Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors and Skokie

by Linda Pressman

Written by a child of two Holocaust Survivors, Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors and Skokie, tells the story of growing up with parents who have survived the unsurvivable, who land in an idyllic northern suburb of Chicago, Skokie, where they're suddenly free to live their lives, yet find their past has arrived with them. In a book that's both funny and somber, and a story universal in its scope, Linda Pressman creates an unforgettable world of adolescent angst and traumatized parents amid the suburban world of the 60s and 70s, ultimately finding that her parents' stories are her own.

Genres: Memoir

349 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 11, 2011

Reviews

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linda Pressman (b. 1959) is a first generation Jewish-American woman whose Polish dad and Lithuanian mom were Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the US after the war. Pressman's 2011 memoir Looking Up details the author's rather idyllic 1960s and early 1970s childhood in Skokie, Illinois (an affluent suburb of Chicago known for its large Jewish population), where the author was the sixth in a family of seven sisters.

There are many narrative threads running through this memoir, and I found some more compelling than others. The most salient story for me was how the author's parents established themselves in a foreign country and rebuilt their lives and created a sense of comfort and normalcy for their children after living through the Holocaust in Europe. The generation of folks who lived through this experience first-hand is rapidly dwindling away as I read this in 2025; their resilience was truly remarkable and holds a lot of lessons for future generations. Pressman wrote lovingly about both of her parents, both from a child's perspective and from an adult's perspective, and I thought this part of the memoir was very well done.

Other narrative threads involved 'funny' stories about Pressman's extended family, sisters, childhood friends, coming-of-age, etc. These didn't land as well for me -- rather than fond, some stories came across as mean-spirited, overly precious, and generally self-indulgent. I've said this in many of my memoir reviews, but I don't know that a general audience really benefits from 300+ pages reading someone else's childhood stories when the author is a grown adult who's lived decades since. (I do see the author has since written a second memoir about her childhood, 2021's Jewish Girls Gone Wild: A Memoir of Skokie, Scottsdale & the Seventies.)

I also found the narrative pacing a bit jarring. There are many chronological time jumps even within the author's childhood as she is narrating her first-person experience. We learn several chapters before the end of the book that the family moves to Scottsdale, Arizona when the author is in her early teens, but then we flash back for chapters to the author's elementary school crushes and other petty childhood drama.

I wish the book had focused more on the author's parents. I find it fascinating how many different coping strategies came out of such a challenging and tragic time.

Further reading: World War II survivorship stories:
Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare by Michele Ephraim - another memoir written by the daughter of Holocaust survivors that focuses a lot more on adulthood
The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eva Eger
GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

My statistics:
Book 360 for 2025
Book 2286 cumulatively

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

With tremendous humor and heart, Linda Pressman tells the story of growing up as the sixth of seven daughters of two Holocaust survivors in Looking Up. Pressman has a remarkable grasp of details and she peppers them cleverly and creatively throughout her memoir in order to enrich her story. What struck me most about Pressman's book was how "normal" her childhood was despite the extraordinary odds her parents had overcome in order to build their lives in Skokie, Illinois. Her account is also - perhaps inadvertently - full of lessons for parents. (My favorite piece of advice was one her mother apparently derived from her time on the run from the Nazis: "Keep the children alive.")

Kudos to Pressman on a splendid debut. I look forward to her next effort.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit that this is a book that I read in parts.



I read this book between others, along with days spent grading, putting it aside and always picking it up again. Reading, then rereading, and reading some parts yet again, with a memory of my life and my youth.



At first, thrilled to meet another who grew up in Skokie at approximately the same time as me (Linda Pressman is 6 years younger), I found that I did not entirely share the same memory. She lived in the section bordering Evanston that I did not discover until high school expanded my horizon. In fact, she went to school in Evanston. If she had lived two houses down, she would have been in the same district as my high school, the infamous but now gone, Niles East (of films, "Sixteen Candles", "Weird Science", "Risky Business", and TV movies, "The Geek" and "Skokie"; also known for two Nobel Laureate alumni). As it was, Linda Pressman went to Devonshire Pool, not Oakton, her parents were the lone Holcaust survivors in her immediate neighborhood, where in mine she would have been among many.



Continued reading, however, illuminated shared memory and an understanding only we who lived in Skokie during that era could comprehend. The language, the attitudes, the lifestyle, and the people. There is something about Skokie at that time that is part of the heart of anyone who lived there. It was a progressive era filled with people who were trying to deny there hurtful past, whether they were Holocaust survivors or second generation Pogrom survivors whose family came to Chicago just in time for the great depression. They were all families making a living with well cared for, blessed children, who could not relate and did not care to relate to the struggles of their youth. Indeed, the parents made sure it was that way.



Skokie at that time became a fairy tale. I was flooded with memories as I read. Yes, my recollections were often different, and yet Linda Pressman spoke real truths as she described fathers who worked hard to get ahead because they could and women who cooked five course meals for their husbands every night and kept pristine homes, and kids who ran the neighborhood from sun up until sundown, finding new friends a couple blocks down undiscovered until first grade. She also knew and shared clearly that Skokie was not a reality. Linda Pressman knew the same people I did who could be competitive and judgmental. She also knew the over cliquish adolescents who caused one another pain with an "IN" crowd that imitated the same supremacy as the enemies that caused their families to flee Europe barely alive.



I have finally finished the book and closed it's pages (oh yes, I did reread a few here and there before I have finally closed the cover). I must admit that I am left with a glow. I am appreciative for all my memories, for the ability to say, "Yes, that is who I am, too." I am one of the blessed children of Skokie, Illinois who grew up in the 1950s when our country seemed a place where everyone had rights and that anyone could live a decent life, even a survivor of the Holocaust.

[Jenny Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

This well-written memoir comes from a woman whose parents are Holocaust survivors. Her mother spent years hiding in a forest, managing to stay alive till the end of the war. She met another survivor in a displaced persons camp, married him, and immigrated to the US. There, she had seven daughters.

One of the daughters, Linda Pressman, tells her own life story – she grew up in Skokie – and interweaves it with the family story. One is tragic, one is comic, and they blend together perfectly.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about growing up with Holocaust survivor parents. I'm a fan.

[Margaret Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not my favorite post-Holocaust book. Written as almost the diary of a daughter of Holocaust survivors living in Skokie in the 60s, it details the life of a family of SEVEN daughters coming to grips, or not, the immensity of the experiences of the parents in Europe and becoming Americanized. There is no way to document the impact of those experiences in the forest and in Siberia and what pain that caused for the European family or the little drip, drip, drip daily occurrences for the daughters. Nothing would compare with the forest. Nothing could. Always running from the Nazis, then and now. And while there were many humorous scenes in the book, there is an undercurrent of judgmental or self-centeredness that by the end of the book I found hard to take. Nonetheless having spent the 1960s in Evanston, I found myself smiling at some anecdotes and reminiscing about others. This book plays a role in documenting the experiences of children of Holocaust survivors.

[Helaine Weidner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just Another Memoire

I enjoyed the first half of the book. Having also grown up in Skokie, it brought back many memories of places I remember. I wanted more of this. A good description of Holocaust survivors in the 2nd part of the book. Luckily I didn’t have any relatives who were like this, but I did have friends who did. Teenage years are teenage years and whether Jewish or not, they seemed basically all the same to me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that high school never thrilled me.

[Tanya Jacobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started out great. The chapter called the forest was heart wrenching and beautiful. However after chapter 8, it became drawn out and kind of boring. Too much about childhood friends. Impossible to remember who is who - aunts and uncles, boys, girls etc. As the chapters dragged on I found myself wishing to get it done with already. Still, the writing is great. The humor is definitely there and as an Eastern European Jew from chicago suburbs it was very relatable

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this memoir about someone who grew up on a street not far from where I lived as a child.

[Lynn Silverstein]

good

[NOYB · Rating 4 out of 5]

This title was an award winner for, I believe, best new indie books in the April Writers Digest. I haven't had my Kindle long but I've been searching for new writers that can hold my interest. This memoir was well written and interesting throughout, it never got bogged down or boring. Simple tales of growing up one of seven daughters in a small house in suburban Chicago, children of quirky Holocaust survivors. There were times I will admit to being a little shocked at how Ms. Pressman wrote about her family but I shrugged and figured if they hadn't disowned her or attempted to block her from publishing who am I to judge. It's her story after all. I took off one star for lack of better proofreading and editing, not for overall enjoyment. Highly recommend.

[Ouida · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by my daughter, Jennifer Colbert, a fellow blogger with Linda Burt Pressman. This book had me hanging on every word from the beginning and I laughed, cried and grieved. More importantly, this book made me feel as if I were right there with the author. Rarely does a book grab me and pull me in so deeply, especially non fiction, yet this one did and I went willingly. An absolute must read!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and poignant, and gut wrenching at times, the story of a family with 7 sisters who grow up in Skokie, Illinois during the 60s. Anyone who is Jewish and has parents or grandparents who spoke Yiddish, or who grew up in the suburbs as American children but who's parents were from the "Old Country" and who were formed by the pogroms in Russia (as mine did), or as survivors of the Holocaust, will relate to this book.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up in the 60s and 70s in Skokie with six sisters and survivor parents. Lots of landmarks and weirdly familiar character types.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging story, but could use some editing, a problem with self-published books.

[Debbie Mc · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a memoir, this book was entirely too long. So happy to finally finish it!!

[Heidi Weinmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic story teller! She takes you there with her wonderful character development. A couple of small editing glitches or it would be a five star review.