House of Glass (Hadley Freeman, 2020)

Longtime journalist at the Guardian Hadley Freeman (since then moved to the Sunday Times) has covered topics of pop culture, politics and feminism. She had the idea to write this book for 20 years, but never knew how to start. She first wanted to write about her grandmother, but then expanded it to include all the siblings, as their stories told a story of the 20th century.

The story revolved around Freeman’s grandmother Sala, and Sala’s three brothers, from Poland to France, and in the case of Sala, on to the US. Freeman herself was born in America and grew up there, until her family moved to the UK when she was 11. It’s a cosmopolitan story, but the transfuge is motivated by oppression. The Glass family are Jews, and a series of pogroms in Chrzanow leads them to decide to emigrate to France in the early 1900s. Thinking they were safe from harm in France, it came as a shock that France became occupied and set up a collaborationist government which persecuted Jews. 

It’s a hefty history lesson, with details about the Pétainist leadership. It is also a personal story, about a young girl’s relationship to her grandmother. It’s impressive how well Freeman has been able to weave the story, with an unusual amount of detailed research. Maybe some of it was the result of artistic license? The four Glass siblings all have interesting stories, but the standout is Sander, who reinvents himself as the fashion mogul Alex Maguy in France.

Freeman puts in commentary on political issues throughout the text, in true journalistic fashion, which I believe benefits the text and makes it feel fresh. She also includes her thoughts on Jewish identity and integration. I recently read Anne Berest‘s “La Carte postale” which has a lot of points in common with Freeman’s book. Both are books about discovering a French Jewish family history, by focusing on four different individuals. The writers are also of the same age (Freeman born in 1978, Berest in 1979). Both had relatives who were friends with world class painters like Picasso and Picabia. Both had relatives detained in the French internment camp Pithiviers. They both have also written books about fashion (The Meaning of Sunglasses: A Guide to (Almost) All Things Fashionable; How to be Parisian wherever you are). The difference is in how they chose to write, because Berest wrote in a novelistic style, whereas Freeman chose a journalistic approach.

Mon Amerique commence en Pologne (Leslie Kaplan, 2009)

I was very much drawn to this book, strangely enough solely because of the title alone. I could instantly sympathize with the idea contained within those five words, probably since I too have spent time in three countries (two of them being France and “Amerique”). Poland is not a direct connection, but one set of my grandparents were born just southeast of Poland…

Leslie Kaplan has a trajectory which is somewhat unusual in that her forebears came from Poland, went to America, and then emigrated back across the Atlantic to France, with American confidence and a sense of world-citizenry. Little Leslie was born in the states but grew up in France with a double consciousness, or maybe even triple if one counts the Polish-Jewish roots.

I learn that this is the sixth part of a series of autobiographical writings, and become curious as to what she might have written about in the previous five, because this feels pretty condensed and definitive. It has three parts, childhood, youth and adulthood. These are set in the 50s, 60’s-70’s and 80’s, respectively. The first part meditates on her flailing American identity and how it clashes with her French upbringing. It also tells the story of her parents, who seem to have been career-driven universalists who worked in diplomacy and international relations. Kaplan herself was drawn to the political stirrings that culminated in May ’68 and the second part is rife with stories of that period. She quotes Bob Dylan lyrics, retells her memories of almost all of Jean-Luc Godard films, and other movies of the era. The third part retells the story of a friendship with someone, and feels different, colder and more austere than the previous parts. The 1980s represented a break with the earlier period. I might not seek out more Leslie Kaplan, as it feels like I have got a sense of her style from this book. Maybe later on.