The Gate: A Memoir of Love and Reflection

Although I found The Gate not as interesting as the other books written by R. Eisler I enjoyed it for her first hand descriptions of life in Cuba during the 30s. Considering she was very young when she arrived in the island with her parents after leaving a very different life in Europe, her observations are defined by her especial situation, background and short life experience.

With the turn of each page I began to realize that this was more than a semi-autobiographical work by one of the most well-regarded systems theorists of our era. Riane Eisler, the internationally acclaimed author of The Chalice and The Blade, Sacred Pleasure, Tomorrow's Children and numerous works on the women's legal rights, has brought to the attention of her audience an area of Jewish twentieth century history previously unknown to many....the role that pre-Castro Cuba played as a haven to thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in the late 1930's.The Gate provides the reader with insights from a young girl's perspective, growing up with a culture, language, and socio-economic background significantly different than anything she or her family had experienced before. The reader perches on a young Eisler's shoulder as she explores the sights, scents and sounds of a tropical paradise, as she encounters her first love affair, and how she grows to understand the relationship and role her parents play in her life.For readers familar with Eisler's concepts of partnership and dominator models of relationships, it is quickly apparent the role that her Cuban upbringing, her father, and the young idealistic revolutionaries she found herself surrounded by played in her research of these concepts in later years. My one regret with this book is that Eisler does not continue to enchant the reader with the changes to come in her early adulthood as she enters the United States, witnesses the struggles her family must undergo to "start over" yet again, and as she begins her own exploration and growth as a lawyer and young mother. We get a mere taste of what is to come, instead of the full serving the reader begs for!