An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski

Full Title: An Invisible Thread: the true story of an 11-year-old panhandler, a busy sales executive, and an unlikely meeting with destiny by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski.

Those living and working In Manhattan, the core of New York, find people begging for money, “panhandlers”, as incessant and irksome as nuisance calls, traffic tie-ups, and electrical outages. Thus, when 36-year-old corporate sales representative Laura Schroff was approached by a pre-teen boy asking her for “spare change”, she walked passed him as she would any similar irritant. Still, after strolling a few blocks away, some inner strand of connection impelled her to turn back to that corner where the boy had made his request.  She waited a moment; the boy had walked on.  Then, he returned to their meeting-point.  

Ms. Schroff believes, as do many of us, myself included, pivotal meetings occur when the lives of both participants are meant to interweave in some definitive way. This link proved true in the interaction between Laura Schroff and the boy she would later come to know as Maurice Mazyck.  While eager to help the boy, Laura Schroff needed to ensure whatever contribution she made would not be spent on illegal substances.  Thus, she offered to treat him to lunch at the place of his choice- McDonald’s.  

While far from the optimal source of nutrition, the boy’s gorging of its instantaneous, fast, deep-fried food, followed by a desperate request for seconds, confirmed what Laura had already surmised. This boy was a malnourished child, not a conniving hustler. Through time, and various vicissitudes, the friendship between Laura and Maurice evolved.  Despite their apparent differences, Laura soon came to realize the similarities in their backgrounds.

Maurice’s father had left the family when Maurice, a young child, still viewed him as the icon of power and strength he appeared to be.  Laura’s dad, though continuing to provide some financial support, was emotionally absent, due to his drunken brutalities.  An especially horrific rage resulted in his smashing, deliberately, one after another, each of her brother’s hard-won sports trophies.  The aspiring athlete watched, transfixed, while the symbols of his triumphs were erased by this savagery, his hopes for the future wrecked, never to be reborn or resurrected.  

As Laura and Maurice’s friendship progressed, she allowed him to stay by himself in her apartment on some afternoons, while she was at work.  This meant , for the first time, Maurice could watch TV, read a book, take a nap, have a sandwich, or do whatever he chose, with no adult to instill guilt.  Yet, Laura set boundaries early on. She pledged to Maurice she would tell him just once, the slightest violation of trust would put an immediate end to their friendship.  
This trust, never offered before by anyone, seems to have change Maurice’s priorities from the basic wish to acquire whatever he could by whatever means, to a desire to respect the trust which Laura bestowed upon him.
  
The tie between Laura and Maurice went through difficult times. Marriages on both sides changed the nature of their connection. Still, with bouts of silence created by Maurice’s tendency to drop out of touch, their bond did not end.  His silence was motivated by the fear his mistakes might impel Laura to abandon and spurn him. Still, their friendship continues.  As decades pass, age differences between generations tend to diminish, often to the point of insignificance.  Hence, Laura and Maurice share an ongoing bond with each other’s families.  Their friendship has given both of them strength to overcome the ongoing challenges of every life, with the acceptance of risk and renewal.  Without this openness, given appropriate safeguards, life can lose its adventure in living. 

My Father’s Places by Aeronwy Thomas

Aeronwy Thomas

My Father's Places: A Portrait of Childhood by Dylan Thomas' Daughter by Aeronwy Thomas  

Like many children of famous parents, Aeronwy Thomas’ growing years were exposed to a sometimes disconcerting degree of public view.  Though living only until age thirty-nine, the immortal work of Dylan Thomas has become a milestone of literature.  Hence, it is saddening to learn that, during his daughter’s childhood, much of her father’s income was evoked by “begging letters” to those affluent and eager to invest in superb writers.

  
While appreciative of this crucial support, it sometimes demanded a level of groveling which could generate rage.  Fortunately, although recognized as the offspring of a celebrity, the Thomas’ children were well-grounded in reality by a number of relatives living nearby, neighborhood friends, and through becoming students at their local school. Yet, familial ties were often plagued by volcanic turbulence.

In order to maintain awareness of Dylan’s work, trips abroad were essential. Though sometimes traveling as a family, Dylan took several promotional tours alone, most often to America. Such solo trips, difficult for any couple, proved doubly hard given Dylan’s tendency to philander.  Opportunities are always abundant for the famous in any sphere. In addition, society hostesses, if treated well, were glad to provide financial largess.  During his last days, Dylan claimed these liaisons were substitutions for closeness to his cherished wife, Caitlin. Still, this brought little comfort to Caitlin, wounded by his infidelities, and humiliated by their consequent scandals.

Both Dylan and Caitlin were firebrands.  Eruptions, often including fisticuffs, seem to have been a part of that passion which kept their love lively.  Perhaps their absorption with one another, joined with the needs of Dylan’s work, to some extent, excluded their children.  Often Aeronwy refers to her father and mother as “Dylan” and “Caitlin”. 

Still, tenderness and affection pervade this memoir.  In the most authentic sense, Dylan and Caitlin were symbiotic.  True, she sometimes had to lock him inside the shed for his designated hours of writing.  Still, had she not done so, some of his most magnificent works might not have come to fruition?  Thus, these two warring spirits fed and nurtured each other. 

The Forbidden Zone by Mary Borden

Mary Borden lower center 

The Forbidden Zone: A Nurse's Impressions of the First World War by Mary Borden 

This memoir of a nurse during WWI is often almost too painful to read.  Still, in her preface, she says she has softened the edges of some realities in that, even after decades, they would cause her too much anguish to write or to inflict upon readers.  The title refers to an area in France deemed “the forbidden Zone”  because of its closeness to the line of fire.  Yet, Ms. Borden persevered from 1914 until 1918, travelling to whatever section she was assigned, always within this zone.

First published in 1929, it was rediscovered and re-published in 2008.  Perhaps interest has been reawakened due to current wars with their rising death tolls, and veterans returning with physical and emotional scars.  Part of the sadness and horror contained in this book results from the awareness that, at this very moment, young men and women are being wheeled into military hospital wards, having lost arms, legs or at times, even faces.

Despite a century’s accumulation of knowledge regarding drugs and procedures, doctors and nurses are all too often powerless to do more than palliate suffering.  Indeed, many of Ms. Borden’s experiences may be shared by her modern counterparts. Frequently, war nurses were the last human beings a soldier was likely to see before dying.  Thus, one nurse was asked to come to a bedside, only to be told by a gravely injured young man that he never before had killed a woman.  This sentence, unexplained, touched her as a plea for absolution for one or more acts which shamed this young man to the depths of his being.
  
A slightly longer encounter occurred with a man who was frantic and desperate to die.  The greatest irony of such wars is the permission, indeed encouragement to kill anyone, despite gender or age, whose life proves in any way inconvenient.  This endorsement, however, ends at one’s self; a failed suicide attempt resulted in being shot after having been court martialed.

Here a middle aged man, doubtless joining the army after younger draftees had been killed, having shot himself in the mouth, survived and was brought to the hospital.  There, though well aware of his fate, the doctors struggled to save his life, lest his death caused a flurry of similar efforts.  Finally, Ms. Borden and her fellow nurses agreed to “forget” to force him to wear those bandages he continued to rip away from his wounds.  A moment came when, though no word dared be spoken by either side, his eyes voiced his gratitude.  Two days later he died.

Parts of this book are given an added immediacy by being written as poems, addressing the reader as if he or she were a friend.  One of the most evocative states:  “Listen; you can hear how well it works: there is the sound of cannon and of the ambulances bringing the wounded, and the sounds of the tramp of strong men going along to fill the empty places. Do you hear?  DO you understand? It is all as it should be.

Final Truth by Donald Gaskins and Wilton Earle

Full Title
Final truth: The Autobiography of a Serial Killer by Donald Gaskins and Wilton Earle.

Having read thousands of books throughout my life, none has left me feeling as troubled and disturbed as this uncensored account by a journalist of the memoir of serial killer Donald Gaskins known as “Pee Wee Gaskins”.
   
Wilton Earle gained Gaskins trust by listening to his account of his crimes with objectivity and a complete lack of judgment.  This approach allowed Gaskins own voice to be heard, not only by Earle, but by later readers.  Earle’s account is based on tapes recorded by Gaskins as an inmate on death row, during a period of fifteen months, sometimes with Earle present, and at other times by himself in his cell.
    
Given the imminence of his death due to multiple convictions, Gaskins felt no need to censor his account of his past, including his joy in inflicting pain and slow, horrific deaths upon his countless victims. His sole, nonchalant defense of his acts lay in his statement that he had been born “with a special kind of mind which gives myself permission to kill”. 

Although his mother seems never to have beaten or been verbally cruel to him, after her husband left her, she seems to have ignored his needs in order to maintain relationships with a series of men who he was told to regard as “step-daddies”. In fact, so brief was the stay of many of them that Gaskins simply addressed them as “Sir”, rather than bothering to learn their names.  The majority of these men were bullies.  After Gaskins death post-mortem examinations indicate that, at some point, he was struck on the head, or struck down, by one or more of his mother’s partners, to the point of developing brain injuries.  

When Gaskins left home his primary male influences were those eager to teach him the best strategies for breaking and entering homes, and the most valuable items to steal.  Juvenile offenses led to reformatories where Gaskins learned that respect was based on control, rooted in violence.  Lessons learned in this setting prepared him for the criminal career which would end in his death.  By degrees, he became more deeply involved in the prison environment.
  
Between prison sentences, strategizing his next crime, he resorted to the advice given him by his mentors in the federal prison system, and then acted upon this knowledge. The most painful aspect of this book lies in Gaskins’ lack of remorse, even when killing his niece, for sheer gratification.  

At the end of his account, I felt frustration at my own and societies lack of solutions to the waste of so many lives, including that of the twisted Donald Gaskins.  The correction system, as it stands, is a quagmire of quicksand.  The deeper any offender sinks, the greater his knowledge becomes, until he is almost certain to drown in its depths of hopelessness.  If only a way could be found to halt this process before it becomes overwhelming.  

Heartbreaker: A Memoir of Judy Garland by John Meyer

Judy Garland

The Judy Garland who emerges from these pages is hard to like. True, her addictions had, by her early forties, reached a point where carefully monitored weaning would have been necessary in order for her to begin to recover.  Still, towards the end of her needlessly brief life, she seems to have made no effort to seek clinical intervention.  When song-writer John Meyer met Judy Garland, he had written one well-received song and had aspirations to write others.  At the same time, despite their age difference, he found Ms. Garland captivating and delightful-indeed, he asked her to marry him, and she agreed, but they never tied the knot.

Her voice had kept its wellspring of beauty.  What was needed, Meyer felt he could provide:  enough motivation to renew both her vocal strength and the career she had begun to spoil by her reputation as an unreliable addict. The two felt sure they could create a union interwoven of love and abilities.  All the right components were there, but by her early forties, Judy Garland had become almost wholly egocentric and manipulative.  

Judy’s pleasure in stealing from fans I found truly despicable.   Beyond arriving insultingly late for well-paid-for performances, she took any item she fancied from unsuspecting fans, too bedazzled to suspect or accuse.  By way of one example, once in a restaurant, Judy and John began chatting with a couple they had never met before.  Towards the end of the evening, having asked to borrow the woman’s spectacles to check the time, Judy asked, “Can I have these?” claiming they worked better than did her own.  The woman looked distressed, but was shocked and intimidated into consenting.

Still, Judy Garland was often endearing.  Her need for Meyer’s love could be poignant in its intensity.  Fear of forfeiting his affection brought out the almost childlike warmth which had not been jaded. Meyer explores various aspects of their relationship in a tender and compassionate way.  As he concludes, it is heartbreaking that such a magnificent talent was squandered by ingrained dependence on pills and alcohol, joined with the expectations of stardom.  In time, she allowed this power to exploit friends, lovers and audiences with sparse shame or remorse.
  
Ultimately, the book recounts a woman who, over-all, had lost both her path and perspective. In terms of social commentary, Meyer’s book reflects the damage done to those adored from such a young age as to view themselves above the ethics and fairness of human dealings.  

The Happy Hoofer by Celia Imrie

As often happens, life took Celia Imrie on a different path than she intended. 
Being told twice she was “too large” to be a ballet dancer, she instead began working as a tea-girl and gopher for theatres.  In time, she was offered minor roles, leading to ones of greater significance.  Hence, during a long career, she saw the human side of many theatrical greats, such as John Gielgud, Judi Dench and Glenda Jackson.

This book will delight those who enjoy reading anecdotes about such celebrities.  

One of these addresses the fairness and generosity of Ms. Jackson. During the run of a stage play or the making of a film, it was protocol for major stars to eat in the most elegant restaurants, while minor actors and the crew were expected to subsist on the basics. Glenda Jackson would have none of that; cast and crew dined as a group, with complete equality. 

Celia Imrie also discusses her various illnesses and accidents, including her attack by a shark on what she thought to be a wonderfully deserted beach.  In addition, she discusses her choice to have a child without a relationship or marriage, who she succeeded in bringing up on her own.  
This memoir has its bright, happy moments along with some deeply poignant ones.

Freed for Life by Rita Nightingale

A young Englishwoman visiting Japan, Rita Nightingale was working as a hostess in a Tokyo restaurant when she met a Chinese businessman.  Though the nature of his business remained somewhat vague, his grace and seeming rectitude convinced her it must be above board.  Only later, with time to brood in her prison cell, would she trace those stratagems he had planned, almost certainly before their first meeting. 
  
Following a fairly brief courtship, he proposed marriage.  Rita agreed with joy, glad to have met such an attractive, reliable man.  Once their marriage had been decided upon, he suggested they fly together in order to bring her parents their news.  When Rita acquiesced, he said, as his bride-to-be, he could not allow her to travel with the casual suitcases she had owned as a tourist.  He would buy her elegant cases suitable for a businessman’s wife.

Shortly before their flight, he claimed an emergency had arisen regarding his work which would prevent his joining her.  Aware she felt disconcerted at having to travel to her parents’ home without him, he persuaded her to go anyway; he would be at her side at the first moment he could be.  Meanwhile, a colleague she had come to trust would travel with her.  Then, suddenly, this colleague became unavailable too. By then, despite feeling deflated, Rita took the flight.
  
Having reached the Bangkok Airport where a change of planes was meant to take place, Rita found herself under arrest.  At first she felt sure there was some mistake which could easily be resolved.  How could the substantial amount of heroin she was accused of carrying have been found in her baggage?  The only two people, aside from herself, who had access to her suitcases, had been her fiancee and his colleague.  

When the police failed to reach her fiancee, she pleaded with them to drive her to the hotel where his colleague was staying.  Once there, this colleague, looking at Rita in seeming bewilderment, asked her, “Who are you?”

In fact, who was she? Given every reason to view herself as the soon-to-be wife of a businessman, Rita Nightingale found herself sentenced to twenty years in a Bangkok prison. Then, when her case became publicized, she was visited in prison by Christian ministers.  At first, their advice seemed completely nonsensical…

I recommend this book which is a fascinating account of faith and forgiveness and a riveting read.

Child of the Jungle by Sabine Kuegler

Full title: Child of the Jungle: The True Story of a Girl Caught Between Two Worlds by Sabine Kuegler

It is hard to conceive of two more divergent worlds than those inhabited by the Kuegler family.  The parents, missionaries from Germany, wish to live among an Indonesian tribe, the Fayu, in the depths of the jungle.  To the extent feasible, they strove to live in the same conditions as did their tribal neighbors, while adhering to the hygienic and sanitary standards of western societies. 

Thus, their hut, despite efforts at cleanliness, was subjected to the same insect and rodent infestations as were those around them.  Instead of the usual childhood ailments, the Kuegler children caught malaria from the omnipresent mosquitoes and bats.
In terms of customs, the Fayu maintained clan blood feuds which continued for decades.  Though marriages could be agreed with tact, it was not unusual for a girl of twelve or thirteen to be abducted and kept as a bride.  Parents might not see a daughter for years if her kidnapping husband forbade it.

Eventually, they took a vacation to Germany.  Increasing tribal wars had begun to render their lives among the Fayu more arduous.  
Initially, the children felt restrained by the seemingly stringent rules of their grandparents’ home.  Then, somewhat to her surprise, once back in Indonesia, Ms. Kuegler began to yearn for the freshly-brewed coffee, her grandmother’s home-baked bread, and the over-all comforts of modern life in a European country.  At the same time, Violence among the Fayu became ever more menacing.
Ultimately, the Kuegler’s agreed their children should grow towards adulthood in Europe, where they were likely to settle.  Therefore, heart-wrenching as they were at leaving friends they had known nearly all their lives, the Kuegler’s left Indonesia.  

Lovely Me: Life of Jacqueline Susann by Barbara Seaman

Jacqueline Susann born August 1918 died September 1974 was a renowned American author famous for her novel "Valley of the Dolls"

For decades, literary snobs-I have at times been among them-have felt some chagrin at admitting to liking/admiring the work of Ms. Susann.  Still, a recent BBC production of her best-known novel, Valley of the Dolls, indicates growing awareness of her ability as a writer of both credible characters and the social commentary their lives provide.  In short, this book chronicles the gradual transformation of a genuine, sensitive, strong young woman into a resignedly pill-popping member of New York’s celebrity circles.

What of “Jackie” Susann herself?  The title Lovely Me stems from a comment she made when, as a young actress, seeing her mirrored silhouette during pregnancy, she wondered aloud how her thickening waist and abdomen could have happened to “lovely me.”  This musing was written into a song in an upcoming musical. 

Still, as the author Barbara Seaman shows, her life, like her body, failed to retain its loveliness.  Her novels, despite or because of their stellar success, were relegated to an area just above semi-porn. During her marriage to Irving Mansfield, she had a son at a level of the autistic spectrum which required long-term residential care. 

Then, in January 1974, she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.  Though only in her mid-fifties, she knew she had just a few months to live.  When she went to see her son for what she knew would be the last time, she told him she would not be able to visit him anymore.  Perhaps not comprehending the depth of her words, or due to the detachment often characteristic of autism, he simply waved, as if she had said she would be back on the following Friday.

Jacqueline died on September 21st 1974.  For the last seven weeks of her life, she was in a coma.  Her final words were to her husband Irving, “Hiya, doll, let’s get the hell out of here.”  
Those of us who have been touched by her work can only hope she got the hell out of this earth after only minimal suffering.  

Up Close: Harper Lee; A Twentieth-Century Life by Kerry Madden

Given the eminence of her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” a modern American classic, it is surprising how little has been written regarding its author, Harper Lee.  This renders Kerry Madden’s biography a joy to those who, like myself, both love and revere this novel, and the film made there-from.  

Perhaps the dearth of knowledge regarding Ms. Lee is rooted, in part, in her lack of self-publicity.  While glad of the recognition her book received, she seems to have lacked the egoism of other such writers. 

Prior to writing this work, she had helped fellow writer Truman Capote in researching his book In Cold Blood.  She seems to have had a deep interest in crime and its consequences.  

The performance of actor Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a lawyer defending a falsely accused Afro-American man, did much towards enhancing public knowledge of this book.  Later, when Peck was asked why he had not played such roles after that, he said it was because Harper Lee had not written more books.

Many have wondered why she became what some authors are unjustly dubbed “one book writers”.  Apparently, despite her success, her later efforts were not welcomed by potential publishers.  Still, she does not seem to have become disheartened. As Kerry Madden points out, Harper Lee said what she wished to say in one book.  She did not sink into the tempting quicksand of repetition which absorbs some authors.  Hence, she left humankind one exquisite gem of achievement. 

Lady Blue Eyes by Barbara Sinatra

Frank Sinatra born December 12th 1915 died May 14th 1998

Full Title: Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank Sinatra by Barbara Sinatra

Despite the plethora of material written about this iconic singer-actor, Barbara Sinatra’s memoir is an essential part of his history.  As his fourth and final wife, she became privy to aspects of his life he concealed from others.  Though still in his late prime when they married, she observed the growing vulnerability of illness and age behind his determination to maintain his bravado.  

She does not deny he could be irascible-even a bit of a brute towards those who irked or frustrated him.  Still, he was capable of extreme generosity, even when aiding comparative strangers.
Though pleased with being called “Old Blue Eyes”, Sinatra detested frequent references to him as “Chairman of the Board”.  As he said, once one is chairman, how much higher could anyone go?  We all, however eminent, have the need to retain the ability to aspire.
  
When Barbara became Mrs. Sinatra, she knew their marital privacy would be in constant jeopardy from the press and public.  She was not prepared, however, for their merciless hounding.  Its predatory nature was such that she feared they would try to shoot photos of him on his final journey to a hospital.
   
Now, years after his death, the moment she leaves his grave side, onlookers pounce upon flowers and tender notes she has left there.  Still, in a positive sense, this prying mirrors the impact the quality of his music and reverberations of his “my way” lifestyle imprinted themselves both on his era and undoubtedly a generation unborn at the time of his passing.  

Elia Kazan: A Life by Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan

Nearly always, at the end of reading a memoir, I feel some rapport and kinship with its author.  This proved only marginally true in the case of Elia Kazan’s autobiography.  
Those with an interest in films now considered classics, and celebrities such as Marlon Brando, Arthur Miller and Vivien Leigh will find a trove of insights and anecdotes here.  

Sadly, given his fine directorial skills, Kazan gave the names of various colleagues and friends during the House Committee Against Un-American Activities, (HUAC) during the 1950s’ McCarthy hearings.  Kazan strives to justify this betrayal, by his loyalty to the American government, based on its having allowed his family, including himself as a boy, to escape the tyrannies practised in Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire, shortly before the First World War.  Still, the fact remains that information he provided wrecked the careers of others, in a successful effort to shield his own. Almost all of us can understand, with reluctance, the survivalist instinct which impelled these betrayals.
  
Kazan becomes truly offensive when, having recounted pretending to like someone more than he did as part of a seduction, along with countless infidelities to wives, he asks, with grating repetition, “But reader, have you not done the same ?”  
As such a reader, I ached to respond, “No, Kazan.”
  
While few of us have lived flawless lives, many of us do not find it acceptable to lie and deceive as part of our human condition.  He becomes even more distasteful when attributing his constant bedding of renowned beauties to his having been so poor, as a university student, as to be forced to wait on tables for the upper-class students as part of his tuition.  Demeaning as this may have been, the repetition of this shame soon begins to pall, as it leans towards a rationale for hedonism.