How I Came into My Inheritance and Other True Stories

by Dorothy Gallagher (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.29

  A funny, original and intelligent memoir of growing up Communist in the USA; Dorothy Gallagher's parents, Jewish Communists from the Ukraine, emigrated to New York in the early 1920s. An only child, Dorothy was raised to The Struggle and to a blind devotion to Marx and Stalin. This book is the story of her unusual childhood, but it is also a much wider story: of Dorothy's parents - formidable, funny and deluded; of a host of aunts and uncles, each more eccentric than the last; and of the expectations, sacrifices and beliefs of an entire generation. Gallagher's narrative consists of a series of vignettes, a collection of pivotal moments and incredible anecdotes. Her huge cast of characters, including the con man who stole her father's heart in his old age, are believable and strangely touching. This is a delicate and beautifully written book, one that unites a humorous and warm portrayal of family life with an understanding of the events and movements that have shaped the peoples of Europe and America over the course of this century.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $4.14

  Dorothy Gallagher began her career fabricating sensational stories about celebrities for a pulp magazine. Nothing she made up, though, could rival in colour and drama the true story of her own family.

  Dorothy's mother tells her that the black girls who beat her up at school are the real victims. Her cousin Meyer returns to the Ukraine during the thirties and finds, to his astonishment, that the whole village is near death from starvation; still he retains his belief in Stalin's leadership. Dorothy's father scrounges wood for her stove from nearby vacant lots. She is plunged into despair when a famous editor rejects her manuscript. Her aunt Clara is murdered in her Bronx apartment . . .

  This is a fresh, extraordinary tale and an essential, brilliantly crafted journey into a family's life.