Brooke Randel's debut, Also Here, is a poised, tender family memoir blending research with her grandmother Golda Indig's recollections of the Holocaust.
"Bubbie" caught her granddaughter in her arms when Randel was born suddenly in her parents' car on her grandmother's driveway. Ever since, they have been close. Bubbie was warm and energetic; always giving, never asking. But in her mid-80s, she did make a request: that Randel write her story. Although Bubbie spoke multiple languages, she had only attended school for four years and was functionally illiterate.
The oral history that emerges is fragmentary and frenetic--full of impressions but few details, it couldn't stand on its own. Interview snippets are interspersed with narrative chapters based on follow-up research. Randel effectively contrasts facts and emotions, tracing how events translate into memories and, ultimately, written language.
Golda, born in 1930, grew up in Romania. When the Nazis came, her older brothers were conscripted into forced labor. Her mother and younger siblings were killed in a concentration camp. At every turn, Golda's survival was miraculous. Only because her mother gave Golda her fur coat did the 13-year-old look old enough to avoid the first cull at Auschwitz. As Bubbie repeats throughout these transcripts, "Unbelievable."
Golda married and immigrated to North America. She endured widowhood and breast cancer. This concise, touching memoir bears witness to a whole remarkable life as well as the bond between grandmother and granddaughter that emerged as one generation's history was entrusted to another. Randel speculates about reasons for Bubbie's continued illiteracy but ultimately it is little barrier to a loving connection across the generational divide. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck