious and introspective work deserves the critical praise it has garnered. "A Joyful Noise" deftly interweaves music, religious heritage and family into a tapestry both instructive and inspiring.



5. I LOVE this book! Before I read this book, a family friend of mine read it and highly highly recommended it. When I started this book, I couldn't put it down, thats the kind of book it can be for certain people. The reason why this book was a huge page-turner for me, was because I felt relate to the author in many different levels. (...)This book isn't just text on a few pages to me, it is guidence for my life.