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A Family of Strangers
In her third book of nonfiction, Deborah Tall explores the genealogy of the missing. Haunted by her orphaned father’s abandonment by his extended family, his secretive, walled-off trauma and absent history, she sets off in pursuit of the family he claims not to have. From the dutiful happiness of Levittown in the 1950s to a stricken former shtetl in Ukraine, we follow Tall’s journey through evasions and lies. Reflecting on family secrecy, postwar American culture, and the urge for roots, Tall’s search uncovers not just a missing family but an understanding of the part family and history play in identity. A Family of Strangers is Tall’s life’s work, told in such exacting, elegant language that the suppressed past vividly asserts its place in the present.
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 25, 2020
one of the most emotional journeys i've ever gone on in a book, or even any piece of art. maybe bc i also derive from a ukrainian shtetl, and am trying to retrace my family's memories. maybe bc i also have a strong desire to understand familial silence, "I don't remember", shell-shocked men, and transgenerational trauma pulsing through our genes in forms of anxiety and wanting to be close to each other. in a fragmented yet lengthy form of short sections, i feel like i am slowly piecing together the family stories and myths and realities as they happen. there was a lot of blank space, in-between italicized quotes, for me to think and work through my own lost history. this book devastated me, fucked me up. i have immense gratitude and admiration for deborah tall, who has left behind this astonishing document of years of unraveling. the fact that she did not survive her cancer is haunting me as i read this book. as with any work that i have come to treasure, i feel so close to her now. her book is so important to me -- opened up wounds i didn't know i had, gave me a semblance of healing, and left me still with open-ended worlds. having an obsession with memories and the past is such an unrequited love --
September 30, 2016
I'll admit that I put this down after 100 pages. Maybe it was the pre-bedtime Benadryl, but I just couldn't get into this book. I appreciate what Tall is doing aesthetically. But I also think the style is the downfall of the book. So often, there were lines that felt as if they REALLY WANTED TO SAY A LOT! and I just didn't feel connected enough to the characters (including the narrator) for them to resonate. Maybe, for me, there was actually too much of a "thesis" in this one, and it was hammered home on nearly every page. Beautiful writing, structurally interesting, but I think just not for me.
May 26, 2011
Everything Is Illuminated illuminated little for me with the exception of illustrating some of my own self-obsessed tendencies as a writer. This book has been on my "should read but don't want to" list since it came out. My own grandparents fled from pogroms in the Ukraine and Belorus before WWI broke out, and almost nothing has been preserved about my family's pre-America history. I wasn't sure I wanted Foer's imagined pre-American family history to supplant my own unilluminated darkness. And at the same time, chastized myself for being so puritanical and protective. Luckily, the book wasn't compelling enough to do too much damage to my own unknowns. While he is clearly smart and clever and there were some lovely lines, and while I laughed out loud, for me the book fell far short of the promise of its title. It was, in my opinion, gratuitously sex-obsessed and self-agrandizingly baroque. It was a case of loving the sound of one's voice at the expense of the subject matter, rather than writing in service of the matter at hand. I was hoping that my own prejudices against reading the book in the first place would be challenged, and there were moments, when they did begin to lift, but these moments were quickly foreclosed upon. What can be learned from a young man's imagining of a horror of which he knows nothing about? I don't subscribe to the idea that one should be constrained in their fictions to only what they have personally experienced. However, when a writer describes with nonchalance the rape of a female character as glibly as "having been made a woman of her", I can't say I have much respect for his capacity to imagine much less to offer me insight into the experiences of my ancestors and their legacy.
I picked up Foer's book after reading A Family of Strangers by Deborah Tall, an exploration of family secrets and silences growing up in a planned community during the Cold War with a father working on top secret national defense who was born to immigrant Ukrainian-Jewish parents and soon orphaned. This book was a revelation for me. It was formally innovative (interspersing her own text with lines from Good Housekeeping, Dickinson, Freud and many others) without calling attention to the author's cleverness, in service to the subject rather than her ego. That Tall and Foer, both concerned with an obscured and traumatic personal and cultural past, come at the text from quite different levels of emotional maturity is evident. It saddens me that Foer's book has met with such critical acclaim and a wide audience, while I came upon Tall's book quite by accident, in a tiny library from which it had never before been checked out.
I picked up Foer's book after reading A Family of Strangers by Deborah Tall, an exploration of family secrets and silences growing up in a planned community during the Cold War with a father working on top secret national defense who was born to immigrant Ukrainian-Jewish parents and soon orphaned. This book was a revelation for me. It was formally innovative (interspersing her own text with lines from Good Housekeeping, Dickinson, Freud and many others) without calling attention to the author's cleverness, in service to the subject rather than her ego. That Tall and Foer, both concerned with an obscured and traumatic personal and cultural past, come at the text from quite different levels of emotional maturity is evident. It saddens me that Foer's book has met with such critical acclaim and a wide audience, while I came upon Tall's book quite by accident, in a tiny library from which it had never before been checked out.
February 9, 2009
Read this for a class. Don't know that I would have read it otherwise, though it has a certain momentum that carried me through once I started it. It's a memoir, but because of it's fragmented nature and language, it often reads like poetry.
Unfortunately, I delighted in little of it. But, here and there, were occasional phrases or images or truths that bristled my interest. There is a particular moment that comes to mind (actually it has stayed there since I finished reading this book last week). Tall is standing in a Jewish cometary and realizes, "Many tombstones were destroyed during the war, but most, she admits, were destroyed by local people after the war and used to build new houses."
Of course, a line like that would resonate with a cynic like me. Sometimes, however, I felt like the language betrayed the truth of the matter, subverted what Tall actually intended to say. And in the end, I feel like she rushes to tie it all up. Having given myself over to the work wholeheartedly I felt a bit slighted by how suddenly it ends on the tragic reality of Tall's battle with breast cancer. By the last sentences she fails to affect any more sympathy. On a positive note, I don't feel Tall ever resorted to sentimentality, which I think if more often the case of memoir's and family stories. In the real world, I'm not quite sure what kind of audience this book would find. It seems, however, well-suited to academia.
Unfortunately, I delighted in little of it. But, here and there, were occasional phrases or images or truths that bristled my interest. There is a particular moment that comes to mind (actually it has stayed there since I finished reading this book last week). Tall is standing in a Jewish cometary and realizes, "Many tombstones were destroyed during the war, but most, she admits, were destroyed by local people after the war and used to build new houses."
Of course, a line like that would resonate with a cynic like me. Sometimes, however, I felt like the language betrayed the truth of the matter, subverted what Tall actually intended to say. And in the end, I feel like she rushes to tie it all up. Having given myself over to the work wholeheartedly I felt a bit slighted by how suddenly it ends on the tragic reality of Tall's battle with breast cancer. By the last sentences she fails to affect any more sympathy. On a positive note, I don't feel Tall ever resorted to sentimentality, which I think if more often the case of memoir's and family stories. In the real world, I'm not quite sure what kind of audience this book would find. It seems, however, well-suited to academia.
February 7, 2017
In this book, Tall, raised by parents who tell her very little about family history and who seem to have no living relatives, is driven to research her family and discover their origins. Her journey takes her to the Ukraine and what is left of her Jewish family in a very small village–so small it isn’t even a shtetl.
The writing style is that of a lyric essay–the text lives at the edge where poetry and prose meet. There is a lot of white space on the pages. It means that Tall didn’t have to add little physical details and actions to conversations. She summarizes sometimes instead of creating scenes. The book is full of non sequiturs. Instead of traditional transitions, she structures the book into tiny chapters. She re-uses chapter names to create connections across time and space. I’m fascinated by this style of writing and believe it forces the reader to be more assertive, to engage more with the text. The writer doesn't spoon food all the details to the reader.
A beautiful book. I think it would be most appreciated by family historians/genealogist, poets, and readers used to literary texts.
The writing style is that of a lyric essay–the text lives at the edge where poetry and prose meet. There is a lot of white space on the pages. It means that Tall didn’t have to add little physical details and actions to conversations. She summarizes sometimes instead of creating scenes. The book is full of non sequiturs. Instead of traditional transitions, she structures the book into tiny chapters. She re-uses chapter names to create connections across time and space. I’m fascinated by this style of writing and believe it forces the reader to be more assertive, to engage more with the text. The writer doesn't spoon food all the details to the reader.
A beautiful book. I think it would be most appreciated by family historians/genealogist, poets, and readers used to literary texts.
October 6, 2015
Salinger said, in A Catcher in the Rye, “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” I am not a huge fan of his book, though Salinger himself is fascinating.
This book, though, this love letter to the lyrical essay and understanding ourselves through our ancestors- I cried when I learned of Tall's death. Because I felt she was a kindred spirit. This book is her odyssey through familial relations and Russia. It inspires my own journey. I want to read every book she published and never forget the lessons she learned and shared. There is a great deal of blank space in this book, which she uses as an artist would use blank space on a canvas or in a modern sculpture, which allows room for interpretation. Which allows the reader to breathe in the space and formulate their own thoughts, reactions, and subject their own family and life to something that is less scrutiny and more a compassionate questioning of what is said and unsaid.
Beautifully done.
This book, though, this love letter to the lyrical essay and understanding ourselves through our ancestors- I cried when I learned of Tall's death. Because I felt she was a kindred spirit. This book is her odyssey through familial relations and Russia. It inspires my own journey. I want to read every book she published and never forget the lessons she learned and shared. There is a great deal of blank space in this book, which she uses as an artist would use blank space on a canvas or in a modern sculpture, which allows room for interpretation. Which allows the reader to breathe in the space and formulate their own thoughts, reactions, and subject their own family and life to something that is less scrutiny and more a compassionate questioning of what is said and unsaid.
Beautifully done.
February 23, 2017
Ms. Tall asked her father who he was, where he came from, what his parents were like, and Mr. Tall barely grunted out any answers at all. So Ms. Tall hunted down the facts for herself.
It's a very genealogical memoir, and that's not praise because genealogy buffs, in my opinion, are not good story-tellers. It's fascinating to dig in to dusty records and find things. But when you tell the rest of us what you found, you need to package it up nicely. No overload of details, please, i.e.: "I asked the graveyard tender about . . . and he said they are all in the back row but it turned out there were two gravestones three rows up." No thicket of characters, i.e.: "my uncle's wife's sister's grandfather's . . . "
I stuck with it, no matter how lost I got. For one thing, it read fast. Each page was like a prose poem on loss and searching (she outdid herself, reaching for imagery), lots of white space on the page. And there was some small pay-off at the end, even though her search lead to one of the most depressing places on earth.
It's a very genealogical memoir, and that's not praise because genealogy buffs, in my opinion, are not good story-tellers. It's fascinating to dig in to dusty records and find things. But when you tell the rest of us what you found, you need to package it up nicely. No overload of details, please, i.e.: "I asked the graveyard tender about . . . and he said they are all in the back row but it turned out there were two gravestones three rows up." No thicket of characters, i.e.: "my uncle's wife's sister's grandfather's . . . "
I stuck with it, no matter how lost I got. For one thing, it read fast. Each page was like a prose poem on loss and searching (she outdid herself, reaching for imagery), lots of white space on the page. And there was some small pay-off at the end, even though her search lead to one of the most depressing places on earth.
August 9, 2015
I found the pacing of the book difficult to manage. It started off great, started meandering, and the climax seemed to build way too quickly. I think the story may have been better if it was better balanced.
The author writes exceptionally well, but at times the relationships come across as being kind of corny; like a gothic romance. Although it's understood that the story takes place in the early/mid 20 century, I had a difficult time getting through some of the passages. They just seemed to trip with this pathetic, co-dependent longing that I found irritating. I'm sure female readers would probably relate more as they tend to be more relationship oriented. But from my perspective, wallowing through all the angst of young love just sank most of the enjoyment for me.
The ending was startling as it didn't make any sense. The premise of the entire story is getting lost, not disappearing. I honestly was left shaking my head on this one.
The author writes exceptionally well, but at times the relationships come across as being kind of corny; like a gothic romance. Although it's understood that the story takes place in the early/mid 20 century, I had a difficult time getting through some of the passages. They just seemed to trip with this pathetic, co-dependent longing that I found irritating. I'm sure female readers would probably relate more as they tend to be more relationship oriented. But from my perspective, wallowing through all the angst of young love just sank most of the enjoyment for me.
The ending was startling as it didn't make any sense. The premise of the entire story is getting lost, not disappearing. I honestly was left shaking my head on this one.
February 17, 2008
I took a class on Post WWII American Poetry with Professor Tall. She was a wonderfully thoughtful teacher, kind, and someone I greatly admired. This book is a revealing read, and I only wish I knew that she had been working on something like this when I had an opportunity to talk to her.
So much writing is about alienation from generations that have gone before. The real grace of this book is that it shows us those feelings are connections nonetheless, ties that deserve investigation because of what they mean for us all.
So much writing is about alienation from generations that have gone before. The real grace of this book is that it shows us those feelings are connections nonetheless, ties that deserve investigation because of what they mean for us all.
February 19, 2008
This book is about the authors family. Her fathers genealogy. It was a rough road getting the story. Her father was very secretive about his life. His father was an immigrant from Ukraine during the War. During the book it is a mystery of the hystory the grandfathers life during the holocaust being a jew.
Coming to America the story gets bizarre for the children. Some go here with this person. Others go with these. Her father ends up a lonely orphan and doesn't want to talk about his family. I can't say as I blame him.
The book was very good and easy to read.
Coming to America the story gets bizarre for the children. Some go here with this person. Others go with these. Her father ends up a lonely orphan and doesn't want to talk about his family. I can't say as I blame him.
The book was very good and easy to read.
February 13, 2018
Unusual structure provides the author a platform to include poetic passages as well as research and essays in her nonfiction study of family ties, genealogy, and memoir. I found the history of Tall’s family fascinating reading, and her efforts to unravel the puzzle of her roots was compelling reading.
November 10, 2012
I, unfortunately, didn't spend consistent and extensive time with this book. But I do feel inspired to go out and find out my own genealogy so that I continue the stories of my ancestors as Deborah Tall is doing here.
December 17, 2012
Spare in words but molded like a sculpture or well crafted poem. A very powerful book on the power of family history and the weight of History with a capital "H" on peoples and families swept up in it. A great book about human connections.
August 6, 2007
This woman's the queen of the lyric essay...I think you two would be quite interested in both the subject matter of this book and the style.
March 21, 2011
introspective, poetic
November 7, 2023
this was somehow confusing and boring at the same time
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews