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2 comments about Do I Dare?: A Memoir of One Woman's Life Journey.

1. 'You know I have a lump inside here,' my sister Cookie said, looking down and pointing to a spot above her left breast. We were sitting in the living room of my mother's two story condominium in Santa Clara, California, where they lived together. We were talking, as we had so many times since I had moved back to California seven years earlier. Cookie was sitting in her Lazy Boy recliner doing her usual thing: smoking.
   
   So begins the final chapter of Janet Rossi Tezak's stirring memoir "Do I Dare? published by iUniverse, Inc. Rossi Tezak subtitles her recent work "A Memoir of One Woman's Life Journey," that could as well have been called 'a memoir of on immigrant family's life journey.' In the conclusion of her story, Ross Tezak goes on to narraate the ordeal of going through the co-diagnoses of suspicious mammograms by both her and her sister. As if that weren't burden enough, we learn, too, of her older sister's mental disorder that the family lovingly coped with during life.
   
   Interestingly interspersed with her life experiences is the poetry and photographs that make up this montage of Rossi Tezak's life journey. It is the kind of book everyone would write if we were capable of gleaning those gems of experience from the vast, often dull experiences of the everyday. Her photographs are of the old fashioned sort that those of us who are of a certin generation remember fondly, taken by and with our own families--glimpses into our pasts that cause us to reminisce and for a short second or two, cause us to wish we were back again in happier times or circumstances. Her poetry is yet another theme of her memoir and it, too, reflects the black and white with which we used to see the world long before psychedelic visions that turned into the Technicolor reality rendered so vividly by technology. In "Obsession," she writes:
   When I in school,
   I wanted to say it,
   write it down;
   I didn't give a damn
   if a comma,
   colon,
   was proper. . . .
   Rossi Tezak's poetry reads like a literary daguerreotype of her thoughts through life's journey with her family--sepia in tone and color, black and white in reality and fact.
   
   Early in the book we learn from whom she inherited her storytelling gift--her grandfater Papanon, who "was the storyteller in the family. I loved hearing his stories about when he had to go fight in World War I on the side of Italy...." The author fondly descriibes her grandfather as a "slight man barely 5'2" who had a long roman nose and who carried a hump on his back caused, it was believed, by carrying heavy knapsacks on his back during World War I. Rossi Tezak goes on to tell readers:"He had come to America at the age of 10, but he hadn't become an American citizen. When the war broke out, he had to go back to Italy. His whole family, wife, and four daughters came with him. At one point, he became a German Prisoner of War, and his wife and his four daughters went back to the town of my grandparents'birth, Laurenzano near Naples, to live out the duration of the war. The author illustrates this narrative with a photograph of "Papanon as a prisoner of war" and the reader sees Papanon sitting in an army tent as he glares at the camera while eating from his mess kit.
   
   Rossi Tezak also relates in her memoir the various facets and signposts of her life, growing up in New York and Florida and eventually finding her way to the Monterey Bay and becoming an English teacher at the local community college. We learn of the struggles to find her own identity as she tried to escape the shadows and reality of juggling her artistic pursuits with work and family, and yet remain true to her faith, her husband, her children, her siblings, her mother. Rossi Tezak's memoir thus becomes a blueprint of the dilemma that the artist in each of us faces as we struggle to understand the dichotomy that separates desires and needs from reality. We are torn between love and having it all and if there is a philosophical frailty in American culture, it is the belief instilled in us that we can indeed have it all. Our acceptance of reality comes at a later age in life when we discover that while we didn't achieve it all, it was a pretty good life after all and if we didn't win the derby it wasn't because we didn't run.
   
   That is the lesson the reader takes from Rossi Tezak's memoir. It is a literary monument to that struggle that we as humans encounter, talk about, write about. The memoir is provocative but caring and understandingly woven to help the reader reach into his or her own psyche and relive the personal journey we all take.
   
   ####



2. Tezak looks back on the kinds of decisions so many women must make--what work to do, when/whom to marry, how to deal with family--and constructs a quest and an arrival. This is the kind of narrative many can identify with, while enjoying the insights that a long perspective gives. She has captured so much of the feeling of times and places, while giving the reader an openhearted sense of what it is like to be young and curious; at the same time, she shares her doubts and regrets and reminds us that growing up is what we all have to do--each in her own way.
   Not of the "scissors, drugs, and abuse" genre, this is simply an honest account of a woman's life.

5 comments about Reaching For The Sky: Childhood Recollections of War and Peace.

1. Narrating the dreadful events from the vantage point of a child and making them sound so incredibly interesting it's a feat by itself. The author had my attention immediately and made me yearn for more. I had to finish it all in one reading and yet I did not want it to end. All the stories are superb.
   I wish people in power,along with those who get satisfaction in creating turmoil through wars, would wake up and find other means of peaceful coexistence!!!.Ms. Psyhogeos, presents her case eloquently and kudos are in order!!!



2. This was a book I could not put down once I had taken it up. The author's childhood memories provide a valuable historical insight into conditions in rural Greece during the horrors of the Second World War and the subsequent Civil War. The author captures perfectly the limited range but vivid experience of childhood.
   Most memorable are the moving pen portraits of unforgettable characters: such as the tragic "Lady in Black", of whom it was said that "The history of a nation is written on her face", and the sadistic former collaborator "Mister John", who dominated a small town during the Civil War, and killed the poor and unfortunate at a whim for his own amusement.
   It is not surprising that the author, who emigrated to the USA from such a background, found her new home a land of freedom and opportunity. Yet it is disappointing that she never drew any conclusions from the fact that the likes of "Mister John" were sustained in their authority by the US Embassy, which exercised effective control over Greece at the time, and which ran concentration camps every bit as brutal as those of the Nazis, and which governed the country through former Nazi collaborators such as "Mister John"; and all in the name of preserving freedom and democracy.
   Still - this was not written as a history book. As a collection of childhood reminiscences it is unbeatable.



3. I'm in Greece for the Olympics and going by a book exhibit I purchased this book because I liked the title and I thought it will make a pleasant read while going from one event to the next.I was thrilled by it and I couldn't wait to get into a computer and write this. What a fantastic story!! How beautifully one expresses recollections of childhood.I doubt that I would've liked to have had the sad experiences the author narrates of her childhood, nonetheless, I would've loved to have had the talent to write such a poignant book.I will recommend it to all my friends, it is a story that should be read...Wish I could write more about it but I have to go to my next event which is Basketball. READ PLEASE : REACHING FOR THE SKY: CHILDHOOD RECOLLECTIONS OF WAR AND PEACE, I can guarantee you will thoroughly enjoy it!!



4. Indeed it is the best book I've read this year and I read a lot. I was given the book as a birthday gift by a friend and I thank her for her wonderful taste. I've read it on a flight to Brussels and I could not put it down. The emotions the author expressed throughtout the book kept me captivated. It is difficult to choose few of the short intertwined stories (they'are all of high interest), but if I have to pick only two I will opt for the one on "first love" and the other on "Dick" the author's dog. Well, I cannot say enough for this exceptional story, the sentiments of a little girl towards war and its results is a cry for PEACE and BROTHERHOOD, the ruined dreams and lost childhood innocence, touch deeply the heart. I loved it! I wish there were many books like this. Beutifully narrated, eloquently expressed! Congratulations to the author and many thanks Anne for making my birthday and travel so pleasant!!!



5. I wanted to love this book but I couldn't. The author is obviously intelligent, well educated, and a perfectly fine writer (technically speaking), but for me, she lacks the ability to convey the full depth of wisdom and understanding that these rich experiences must have imprinted on her. The book is a series of short stories that, while interesting, did not truly touch my heart. Given the great breadth and depth of material Ms. Psyhogeos had to work with, I feel she could have done much better.

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