BOOK REVIEW: FELICE'S WORLDS by HENRY MASSIE ~ The Self-Taught Cook™

Felice's Worlds

by

Henry Massie

Genre: Biography/Memoir/Historical (Holocaust)

Publisher: booksBnimble
Publication Date: Feb, 2012
Buy it NOW on: Amazon

About the Book . . .

FIRST SHE ESCAPED THE HOLOCAUST AND THE POVERTY OF THE SHTETL. AFTER THAT, SHE MOVED IN MANY WORLDS. AND IN EVERY ONE SHE MADE HER MARK.

Felice Massie was a student in France, caught up in the horrors of Naziism when she was 20 years old. Cut off by the war from her family living in a small village in Poland, she shifted from one country to another attempting to find a home for herself and a means to rescue her parents, brother and sister. As the Holocaust descended on her shtetl, she arrived penniless in America. Over time she raised a family and amassed one of foremost collections of American modern art. Her boldness and resilience became a beacon of hope and inspiration for others.

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.

From the author:

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

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Reader Review . . .

As a young girl in WWII Poland, Felice faced almost certain death until she was able to emigrate to Palestine. Leaving her first love behind, she traveled from country to country, searching for a home. Her journey, both physical and emotional, is the basis of Felice's Worlds.

Dr. Henry Massie tells his mother's story as only a son could tell it. These are the stories that he heard his entire life. Her journey is a fascinating story. However, the writing style is a bit dry. It reads more like an academic paper than as a biography. I found it interesting that, as an adult, a Holocaust survivor heard him tell his mother's story and told him that he had the emotional distance of a survivor. His writing has the same detachment, which makes for a difficult reading experience. However, her story is an interesting one and deserves to be told.

3 stars

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the Pump Up Your Book book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
  

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