Open Wounds: Post-Communist Poland through the Eyes of an American Immigrant

by Alex Shannon

a fractured country in a democratic tailspin. A vital country shaken by the tremors of Putin’s war. A conflicted country with a dark history that never dies. a place only an expat knows best - an outsider on the inside, an American immigrant. Open Wounds is a grassroots memoir with the stories beneath the stories about this indispensable nation in Europe, one with a complicated past, an unsettled present, and an uncertain future.

CONTENTS

Introduction Someplace A Hasty Retreat Step by Step (Into the Past) Interlude The Pandemic Strikes Poland Conversation on the Dział The “Good Old Days” Thick They Say I’m a “Downer” Interlude Gay-Baiting in Polish Politics The Where Did They All Go? Interlude The Elephant in the Room (Trump) The Requisite “Nothing but Scum!” Poland Partitioned (Over and Over Again) Interlude Road Trip to the Baltic The “Empty” Jewish A Short Tour Interlude Fascists on the March Poland’s Open Faulkner Got it Right Putin’s Another Thick Line? Glossary

294 pages, Hardcover

Published June 17, 2022