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Nobody's Son: A Memoir
"I have never before read anything except Nabokov’s Speak, Memory that so relentlessly and shrewdly exhausted the kindness and cruelty of recollection’s shaping devices." ―Geoffrey Wolff Born in Czechoslovakia, Mark Slouka’s parents survived the Nazis only to have to escape the Communist purges after the war. Smuggled out of their own country, the newlyweds joined a tide of refugees moving from Innsbruck to Sydney to New York, dragging with them a history of blood and betrayal that their son would be born into. From World War I to the present, Slouka pieces together a remarkable story of refugees and war, displacement and denial―admitting into evidence memories, dreams, stories, the lies we inherit, and the lies we tell―in an attempt to reach his mother, the enigmatic figure at the center of the labyrinth. Her story, the revelation of her life-long burden and the forty-year love affair that might have saved her, shows the way out of the maze. 8 pages of illustrations
304 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 2016
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About the author
Mark Slouka
18 books110 followersMark Slouka most recent books are the story collection All That Is Left Is All That Matters, the memoir Nobody’s Son, and the award-winning novel Brewster. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, and the PEN / O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Prague.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
February 7, 2017
"I'm not making any claim to anything------ this isn't Queen
for a Day. I have no interest in hustling our unhappiness for a
bit of misery cred and a shot at Oprah. What I'm interested in
is at once more selfish and less sellable. I want to know what
the f**k happened to us, and why, I couldn't see it. I want to
know why I couldn't save us, though what I really want, I think
is absolution, the beginning of this sentence, with the word "why"
removed like a long thorn: I want to know I couldn't save us."
This quote actually come quite late in the book but I feel that it encompasses what he tries so
Hard to do here, states it quite clearly. Trying to understand why the mother who loved him so much as a child, turned on him, almost seemed to hate him as he hit his preteen years. Like memory, this book goes back and forth, triggered by some remembrance he attempts to track down the meaning. Follows his parents lives together, his mother's past, trying so hard to understand.
Of course as a child he had no clear knowledge of some of the things he found out as an adult when he started searching.
Powerfully written, he tells of his attempt to relate some of his thoughts, his questions in the fiction he has written. I read his novel Brewster, a few years back, was a five star read for me, and after reading this have a better understanding of what he wrote in that book. Not an easy book to read, it is quite grim, desperate at times, but it is an honest read, a memorable one.
for a Day. I have no interest in hustling our unhappiness for a
bit of misery cred and a shot at Oprah. What I'm interested in
is at once more selfish and less sellable. I want to know what
the f**k happened to us, and why, I couldn't see it. I want to
know why I couldn't save us, though what I really want, I think
is absolution, the beginning of this sentence, with the word "why"
removed like a long thorn: I want to know I couldn't save us."
This quote actually come quite late in the book but I feel that it encompasses what he tries so
Hard to do here, states it quite clearly. Trying to understand why the mother who loved him so much as a child, turned on him, almost seemed to hate him as he hit his preteen years. Like memory, this book goes back and forth, triggered by some remembrance he attempts to track down the meaning. Follows his parents lives together, his mother's past, trying so hard to understand.
Of course as a child he had no clear knowledge of some of the things he found out as an adult when he started searching.
Powerfully written, he tells of his attempt to relate some of his thoughts, his questions in the fiction he has written. I read his novel Brewster, a few years back, was a five star read for me, and after reading this have a better understanding of what he wrote in that book. Not an easy book to read, it is quite grim, desperate at times, but it is an honest read, a memorable one.
February 7, 2017
Mark Slouka has built a writing career by mining the phenomenal story of his parents’ escape from Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia, their largely loveless marriage and rootless adult lives, and the mental illness that destroyed his relationship with his mother. In this memoir, he insists that much of this was unconsciously done. Even when he knowingly picked up facts from their lives, he didn’t realize how much else was permeating his work.
Slouka’s father died in late 2013. His mother, with whom he’d long had a strained and sometimes estranged relationship, was in the final stages of a dementia that had essentially wiped clean her memory of her only son. Feeling adrift, essentially an orphan, Slouka began to write about his hazy understanding of their stories in an attempt to make peace with his losses and to build a more complete mental picture of who his parents actually were.
This was not a particularly easy book to read because Slouka doesn’t write a linear narrative. It’s mostly broken down into small chunks, part filling in details he knows about his parents’ lives and part meditating on the concept of memory versus truth. It’s a very philosophical, very psychoanalytic memoir that I would describe as “a book for writers.” The sentences are lovely, the thoughts provocative, but whatever story he manages to present is often muddled. It’s not until perhaps the final third of the book that it really and truly started to gel for me, when he starts to present what he knows: his mother, Olga, was impregnated by her father, then quickly married off to Zdenek Slouka, a young man she’d known for a few weeks and the pregnancy terminated. After the Second World War ended and Communism took hold of their country, Zdenek grew involved in the resistance, became a target, and was forced to find a way out of the country with his new wife. They lived in refugee camps in Innsbruck, Austria, for a year and a half.
At Innsbruck, the two were separated out of necessity and Olga embarked on an affair with a man identified only as F. Olga and Zdenek managed to obtain entry to Australia for a time, eventually moving around to various homes around the United States--Queens, upstate, Bethlehem, PA. For much of this time, Olga considered F. her true love. They corresponded for a time, lost touch, tried and failed to find their way back to one another. Meanwhile, Mark was born and Olga descended into an unnamed mental illness that looks a lot like bipolar disorder. The side effects of her addictive medication were nearly as devastating as the illness itself, resulting in paranoia and anger that strained her relationship with her son. Olga and Zdenek eventually divorced and both returned to the Czech Republic after the fall of the Communist regime, adding a physical distance to the emotional one Mark often felt.
Much of this history inspired Slouka’s 2007 novel, The Visible World. The funny and weirdly appropriate thing is, I can remember exactly where I was when I read that book: my own relatively fragile state of mind, the fading sun on the front porch of an empty house in Coolville. And yet, I remember precious little about the novel itself. What happened, who the characters were, much of that is lost from my mind. It seems so fitting that Slouka’s memoir spurred those memories for me much the same as they did for him.
This meandering, at-times messy book is not for all readers. Slouka occasionally tried my patience as I waited for him to get to the point, set his sails on a direction, any direction. I trusted him primarily because Brewster had such a profound effect on me a few years ago. I’m glad I stuck with it, because it eventually coalesced into such a thoughtful look at the way that memory and fiction intertwine with one another. Don’t go into this necessarily hoping for clarity, but do trust that Slouka’s quest for peace and closure is a meaningful and, at time, inspiring one.
Slouka’s father died in late 2013. His mother, with whom he’d long had a strained and sometimes estranged relationship, was in the final stages of a dementia that had essentially wiped clean her memory of her only son. Feeling adrift, essentially an orphan, Slouka began to write about his hazy understanding of their stories in an attempt to make peace with his losses and to build a more complete mental picture of who his parents actually were.
This was not a particularly easy book to read because Slouka doesn’t write a linear narrative. It’s mostly broken down into small chunks, part filling in details he knows about his parents’ lives and part meditating on the concept of memory versus truth. It’s a very philosophical, very psychoanalytic memoir that I would describe as “a book for writers.” The sentences are lovely, the thoughts provocative, but whatever story he manages to present is often muddled. It’s not until perhaps the final third of the book that it really and truly started to gel for me, when he starts to present what he knows: his mother, Olga, was impregnated by her father, then quickly married off to Zdenek Slouka, a young man she’d known for a few weeks and the pregnancy terminated. After the Second World War ended and Communism took hold of their country, Zdenek grew involved in the resistance, became a target, and was forced to find a way out of the country with his new wife. They lived in refugee camps in Innsbruck, Austria, for a year and a half.
At Innsbruck, the two were separated out of necessity and Olga embarked on an affair with a man identified only as F. Olga and Zdenek managed to obtain entry to Australia for a time, eventually moving around to various homes around the United States--Queens, upstate, Bethlehem, PA. For much of this time, Olga considered F. her true love. They corresponded for a time, lost touch, tried and failed to find their way back to one another. Meanwhile, Mark was born and Olga descended into an unnamed mental illness that looks a lot like bipolar disorder. The side effects of her addictive medication were nearly as devastating as the illness itself, resulting in paranoia and anger that strained her relationship with her son. Olga and Zdenek eventually divorced and both returned to the Czech Republic after the fall of the Communist regime, adding a physical distance to the emotional one Mark often felt.
Much of this history inspired Slouka’s 2007 novel, The Visible World. The funny and weirdly appropriate thing is, I can remember exactly where I was when I read that book: my own relatively fragile state of mind, the fading sun on the front porch of an empty house in Coolville. And yet, I remember precious little about the novel itself. What happened, who the characters were, much of that is lost from my mind. It seems so fitting that Slouka’s memoir spurred those memories for me much the same as they did for him.
This meandering, at-times messy book is not for all readers. Slouka occasionally tried my patience as I waited for him to get to the point, set his sails on a direction, any direction. I trusted him primarily because Brewster had such a profound effect on me a few years ago. I’m glad I stuck with it, because it eventually coalesced into such a thoughtful look at the way that memory and fiction intertwine with one another. Don’t go into this necessarily hoping for clarity, but do trust that Slouka’s quest for peace and closure is a meaningful and, at time, inspiring one.
July 12, 2016
"This memoir...isn't a straight line.... In short, it's complex, nonlinear, sometimes contradictory, often inconclusive -- a bit of a mess. A lot like life, if I get it right."
Slouka has been writing about his life and that of his family for years as fiction, but as he himself notes in Nobody's Son, "There can come a time in your life when the past decides to run you down. You're not going to get away. Take the hit." Slouka has surely taken one here, laying bare some of the most anguished aspects of his childhood, as well of those of his tormented mother.
Truly, this is her story, more than anyone else's. Mark and his father seem to be mere bit players in the drama she unfolds -- recipients on the sledge-hammer-end of her madness. This is also the story of immigrants, of refugees from what was then Czechoslovakia. Torn apart by World War II and abandoned to the Russians like a prize, it was a country his parents never really wanted to leave, nor really had a choice to do otherwise. It was a country that never really left them. This took its toll, and not just on those who experienced these events directly.
This is also a story of the paring away of layers of secrets, of reconciling oneself to the past, even if it doesn't always make sense -- or only makes sense if absurdity and madness are your constant companions. It's an unraveling of parents' inner lives, those things that as a child are often beyond our comprehension, but as an adult take on a different color and tone.
Despite being so beautifully written, this can be a hard book to read. It's emotional toll on the reader is strong and direct. One can only imagine what the author must have experienced finally coming face to face with some hard truths about his parents and their journey. Yet this is certainly a book worth reading, one that will linger on, with writing so extraordinary you'll find yourself reading some passages over and over for their beauty and heartbreak.
Thanks to Good Reads and WW Norton for letting me read this book.
December 7, 2016
In a short essay for The New Yorker, also titled "Nobody's Son," Mark Slouka attempted to grapple with the collapse of his memory.
This was not Alzheimer's or dementia or amnesia, or anything neurologically diagnosable. It was, instead, a savage stage of perceptive recalibration that hits like a bolt from the blue, often in the wake of an important death. His mother had passed away and taken with her the need for pretense; for the tight hold they'd kept on the reality they'd crafted together - a history that admitted only useful, rewarding truths and kicked the rest to shadow. She dies, the curtain closes, the lights go up...and everything he thought he remembered began, like a theatre piece, to fragment and dissolve.
Turns out the struggle called for more than a short essay in The New Yorker. Well, of course it did.
It's not fear I have to resist at this moment, but an almost unbearable sense of disloyalty. Even cruelty. I'm betraying her, us, the past. Just leave us alone, she's saying, pleading; leave at least those few memories intact, that handful of golden days when you were still small and the world was still magic and I was everything to you. If you ever loved me, save them. If you respect nothing else, at least respect what was - remember it, and draw a line.
His parents were Czech. They'd survived the Nazis, fled the Communists, and trudged through the rest of their lives as refugees - first in Australia, then America, before finally returning to Europe. He'd assumed, because it was easy to do, that the horrors had been escaped. He hadn't allowed for the damage they carried, like invisible luggage, through all those terminals with them; nightmares grafted on to the soul, injuries not once or twice but eternally inflicted. Yet how could their only child, this bright second-generation boy, allow for truths they themselves were loath to admit? Agonies that shut them down, crippled them, and because of this required such assiduous repression?
Slouka drives hard to the center of his family's dynamic, and that journey is merciless. He spares no one, least of all himself, from the laser focus of his unblinded eye. It's a rough account and rarely linear - but brave and bold to the very end. If your interest runs to memoir, here's a book you may not soon forget.
This was not Alzheimer's or dementia or amnesia, or anything neurologically diagnosable. It was, instead, a savage stage of perceptive recalibration that hits like a bolt from the blue, often in the wake of an important death. His mother had passed away and taken with her the need for pretense; for the tight hold they'd kept on the reality they'd crafted together - a history that admitted only useful, rewarding truths and kicked the rest to shadow. She dies, the curtain closes, the lights go up...and everything he thought he remembered began, like a theatre piece, to fragment and dissolve.
Turns out the struggle called for more than a short essay in The New Yorker. Well, of course it did.
It's not fear I have to resist at this moment, but an almost unbearable sense of disloyalty. Even cruelty. I'm betraying her, us, the past. Just leave us alone, she's saying, pleading; leave at least those few memories intact, that handful of golden days when you were still small and the world was still magic and I was everything to you. If you ever loved me, save them. If you respect nothing else, at least respect what was - remember it, and draw a line.
His parents were Czech. They'd survived the Nazis, fled the Communists, and trudged through the rest of their lives as refugees - first in Australia, then America, before finally returning to Europe. He'd assumed, because it was easy to do, that the horrors had been escaped. He hadn't allowed for the damage they carried, like invisible luggage, through all those terminals with them; nightmares grafted on to the soul, injuries not once or twice but eternally inflicted. Yet how could their only child, this bright second-generation boy, allow for truths they themselves were loath to admit? Agonies that shut them down, crippled them, and because of this required such assiduous repression?
Slouka drives hard to the center of his family's dynamic, and that journey is merciless. He spares no one, least of all himself, from the laser focus of his unblinded eye. It's a rough account and rarely linear - but brave and bold to the very end. If your interest runs to memoir, here's a book you may not soon forget.
January 4, 2017
A lot has been written about the formative nature of the mother-child relationship. Children who suffer horrible neglect and abuse continue to love and yearn for their mother’s love. Mark Slouka was no exception.
His parents lived through the horrors of WW2 and when the Iron Curtain came down, his journalist (future) father had days to flee. For years the young couple suffered in precarious situations, among the many thousands who were stateless in refugee camps.
While I imagine both had some form of PTSD, Slouka’s mother’s demons pre-dated the war. They unfold as he tells of them and how they metastasized and sapped all joy from family life.
While this is the personal story of these broken parents, the book documents the situation of ordinary people caught up in war and its aftermath. There are human interest vignettes, such as his uncle’s unusual experience as a POW in Russia and his father’s discovery of a man with his own name. There is good material on common experiences of refugees: they would be moved hundreds of miles and back again; Hitler’s tormentors were there along side of the tormented, thieves and ordinary people. Surveillance files kept by communist Czechoslovakia documented how his mother’s true love attempted to find her.
There are some gaps. His mother’s anorexia is presented as willfulness and not seen in the context of the abuse she suffered. How his mother got educated well enough to know English and teach it and later got a Columbia University education is unexplained. How does his father find employment? Why Bethlehem, PA?
While the book is short, the words are artfully chosen, sometimes the prose was so poetic that it events were hard to understand. One of significance was Mark’s father’s last ordeal on the train to freedom (most likely the Russians were pimping, but that isn’t the only possibility) and another, the last image Mark has of F. (most likely F. was leaving, but there was no engine starting, or voices. Was F, going? Lost in the fog? Or did he come and decide to turn back).
This is a very personal work and Slouka should be given credit for it. I devoured it, and were it not for the vague parts and open parts (not just the ones I mentioned), I would have given it 5 stars.
His parents lived through the horrors of WW2 and when the Iron Curtain came down, his journalist (future) father had days to flee. For years the young couple suffered in precarious situations, among the many thousands who were stateless in refugee camps.
While I imagine both had some form of PTSD, Slouka’s mother’s demons pre-dated the war. They unfold as he tells of them and how they metastasized and sapped all joy from family life.
While this is the personal story of these broken parents, the book documents the situation of ordinary people caught up in war and its aftermath. There are human interest vignettes, such as his uncle’s unusual experience as a POW in Russia and his father’s discovery of a man with his own name. There is good material on common experiences of refugees: they would be moved hundreds of miles and back again; Hitler’s tormentors were there along side of the tormented, thieves and ordinary people. Surveillance files kept by communist Czechoslovakia documented how his mother’s true love attempted to find her.
There are some gaps. His mother’s anorexia is presented as willfulness and not seen in the context of the abuse she suffered. How his mother got educated well enough to know English and teach it and later got a Columbia University education is unexplained. How does his father find employment? Why Bethlehem, PA?
While the book is short, the words are artfully chosen, sometimes the prose was so poetic that it events were hard to understand. One of significance was Mark’s father’s last ordeal on the train to freedom (most likely the Russians were pimping, but that isn’t the only possibility) and another, the last image Mark has of F. (most likely F. was leaving, but there was no engine starting, or voices. Was F, going? Lost in the fog? Or did he come and decide to turn back).
This is a very personal work and Slouka should be given credit for it. I devoured it, and were it not for the vague parts and open parts (not just the ones I mentioned), I would have given it 5 stars.
December 28, 2020
This memoir made for frustrating - interesting, but still frustrating - reading. The author warns early on that this work is nonlinear and I wondered as I read if that was really necessary. The story might have made more sense if it unfolded linearly. The tale is definitely interesting, featuring a mother struggling with mental illness and addiction, a family living through Nazi occupation and then a Soviet takeover, and a forbidden love affair. Still, I finished this book with a sense of relief that it was over and I had made it to the end. It's an interesting read, but it's just not for me.
April 7, 2023
Captivating story beautifully written - I loved this book
October 19, 2016
Mark was an only child. His life was shaped by all the relatives in Czechoslovakia during the late 1940's'
He loved his mother, but later on he grew to hate her.
He had a better relationship with his father.
The hatred came through humiliation.
The cruelty seen in grandparents.
His father took revenge from all the years of belittleing. He wrote a book about his escape from the Nazi's and left his wife out of it.
The family left Czechoslovakia when the communists took over, traveled to Austria and then to Australia and then to the US.
Marks early memories were of stories in the mother tongue, which always had more meaning. I received this book from Norton Books.
He loved his mother, but later on he grew to hate her.
He had a better relationship with his father.
The hatred came through humiliation.
The cruelty seen in grandparents.
His father took revenge from all the years of belittleing. He wrote a book about his escape from the Nazi's and left his wife out of it.
The family left Czechoslovakia when the communists took over, traveled to Austria and then to Australia and then to the US.
Marks early memories were of stories in the mother tongue, which always had more meaning. I received this book from Norton Books.
November 23, 2020
I received this Advanced Readers Copy PAPERBACK book in a Goodreads giveaway. NOTE: not a hardback.
One can only imagine the depth of the emotions that the author must have experienced in writing this memoir. Memoirs are one of my favorite genres and this one was no exception. It almost seemed like it was more of a memoir of Slouka's Mother and his family back-story , more than his own. I would like for him to have delved into 'the rest of his life as he grew away from his parents' but the feelings written on the pages were clearly his, noting that he was going to have to live through these for 'the rest of his life.'
This story is not the first one that I have read where the mother was mentally unbalanced. It is actually upsetting to me to feel through another, that their maternal experience was so difficult.
Perhaps many readers might read the book, and then appreciate their own childhood and adolescent and early childhood after noting what others have lived though. Certainly, that might be a normal reaction, as it was for me with other memoirs.
I enjoyed the author's writing, and saw that he had previously written an award-winning novel which I might be interested in reading.
One can only imagine the depth of the emotions that the author must have experienced in writing this memoir. Memoirs are one of my favorite genres and this one was no exception. It almost seemed like it was more of a memoir of Slouka's Mother and his family back-story , more than his own. I would like for him to have delved into 'the rest of his life as he grew away from his parents' but the feelings written on the pages were clearly his, noting that he was going to have to live through these for 'the rest of his life.'
This story is not the first one that I have read where the mother was mentally unbalanced. It is actually upsetting to me to feel through another, that their maternal experience was so difficult.
Perhaps many readers might read the book, and then appreciate their own childhood and adolescent and early childhood after noting what others have lived though. Certainly, that might be a normal reaction, as it was for me with other memoirs.
I enjoyed the author's writing, and saw that he had previously written an award-winning novel which I might be interested in reading.
July 16, 2019
The New York Times Book Review just released a list of their "50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years." Slouka's contribution to the genre is not on the list. It should be. It has to be. It is a masterwork. I understand that some readers might be frustrated by the non-linear storytelling and the meta-textual digressions, but, for me, at least, it all works. The prose itself is world-class level. The story is painful and beautiful and heartbreaking and true to itself. You need to read this book.
October 30, 2018
Anyone who has ever attempted to write autobiographical material about a troubled family past or complicated events will deeply appreciate the skill, honesty and expressive talent of this author.
Between riveting stories (I mean RIVETING), he packs in connective tissue, often deeply philosophical, that creates of the book a kind of living thing. He stops to revel in the way, in the very process of writing, "freudian slips" unearth serendipitous insights, such as when he meant to write dissolve when writing about his parent's divorce, but accidentally typed diss-love.(p.182)
It is possible that I appreciate the work more thoroughly than the typical reader because, although I am American born and bred (as the author), and grew up in the same cultural context (born in the eastern US in the 1950's) I married a Czech refugee (came to the US in 1978), and I have been to Czechoslovakia post-Prague Spring and post Velvet Revolution, not as a tourist but as a friend, mother of four half-czech children, and in-law. I know a lot of the history, met many people, visited their homes, traveled with them, and although I do not speak the language fluently, I have studied it and feel comfortable with it reading and listening. I know the culture - music, the movies, the smells, the foods, (I "get" rohliky), the mindset. I also live in the Hudson Valley and know its beauty and allure.
My husband listens to Czech radio every morning. He especially loves the interviews and talk shows, where he heard Mark Slouka and the discussion of the book. Whenever there is something especially interesting he tells me about it, which how I heard about Slouka and came to read Nobody's Son. I think the radio broadcast emphasized the story of his relationship with his mother. I would just like to say I think it is more than that. The relationship with his mother spurs him to examine the broader context and the challenges of knowing the truth of the past, living with ambiguity and making sense of relationships, even love.
Reading a hardcover library book, I wished I could underline and dog-ear. At some point I started using post-its.
Chapter XII The second paragraph, p.43 the description of the paranoia-inducing ill-effects of the Soviet occupation;
Chapter XVIII p. 86-87 "acoustic shadows."
Chapter XXVIII Story of how the author's grandfather survived his own hanging execution.
Chapter L Story of the hill and river valley detour during the first trip to Czechoslovakia after the emigration.
Chapter LI the one paragraph p.249 summary of the reasons for the author's mother's troubles.
Chapter LII the Brno traffic jam reunification story
Between riveting stories (I mean RIVETING), he packs in connective tissue, often deeply philosophical, that creates of the book a kind of living thing. He stops to revel in the way, in the very process of writing, "freudian slips" unearth serendipitous insights, such as when he meant to write dissolve when writing about his parent's divorce, but accidentally typed diss-love.(p.182)
It is possible that I appreciate the work more thoroughly than the typical reader because, although I am American born and bred (as the author), and grew up in the same cultural context (born in the eastern US in the 1950's) I married a Czech refugee (came to the US in 1978), and I have been to Czechoslovakia post-Prague Spring and post Velvet Revolution, not as a tourist but as a friend, mother of four half-czech children, and in-law. I know a lot of the history, met many people, visited their homes, traveled with them, and although I do not speak the language fluently, I have studied it and feel comfortable with it reading and listening. I know the culture - music, the movies, the smells, the foods, (I "get" rohliky), the mindset. I also live in the Hudson Valley and know its beauty and allure.
My husband listens to Czech radio every morning. He especially loves the interviews and talk shows, where he heard Mark Slouka and the discussion of the book. Whenever there is something especially interesting he tells me about it, which how I heard about Slouka and came to read Nobody's Son. I think the radio broadcast emphasized the story of his relationship with his mother. I would just like to say I think it is more than that. The relationship with his mother spurs him to examine the broader context and the challenges of knowing the truth of the past, living with ambiguity and making sense of relationships, even love.
Reading a hardcover library book, I wished I could underline and dog-ear. At some point I started using post-its.
Chapter XII The second paragraph, p.43 the description of the paranoia-inducing ill-effects of the Soviet occupation;
Chapter XVIII p. 86-87 "acoustic shadows."
Chapter XXVIII Story of how the author's grandfather survived his own hanging execution.
Chapter L Story of the hill and river valley detour during the first trip to Czechoslovakia after the emigration.
Chapter LI the one paragraph p.249 summary of the reasons for the author's mother's troubles.
Chapter LII the Brno traffic jam reunification story
December 24, 2016
A memoir about a family with issues. I am talking about Pat Conroy type family issues but without the Conroy wit and humor. So that fact makes this memoir ultimately depressing. The focal point of the book is the author's relationships with his mother, father and other extended family members. The family escapes political oppression in Eastern Europe but is never able to find happiness elsewhere. I think that these people would be dysfunctional no matter where they lived. There are happy well adjusted people in this world but I feel the author and his family were doomed to their own private Hells.
March 27, 2017
Nobody's Son had a powerful story. Slouka's expression of what it is like to be the child of a mentally ill parent was what made this book worth reading. However, his writing style and the lack of chronology left a lot to be desired. He spent a lot of the book musing about how it felt to be writing his memoir, which felt unneeded and obnoxious. In a way, it felt as if he was trying to sound like a better and more philosophical writer than he was. It is unfortunate that such a great and powerful story may be obscured by these quirks in his writing.
To visit my memoir review blog:
https://memoir.blog/ (home)
https://memoir.blog/nobodys-son/ (this book)
To visit my memoir review blog:
https://memoir.blog/ (home)
https://memoir.blog/nobodys-son/ (this book)
January 17, 2017
Like many memoirs the back story of an author's parents form the foundation.There are buried secrets and it is a painful thing for Slouka to reveal them. He ably shares this pain and discomfort and it is a lucky thing for the reader that he does. The parents, mismatched (aren't they always?), flawed, unhappy, declining as they age, give Slouka his material. He also shares how the family's story influenced his own fiction. A few photos are always welcome in a memoir. This is a story that stands out for its brutal honesty.
June 30, 2016
Mark is writing about his family on both sides who come from Czechoslovakia but it is mostly about his mother who had a very dysfunctional childhood and this was carried over as an adult. Through it all the son tried to be a loving son - in spite of at times not knowing which way to turn.
Book is written in a very interesting way - and one that is not easily put down once you start reading.
Book is written in a very interesting way - and one that is not easily put down once you start reading.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 10, 2017
I won this book from goodreads giveaways. What an honest and heart wrenching memoir. The meandering story telling kept me intrigued.
March 21, 2020
This book is a brilliant memoir of trying to piece together who you are, and who you have become, by remembering the past. But remembering is tricky, as our perceptions and recollections are distorted. Are they even true? As the author digs into the history of his parents, refugees from Czechoslovakia, he realizes that “knowledge doesn’t always change what you remember.” So what is real? What and how we remember things may not match the facts that say otherwise. Maybe who we are has nothing to do with the past and is just “a series of amazing coincidences leading us to where we are?” But in all things, whether or not we remember them accurately, “there are things you bury, things you wall up. Because you have to. It’s not a choice. Neither is unearthing them when the time comes.” I loved the frank, introspective and direct way the author struggles and (mostly) comes to peace with his past. It’s almost like an unforgiving forgiveness, if there were such a thing. Terrific and moving book that I’m sure I will think about for some time.
June 20, 2023
I read this book in print form. A memoir written by a man who tries to make sense of his life, which revolves around his mother and father’s lives, who are incredibly damaged people. Born into a no-win situation, the parents flee Czechoslovakia during the war and incredibly escape. Next, they flee and try to live as best they can as immigrants and refugees. This memoir jumps around in time as the author explores his own journey of trying to make sense of the lies, betrayals, guilt, redemption and love. At one point I thought the author might have a mental illness himself!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 13, 2016
Nobody's Son feels like a puzzle the author is trying to piece together in effort to better understand his parents who survived the Nazis only to escape the Communist purges after the war. This is a story of refugees and war, the lies we inherit and the lies we tell, but most of all it is the author's attempt to try and comprehend the actions of his mother, who is at the center of the complicated labyrinth.
April 30, 2023
Beautiful, wrenching, thoughtfully and interestingly composed. An interrupted, doomed love story. Mentions of off page child sexual assault and domestic violence, animal cruelty on page.
“We don’t always remember what we deserve to, or want to. We remember what we have to, which isn’t quite the same thing. We remember because one memory has elbowed aside the others.”
And much later in the narrative: “Facts are just scaffolding for the heart.”
“We don’t always remember what we deserve to, or want to. We remember what we have to, which isn’t quite the same thing. We remember because one memory has elbowed aside the others.”
And much later in the narrative: “Facts are just scaffolding for the heart.”
August 12, 2017
Life often goes by, not in the way we hoped or planned. The author's parents survived WWII, but the aftermath of Russian invasion forced them out of their country. This is a story of Mark's living with his parents unhappiness across the decades. He fills in the back story with grandparents and other family members. The writing is beautiful.
June 7, 2019
This author is a talented wordsmith, and frankly that is the only reason I could finish this. It wasn’t that this book wasn’t well written it was, i just did not need to read this story. I understand why he had to write it, a form of therapy. There was just nothing I learned, not really new insight in the refugee situation or how we are products of all our experiences.
December 9, 2016
Heart wrenching memoir. It travels in time, slowly revealing the portrait of Slouka's mother and the author's soul. I expected an immigrant story, but it was much more, a story of a family, wrapped in secrets, mysteries, and tragedies. Amazingly honest.
February 18, 2018
Eerie parallels in family history and memory here as well as stark differences. Having lost my own father a few years ago, and with my mother languishing with acute dementia, this book spoke clearly and directly in a way that few memoirs have ever touched me this deeply.
May 22, 2017
I wish I could have like this book better. I didn't completely finish it. It is so beautifully written. Unfortunately I could not follow any story line, kept getting confused and just gave up.
June 26, 2017
Depressing portrait of an emigre family and their son's attempts to make sense of the dysfunction.
April 12, 2018
The author's parents were born in Czechoslovakia, suffered under Nazi rule, and then under the communist purge--a story of love of country, trust and betrayal, and survival.
May 26, 2021
Stunning, passionate, moving, disturbing, resonant.
February 13, 2017
3.5 Stars
March 18, 2017
Mark Slouka is a terrific writer. This story, this memoir, is so well told. Exposing someone else's past could be, I would think, a minefield. There's a lot of pain here, outright misery actually. But I appreciated the way Mr. Slouka told the story with such care, such sensitivity. The fact that he "survived" to tell the tale, is a testament to the strength of human spirit. Definitely a good read!
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