The Family: Three Journeys Into the Heart of the Twentieth Century

Sometimes you read a book and quickly forget what it was about. Movies are like that as well, but even more fleeting, even if you enjoyed watching it. We are so bombarded with material today that much of it becomes a jumble in your mind. This is not so on the book The Family. While researching my genealogical roots, another researcher who sent me some things about my Gentile side of the family mentioned she had recently read a book that was fascinating to her . My "mixed" background caused her to think it would be very relevant to me since my upbringing consisted of little of my Jewish heritage and yet it was a subject that had always fascinated me . Not that this book really deals with those who have an identity crisis at times but it is just such a poignant narrative about a family in the Russian Pale (where Jews HAD to live unless given permission by the government to live somewhere else). The story introduces life in "the Pale" and then follows one group who headed to America; another who chose the Zionist route and settled in the Promised Land, long before it obtained statehood; and another who chose to stay where life had "always been". The pictures and the letters from the family who chose the status quo are haunting. I found myself going again and again to the pictures and feeling a catch in my throat. It's painful when you know what is coming. The writer, David Laskin, has written a number of historical non-fiction that like some other writers I enjoy reads more like a novel than a documentary. I felt like I was in each location and found myself reading things from other sources to get additional depth and insight. All of this takes place at the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth century during a time of many well-known historical events but with the inclusion of an intertwined family with separate paths, it becomes even more exciting. After reading The Family, I knew I needed my own personal copy for posterity. I will read it again and likely again after that. At this time, I don't know that my family will overlap with Laskin's but I know there are elements that are very similar. While I knew little of the exact origins of my Jewish great-grandparents , the combination of reading books of immigrant families of the time juxpositioned with my own Ancestry research has painted a portrait of so many things that I was not schooled in and made me love them even more. Laskin writes a good book and I'll read all the others as well. When a book touches my heart and/or my mind (and generally both) , I want it on my bookshelf. The Family found a great home here. I won't put the spoiler in but you'll enjoy the thread in the book about a major company that was birthed in America by one of The Family. It's quite the American dream* (that's a hint!) Patricia Lenwell