Felice's Worlds by Henry Massie
Today as part of the Pump Up Your Books Blog Tour I am proud to be sharing a guest post from Henry Massie the author of Felice's Worlds:From the Holocaust to the Halls of Modern Art. He will talk about what inspired him to write Felice's World:
Felice's Worlds
by Henry Massie
Publisher: booksbeNimble
Publication date: February 14, 2012
Genre: Memoir/Historical/Biography
Purchase: Amazon
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From the author:Guest Post:
I had listened to my mother’s tales all my life and wanted to share them. She was an escapee from a Polish shtetl wiped out by the Nazis, a high-school political activist in Lithuania, a university student in France who lost her first love tragically, a partisan for Arab-Jewish co-existence in Palestine who was caught in the first intifada in 1936, and a penniless arrival to America in 1937. Yet when she died she had amassed one of the most important collections of Modern Art in the world and was a university lecturer on the subject. In writing about her, I understood for the first time how her experience of losing loved ones to the Nazis had been passed on to her American son. But as a psychiatrist, I was drawn to Felice’s story because it shows so much resilience in the face of terrible emotional trauma. Her life dramatizes how just keeping on through days of having nothing but a belief that "someday I will have something," can be a powerful survival tool. – Henry Massie
My mother entertained me with her adventures from the time I
was a small child. She was a great story
teller and I had a very dramatic vision of her and her life and times. As I grew older I wanted to share her stories
with others. Sometimes she would tell an
episode around our family dinner table.
Sometimes she would launch into an adventure when we were with
guests. At times she shared them with me
alone, especially as she grew older after my father passed away.
There were many different parts and periods to her life, and
her stories revealed her as a bold,
colorful, impulsive, brilliant woman who knew how to seize a moment and make it
hers. The experiences she recounted
brought to life bygone eras better than any history book, more completely than
any movie.
For example, I learned about life in the poor farming
village of her girlhood in Poland near the Russian border. I learned what it was like to be singled out
as "the pretty one, sprightly, special little girl whose father, the
mayor, sent her away to get an education." She became the first girl from her village
to go to university. I learned how she
came of age in the 1930s and used the ruse of a false marriage to escape from
the Nazis and enter Palestine. There she
received the death threats from both Jews and Arabs because she treated
everybody equally. Bitterly
disappointment by the violence there, America beckoned her. I saw her descending the gangplank at Ellis
Island in 1937, a young, penniless woman with a mission to send back money to
rescue her family. She placed an ad offering child-care in the New Haven,
Connecticut newspaper. Within days she
moved into the home of the President of Yale University to be his daughter's
governess and French and Latin tutor.
This was her first work in America; her last work was as a
philanthropist. In between she gathered
one of the foremost collections of American Abstract Expressionist Art
anywhere. Toward the end of her life she
told me the tragedy of the death of her first love when she was a student in
France, which she had kept secret.
However only as I wrote her memoir, often in her very words,
did I understand for the first time how I too had been affected by her
experiences. The writing also became my
memoir, and the insights about the psychological trauma of war as well as her
resilience seemed important to share with others.~Henry
Henry Massie is a psychiatrist, award-winning author, and pioneering researcher in the field of autism. FELICE'S WORLDS--From the Holocaust to the Halls of Modern Art, is the a memoir and biography of his mother, a brilliant and beautiful woman who participated in many of the most critical periods of the 20th Century. If you liked AWAY by Amy Bloom, or LOST IN TRANSLATION by Eva Hoffman, you should really meet Felice.
About the author:
Henry Massie is a psychiatrist, award-winning author, and pioneering researcher in the field of autism. FELICE'S WORLDS--From the Holocaust to the Halls of Modern Art, is the a memoir and biography of his mother, a brilliant and beautiful woman who participated in many of the most critical periods of the 20th Century. If you liked AWAY by Amy Bloom, or LOST IN TRANSLATION by Eva Hoffman, you should really meet Felice.
Labels: Felice's World, Henry Massie, holocaust, memoir, Pump Up Your Books
18 Comments:
Thank you for your post Henry. I am intrigued, and now want to read your book.
Interesting story, thank you for sharing it with us. :)
ooh i will be sure and stop by for the interview!
Lovely guest post :) I'm hosting a review and interview with the author on my blog today too.
I am the same way Heidi, as my grandfather served in the war.
I am always fascinated by World War II I like to see how the world was for more grandparents and the holocaust is always so painful to read, but I keep doing it in order to see how dark a Man's heart can truly be and hope that we learn from the past. This sounds like a gripping read and I am certain Felice was an amazing woman!
thanks :) and I agree!
Great post, and sounds like a good book too.
Great quest post. It is always interesting to read about other peoples experiences in life and strives they have made along the way. Thanks for sharing this.
You are welcome, I am always fascinated by history and the lives of individuals and its impact on them.
What a beautiful post! This really touched my heart! Thank you for sharing <3
thanks for stopping by and I agree :)
that is so true Barbara!
Thanks Lisa and I totally agree with your comments.
I love history, especially the personal stories. I find even the small random details fascinating. Great guest post. I would love to read this if I had more time. Maybe in the future..
I do too, although like you I only read a few a year.
Wow, great guest post. It's amazing what kind of stories people have to tell just from their life experiences.
thanks Jen and I totally agree.
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