Bøger af Ruth Sidransky

Women are amazing. Thus begins the entry for the letter "A" in Ruth Sidransky's glorious Primer, a journey through fragments of a long life that examines the unique strength of women through every part of the passage, ordinary days and extraordinary ones, difficulties and joy, sorrow and triumphs. Like the powerfully observed worlds of Annie Dillard and clarity of Joan Didion, Sidranksy looks into the beauty of the world as well as its dangers. Her language is as sharp as saw grass, her observations surprising and always profound. And when the grass leaves marks, Sidransky helps the wounded march through it and on, healing as they go. What of Sidransky's choices for the letters of A Woman's Primer? What words do young women need to keep close to their chests as they run through the field of the living, hearts open and filled with awe? All women must be brave. The world will throw powerful events toward each woman that she must address and overcome. She will meet love and learn to listen to its languages and meaning, learn to trust herself and her instincts. Kindness, safety, a sense of purpose and the comfort of family are also monumental in the lives of women. Sidransky, now 85, reaches into her life's long arc and finds modern pragmatism: Women need financial independence, meaningful work, jobs, respect, careers, healthcare, childcare, freedom of body and freedom of thought. In her 9th decade, A Woman's Primer is one of three books she will publish this year. Part memoir, part philosophical inquiry into the soul of women, Sidransky affirms the journey through it all, finally accepting that life exists for life itself, for the daffodil that comes up yellow every spring. Here is A Woman's Primer, the ABC's of a life, of a woman beginning again and again.

This is the story of courage in the face of an unrelenting adversary. This is the story of two women, a daughter and a mother, in a daily struggle to find a cure for a malicious cancer whilst living an apparently normal day-to-day life. One woman, the mother who knew that there was no cure, and the other woman, daughter Carrie, found hope in a possible miraculous, 11th hour rescue and so lived in the denial of death. Carrie was brave in the face of this second invasive incursion, 25 years in remission after the first attack. Carrie, the single mother of two teen-age children, attempted to create a normal life for her children, driving them to school on wintry mornings, cooking them their favorite meals. As the disease progressed, she could not continue the charade of normalcy. They did not know what they knew, but they knew. Their once beautiful mother was disappearing before their eyes. They left Hawaii, moved from the warmth and freedom of an island life to the wintry cold of Massachusetts. They moved in with Nana, Carrie's mother, now in her early eighties. She was the ballast. She provided for her wounded daughter and her confused, talented grandchildren. There was anger, and there was singing. There was fun and an army of nurses who entered the house to minister to Carrie. There was joy and any talk of possible tragedy was forbidden. Above all, there was Carrie, a shining light. With an Afterword by Dr Mark Hyman.

With the sweep of Sophie's Choice and search for identity of Everything is Illuminated, Reparations is the story of Molly Rose, an innocent catapulted from the streets of New York into the bombed out cities of Austria and Germany at the end of World War II. This is her story, a story of circumstance and choices, survival and strength, love and betrayal. in the early years in Europe, Molly meets stateless Jews in Austria and Germany. They become her European family. Slowly, they begin to tell their secrets of horror under the Nazis: mutilation, experimentation, rape, torture, state-induced abortions, relentless cruelty and death. Some turn to smuggling goods, gold bullion and loose silver, to Spain and Italy. Molly and Jacob join them, driving across borders in a specially made car. Molly has another quest as well: Molly wants a baby for herself and for the surviving Jewish women experimented on by Nazi doctors. Molly wants to undo the wrong done to her sisters by the ultimate affirming act: Molly wants to create new life.

An account of the author's growing up as the hearing daughter of deaf Jewish parents during the 1930s and 1940s, revealing the challenges deaf people faced during the Depression and afterward. She portrays her family with honesty, and her account provides a living narrative of the Deaf experience in pre- and post-World War II America.