Table of Contents

Preface

Part I
Chapter 1:   First week of April, 1932
Chapter 2:   The rest of 1932
Chapter 3:   Winter and spring, 1933
Chapter 4:   Later in 1933
Chapter 5:   Spring and summer, 1934
Chapter 6:   Fall and early winter, 1934
Chapter 7:   Winter to late summer, 1935
Chapter 8:   Fall, 1935

Part II
Chapter 9:   Spring and summer, 1936
Chapter 10: Late 1936
Chapter 11: Winter and spring, 1937
Chapter 12: Summer and fall, 1937
Chapter 13: Winter and spring, 1938
Chapter 14: Summer, 1938
Chapter 15: Fall, 1938
Chapter 16: Winter and spring, 1939
Chapter 17: Summer 1939
Chapter 18: Late summer and fall, 1939
Chapter 19: 1940


Afterword
Resources

About the Author

Lillian Faderman is an internationally known scholar of ethnic history, and of lesbian history and an acclaimed memoirist. She is the author of many books, including To Believe in Women, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, Surpassing the Love of Men, and I Begin My Life All Over. Among her many honors are Yale University's James Brudner Award for exemplary scholarship in lesbian and gay studies, the Monette-Horwitz Award, and the American Association of University Women's National Distinguished Scholar Award.

Reviews

"This is an exquisite piece of history—both resonantly personal and full of revelatory moments in  the history of  women, and of  New York in the early days of  the garment workers union and the shadow of the Holocaust.  The sympathy and understanding Faderman shows for her immigrant mother, and her whole family, reminded me again of what I love about memoir. This is not just a story; these are lives on the page."  —Dorothy Allison

“Faderman’s story of her immigrant mother is so vividly imagined that you can taste the borscht Mary eats, squirm at the claustrophobia of her tiny rented room, and be swept up in the sensual delight that will betray her.”  —Janice Steinberg, author of The Tin Horse
 
“This book is a work of originality, written with such imaginative sympathy that I read it with unabating pleasure from beginning to end.” —Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments
 
“Lillian Faderman is an extraordinary storyteller, one of the few who can tell a painful story with a complex ending—and imbue it with humor, sensuality, and earthy grace, in every sentence.” —Amy Bloom, author of Away
 
“The sympathy and understanding Faderman shows for her immigrant mother and her whole family reminded me again of what I love about memoir. This is not just a story; these are lives on the page.” —Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
 
“My Mother’s Wars tells the aching story of immigrant factory workers in the decades preceding World War II—sad lives made sadder by the terrifying knowledge that their families in Europe are being extinguished. The book is part memoir, part reconstruction . . . and all artistry.” —Edith Pearlman, author of Binocular Vision

“Faderman is a skilled storyteller and a careful documentarian . . . the historical details in the book have been provided by extensive research. It is these historical details and Faderman’s lyrical storytelling skill that make this book such an inviting read.” —Carol Poll, Jewish Book Council
 
“A remarkable work of reconstruction . . . As usual, Faderman’s seemingly effortless prose is the result of years of patient research. As far as possible, she has made sure that the past will be accurately remembered.”  —The Gay & Lesbian Review
 
“To be sure, the Holocaust figures crucially in [Lillian Faderman’s] new memoir . . . but her book is more than a testimony of the Holocaust— it is a love story, a family memoir and, above all, an American tale.”  —Jonathan Kirsch, The Jewish Journal
 
“[A] strikingly intelligent and emotionally wrenching narrative.”  —Philip Jason, The Washington Independent Review of Books
 
“A gripping personal testimony. Author Lillian Faderman shares her mother's story of immigrating to America with high hopes of dancing, only to be swept up in the undercurrents of New York, and the struggles of being a worker in the garment industry. . . . A must for history and memoir collections focusing on personal tales.” —Midwest Book Review
 
“Faderman expertly explores a jarring view into the immigrant life of Jewish Holocaust survivors living in the US.”  —Nick Pachelli, The Advocate
 
“As Faderman vividly chronicles her mother’s intense personality and complex experiences, she also freshly illuminates the Jewish immigrant experience.”  —Booklist

“Faderman commands her material in this page-turner—no small feat with a subject so close to home.” —Make/shift