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Comments (0)Sometimes, a chance encounter leads to major life changes. After her father died, Nancy K. Miller found fascinating memories of his past among his belongings—family history and relatives dating back to the pogroms in Russia and mass emigrations.
Undertaking a journey to discover her past, Miller meets many interesting people and learns of various world cultures, allowing her to learn more about herself as an assimilated Jew in New York City in 2011. A distinguished professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Miller is an experienced author and editor of several books and publications. She generates excitement for her quest to find lost relatives and pieces of her family history.
Included is a discussion of the Kipnis family, the author’s relatives. The book opens with a detailed family tree as she explains her discovery, leading to her research and travels. Also included are photographs, family portraits and drawings she finds through the contacts she makes with relatives. She shows relics from her father’s high school, school photos, report cards and notes from both her father and her uncle. With great patience and persistence, Miller finds relatives and friends from the past who help her make the connections to her father and his family.
While the author’s research is impressive, her writing style can be confusing in connecting the various discoveries, and the relationships between the people she met and her family of origin.
For those who enjoy studying family history, this is a good book. It just requires a little patience to piece together the different aspects of the author’s life.