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Aug 13, 2002 | ISBN 9781400033065 Buy
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Aug 13, 2002 | ISBN 9781400033065
Dorothy Gallagher began her literary career fabricating stories about celebrities for a pulp magazine. Nothing she invented, however, could rival the facts surrounding her own family.In a singular voice–intimate, fierce, hilarious–Gallagher takes you into the heart of her Russian Jewish heritage with stories as elegant and stylish as fiction. From the wrenching last stages of her parents’ lives, Gallagher moves back through time: to her parents’ beginnings, the adventures of her extended family, and the communist ideology to which they cling. Her aunt Lily sells lingerie to prostitutes; a family friend is found murdered in a bathtub; her cousin Meyer returns to the Ukraine to find his village near death from starvation; and a young Gallagher endures sessions in self-criticism at a Workers’ Children’s camp. Together these episodes tell the larger story of a generation living through tumultuous history, and record the acts of loving defiance of a daughter on her path to independence.
Dorothy Gallagher was born and raised in New York City. She was a features editor for Redbook magazine before becoming a freelance writer whose work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and Grand Street. Her… More about Dorothy Gallagher
“Readers who relish the truth…will be intoxicated…and will accept her inheritance as their own.”–The New York Times Book Review“A witty account, colored by an edgy darkness, of her family’s attempts to make sense of this country.”–The Washington Post“Hilarious and alarming.”–Los Angles Times Book Review“These family remembrances serve as a reminder to parents and children alike that what lies ahead in life often sneaks up from behind.” –The New Yorker“A piercingly funny book . . . unsentimental, breezy, blunt.”–Time
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