Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret

Author Steve Luxenberg takes on quite a quest in the search he reports on in his excellent book, ANNIE'S GHOSTS. Shortly before his mother died, he learns that she had -- or may have had -- a sister whom she never mentioned to her own children. After her death, he began the research which results in this book. According to the jacket blurb, the author is an editor at the WASHINGTON POST. Not surprisingly then, his investigative skills are of the highest caliber, as is his writing ability. These are put to good use ANNIE'S GHOSTS. Operating partly on educated hunches, partly with a certain amount of lucky assistance, Luxenberg learns that, indeed, his mother did have a sister, the "Annie" of the title. It turns out that, by modern standards, Annie probably was mildly retarded as well as having been born with a deformed leg. Today, she probably would be allowed to have a relatively normal life, perhaps in a group home. Instead, poor Annie was warehoused for decades in a mental hospital, after cruel surgeries had been performed on her leg. Once their parents had died, her sister, Luxenberg's mother, never visited Annie, though she lived quite near the facility in which Annie was housed. Luxenberg provides a damning indictment of the lack of rights of those who were mentally challenged -- lumped together under a catchall diagnosis of mental illness, regardless of condition -- in America during the early decades of the 20th Century. We now take for granted our civil rights and the protections we are afforded by public advocates but, for people like Annie in that era, the habeas corpus laws did not apply. The author tells the story almost like a fictional mystery, with every page bringing fresh revelations. So thorough is he that he actually journeys to Ukraine to inspect the village from which his maternal grandparents had come. Though Luxenberg's deep love for his mother always is obvious, by the end of this saga, I felt heartsick for poor Annie, abandoned for no good reason to a punitive system for decades on end. ANNIE'S GHOSTS is a sad story, but an important one. Those nameless souls, trapped like Annie in this system, deserve a final examination of their lives, just as Luxenberg has provided for the aunt he never had known existed.

Steve Luxenberg's mom, Beth, had always insisted on honesty in her children. She'd also always gone out of her way to tell everyone she met that she was an only child; it seemed to be a point of pride with her. So imagine the shock and puzzlement of Steve and his siblings to learn that Beth hadn't been an only child and that their mom's name wasn't Beth, it was Bertha. Well, okay, many of us might have changed our names had we been born a Bertha. But why go out of her way to claim being an only child when she was not? By the time the first glimmerings of the Luxenberg family secret came to light in the late '90s via a comment from an outsider, Beth was dying and her children opted not to bring it up, at least partly because at that time they'd been led to believe that the secret sister had been institutionalized when Annie was two and Beth four, so in a way it seemed Beth did live an "only child's" existence for most of her life and may have barely remembered otherwise. Only after Beth was dead did her children learn that Beth and her sister had shared the family home for 22 years before Annie was sent away. Many, including at least one of Steve's siblings, would have just let it go at that point. But Steve, an acclaimed journalist and longtime head of The Washington Post's investigative reporting unit, was incapable of walking away from such a puzzlement--not as a reporter, not as a son. He had to find out about Annie and why his mom had lived a lie. Time was of the essence. Those who might have known Annie and Beth and could answer Steve's questions were now very old or dead. Huge public institutions such as those that might have served Annie were mostly long gone and the state of Michigan was destroying its old records and creating bureaucratic boondoggles around access to those that did still exist. "Annie's Ghosts" is a son's memoir and a reporter's investigation that should prove especially fascinating and instructive to everyone with a family secret...and, as Steve's research makes clear, that would be a great many of us. (Personal note: I'm a longtime fan of the author's work and a former colleague.)

At what point do you stop controlling a secret and find that it's controlling you? That's one of the questions at the heart of Steve Luxenberg's utterly compelling first book, "Annie's Ghosts" Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret. Part memoir, part biography and part investigative reporting, this book humanizes a subject that probably touches more of us than we might realize. Luxenberg's journey begins as a son's quest to learn why his mother turned her sibling from younger sister to lifelong secret and expands to become an exploration of a particularly moving era in recent American history. Several months after Luxenberg's mom died, the cemetery where her parents were buried sent the family a letter containing a simple question that was to lead Luxenberg and his siblings on a journey through their family's past. "Spring was around the corner," Luxenberg writes, "and the cemetery was offering to plant flowers on the grave sites." The solicitation wasn't for two sites, however, but for three. Suddenly, this whisper of a woman had a name, Annie. Her burial certificate answered some questions, but led to others that took Luxenberg deep into the dynamics of his own family as well as the evolving nature of health care in the United States during several key decades of the 20th century. He soon found himself part of a wave of thousands of family members seeking information about relatives who'd been institutionalized--relatives they'd never known they had. "I couldn't write about all the `forgotten people,' but I could write about one," Luxenberg writes of his decision to ferret out Annie's tale. Steve Luxenberg is a veteran newspaperman, and his journalistic instincts and contacts definitely helped him develop questions and efficiently seek answers. However, he's also a son and a brother, and the decision to step outside the bounds of impartial reporter to involved memoirist and family historian cannot have been easy. His love for his mom and his family illuminates every chapter, even as he struggles with why his mom--who lived by the rule of honesty--chose to keep such a key element of her life a secret. In the end, drawing on primary and secondary sources, and leavening these facts with his knowledge of his mom, he finds answers. Too late, as he notes in his dedication, for his mom and Annie ... but perhaps not for the other 5,000 whose families may still have time to reconnect. I read this book twice. The first time, for the tale of Annie and the Luxenbergs; the second, for the larger historical picture. As I've written and rewritten this review, I've struggled with how to describe this book without spoiling the intensely personal journey it conveys. So I'll have to leave it at this. If you've ever loved or been loved, this book will hit you in the gut.

Whenever I start a book and find myself hooked on the first page I read it straight through in one day not putting it down. Well I was hooked with this book but I took my time, almost 2 weeks to savor and think about what was going on in Steves hunt for the truth. To find out a shocking fact about a parent after they are dead is very tramatic. I know as it happened to me also. Not the same event, but right away you think "why didn't she tell me this?". Steve finds out after his mothers death that she had a sister and that the sister was in a mental hospital. His mother had always claimed she was an only child. Infact she went out of her way always stressing the fact. As a child Steve and his half-sister Sach and younger brother Mike got used to the fact and counted it up as childhood story #239 or so. What starts out as a few phone calls truns in to a huge quest for the truth. Steve is a journalist by profession so the gift of writting was already with him. He writes so vivid and with a passion and emotion that can have you thinking it is happening to you. You almost get into his heart and mind and soul. Steve hits many road blocks as getting medical records from a long closed mental institution. Getting information carries with it many privacy issues. He has huge legal battles getting records being the nephew of the person does not give you rights to the information. I stand amazed that Steve didn't give up. We go from Detroit to Germany and Russia all over the world following a life that was hidden from 1919 to 1972. Starting with one woman who felt his need he was faxed some basic information about his aunt. It was just enough to really light a fire in him. He now knows his mother grew up with her sister who was physically and mentally handicaped. Steve spans decades and digs layers and layers away like pealing an onion. We travel the world with him on this quest and some things are very hard to read. Some very painful facts come out of this families history. Being poor and Jewish in the depression and the holocaust. Why did both his mother and father hold such deep secrets. Yes, he finds his fater also has secrets. By learning the truth it sheds much light on Steves childhood and how he was formed in his thoughts and beliefs. Looking back with the truth now part of his life he has become more whole. When Steve actually finds people who knew his mother and Annie as children he sees a side of his Mother he did not know. She was loving and cared for her sister often carrying her on her back as she was a smaller child although the eldest. There are quite a few pictures we are given to help bring these people to life. There is a picture of a mental hospital and the typical treatment the patients had of just a mattress on the floor. You will cry reading this book. You will be encouraged also. If you have a secret that has haunted you for years you will have tools to start your own journey and understand how important it is to know your r

Just before his mother's death, Steve Luxenberg finds out a family secret--that his mother never revealed that she had a sister, Annie, who was mentally and physically handicapped. Not wanting to approach his mother when she was ill, Luxenberg never asked about Annie until after his mother died. Never losing his objectivity, Luxenberg used his skills as a journalist to uncover and tell this amazing, yet personal story. On the way, he uncovers what happened to Annie and some other family secrets that had been swept under the carpet for so many years. Through interviews, letters, documents, and hospital records Luxenberg traces Annie's history and how she was hidden in plain site. Annie's story is as much a story about Annie as it is about the attitudes of mental and physical disabilities in this era. It is also a story about a poor, Jewish, immigrant family trying to make their way during the great depression. He traces what it must have been like for Annie, who lived most of her life within a mental health facility and how things might have been different had she been born two decades later. Luxenberg traces the attitudes all the way back to Europe and, for some family members, through the ashes of the holocaust. The tale is always compelling. Luxenberg is not a flowery writer. Rather, he keeps things organized and allows the story to tell itself. For a book over 400 pages, it reads like it is half that. It's no thriller, but the mystery as it unfolds keeps you on the edge of your seat. If there was a flaw with this book, it is that Luxenberg may at times be too organized. He sometimes leaves out a few pieces of information that he must have known earlier, mentioning them later where it suits the narrative. For example, he read all of his parents letters to each other near the beginning of his reasearch. At times, in the context of an interview or uncovering a new document Luxenberg brings out supporting evidence from a letter so that the readers' 'Aha!' moment, clearly wasn't the same thing for Luxenberg. On the other hand, I rather enjoyed being led through the story in this way. It may have been somewhat contrived, but it helped the book read more like a novel than a piece of cold journalism. I believe this book deserves five stars because it is masterfully written. It tells a universal story and teaches many profound lessons. As we learn about Annie and Luxenberg's family, we learn more about ourselves. Highly recommended.