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Finding My Father: His Century-Long Journey from World War I Warsaw and My Quest to Follow
A New York Times bestselling author traces her father's life from turn-of-the-century Warsaw to bustling New York City in an intimate memoir about family, memory, and the stories we tell.
Long before she was the acclaimed author of a groundbreaking book about women and men, and praised by Oliver Sacks as having "a novelist's ear for the way people speak," Deborah Tannen was a little girl who adored her father. Though he was often absent during her childhood, Deborah was profoundly influenced by his love of language and gift for writing and storytelling. As she grew up and he grew old, she spent untold hours with her father, recording their conversations and taking notes. He handed her a journal he kept when he was young--and showed her another he said she could have after his death, all for the account of his life she promised him she'd write.
In this memoir, Deborah fulfills her promise to her father, embarking on the poignant, yet perilous, quest to piece together the puzzle of her father's life. Beginning with his astonishingly vivid memories of the Hasidic community in Warsaw that he was born into in 1908, she traces his journey: arriving in New York City in 1920, he quit high school at fourteen to become sole support of his mother and sister, yet attended law school at night and eventually established the largest workmen's compensation practice in New York. In the intervening years, he became active in the Communist Party, then New York's Liberal Party, running for Congress on its ticket. As Deborah comes to better understand her father's--and her own--relationship to Judaism, she also uncovers aspects of her father's life she would never have imagined. When she discovers letters from another woman he might have married, she is forced to rethink her assumptions about her parents' marriage.
Finding My Father is a memoir of Eli Tannen's life and the ways it reflects the near century that he lived. But even more than that, it's about a daughter's struggle to see her father clearly, to know him more deeply, and to tell a more truthful story about her family and herself.
Long before she was the acclaimed author of a groundbreaking book about women and men, and praised by Oliver Sacks as having "a novelist's ear for the way people speak," Deborah Tannen was a little girl who adored her father. Though he was often absent during her childhood, Deborah was profoundly influenced by his love of language and gift for writing and storytelling. As she grew up and he grew old, she spent untold hours with her father, recording their conversations and taking notes. He handed her a journal he kept when he was young--and showed her another he said she could have after his death, all for the account of his life she promised him she'd write.
In this memoir, Deborah fulfills her promise to her father, embarking on the poignant, yet perilous, quest to piece together the puzzle of her father's life. Beginning with his astonishingly vivid memories of the Hasidic community in Warsaw that he was born into in 1908, she traces his journey: arriving in New York City in 1920, he quit high school at fourteen to become sole support of his mother and sister, yet attended law school at night and eventually established the largest workmen's compensation practice in New York. In the intervening years, he became active in the Communist Party, then New York's Liberal Party, running for Congress on its ticket. As Deborah comes to better understand her father's--and her own--relationship to Judaism, she also uncovers aspects of her father's life she would never have imagined. When she discovers letters from another woman he might have married, she is forced to rethink her assumptions about her parents' marriage.
Finding My Father is a memoir of Eli Tannen's life and the ways it reflects the near century that he lived. But even more than that, it's about a daughter's struggle to see her father clearly, to know him more deeply, and to tell a more truthful story about her family and herself.
254 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 15, 2020
42 people are currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Deborah Tannen
60 books329 followersDeborah Tannen is best known as the author of You Just Don't Understand, which was on The New York Times Best Seller list for nearly four years years, including eight months as No. 1, and has been translated into 29 languages. It was also on best seller lists in Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, and Hong Kong. This is the book that brought gender differences in communication style to the forefront of public awareness. Her book Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work , a New York Times Business Best Seller, does for the workplace what the earlier book did for women and men talking at home. She has also made a training video, Talking 9 to 5. Her book, The Argument Culture, received the Common Ground Book Award. Her book, I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You're All Adults, received a Books for a Better Life Award. Her latest book, You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, was recently published in paperback by Ballantine; it spent ten weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List after its initial publication in 2006.
Deborah Tannen is a frequent guest on television and radio news and information shows. In connection with You're Wearing THAT? she appeared on 20/20, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the Rachael Ray Talk Show, the CBS Early Show, and on NPR's Morning Edition and the Diane Rehm show. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 48 Hours, CBS News, ABC World News Tonight, Oprah, CNN, Larry King, Hardball, Nightline, and NPR are among the major television and radio shows on which Dr. Tannen has appeared in connection with previous books. She has been featured in and written for most major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, People, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.
Dr. Tannen has lectured all over the world. Her audiences have included corporations such as Corning, Chevron, Motorola, Rolm (Siemens), McKinsey and Co., and Delta, as well as the Board of Trustees of The Wharton School and a gathering of United States senators and their spouses. Combining the results of years of research and observation with videotaped real-life footage of office interaction, Dr. Tannen gives her audiences a new framework for understanding what happens in conversations both in the workplace and at home.
In addition to her linguistic research and writing, Dr. Tannen has published poetry, short stories, and personal essays. Her first play, "An Act of Devotion," is included in The Best American Short Plays: 1993-1994. It was produced, together with her play "Sisters," by Horizons Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in 1995.
Deborah Tannen is on the linguistics department faculty at Georgetown University, where she is one of only two in the College of Arts and Sciences who hold the distinguished rank of University Professor. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California, following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She has published twenty-one books and over 100 articles and is the recipient of five honorary doctorates. Dr. Tannen is a member of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Board and the Board of Horizons Theatre.
Deborah Tannen is a frequent guest on television and radio news and information shows. In connection with You're Wearing THAT? she appeared on 20/20, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the Rachael Ray Talk Show, the CBS Early Show, and on NPR's Morning Edition and the Diane Rehm show. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 48 Hours, CBS News, ABC World News Tonight, Oprah, CNN, Larry King, Hardball, Nightline, and NPR are among the major television and radio shows on which Dr. Tannen has appeared in connection with previous books. She has been featured in and written for most major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, People, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.
Dr. Tannen has lectured all over the world. Her audiences have included corporations such as Corning, Chevron, Motorola, Rolm (Siemens), McKinsey and Co., and Delta, as well as the Board of Trustees of The Wharton School and a gathering of United States senators and their spouses. Combining the results of years of research and observation with videotaped real-life footage of office interaction, Dr. Tannen gives her audiences a new framework for understanding what happens in conversations both in the workplace and at home.
In addition to her linguistic research and writing, Dr. Tannen has published poetry, short stories, and personal essays. Her first play, "An Act of Devotion," is included in The Best American Short Plays: 1993-1994. It was produced, together with her play "Sisters," by Horizons Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in 1995.
Deborah Tannen is on the linguistics department faculty at Georgetown University, where she is one of only two in the College of Arts and Sciences who hold the distinguished rank of University Professor. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California, following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She has published twenty-one books and over 100 articles and is the recipient of five honorary doctorates. Dr. Tannen is a member of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Board and the Board of Horizons Theatre.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 5, 2020
I have a penchant for memoirs and stories passed down generation to generation, regardless of the subject matter or time in history. I feel these are so important not only to family members, but for everyone. If they are not told and shared, they become lost, and without personal history, we miss out on so much more than what textbooks can provide. Deborah Tennen shares stories about her father that he shared with her, as well what she learned and discovered with the help of journals and letters he left behind. The personal look into her inner struggles as she learns more about him and his life is emotional, and I feel for her. I also admire her for sharing these personal feelings and entrance into her and her family's lives and history. It was very interesting to read and I am glad that I had the opportunity to.
September 14, 2020
This is an interesting memoir written by acclaimed author Deborah Tannen about her father. His life is truly book worthy - he was born in a Hasidic community in Warsaw, immigrated to the US speaking no English, worked as a teen in garment factories but managed to get his high school diploma and graduate law school, finally becoming a lawyer in his 50s after a long string of odd jobs and a stint as a Communist.
What I found most amazing about Eli Tannen was how he documented everything and saved anything that gave insight into his experiences. He clearly wanted this book to be written and I think it does him justice. I would have rated it higher but the way Deborah crafted the story sometimes left me frustrated but overall, it's a thorough and unflinching look by a daughter at a man she revered.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for the advanced copy to review.
What I found most amazing about Eli Tannen was how he documented everything and saved anything that gave insight into his experiences. He clearly wanted this book to be written and I think it does him justice. I would have rated it higher but the way Deborah crafted the story sometimes left me frustrated but overall, it's a thorough and unflinching look by a daughter at a man she revered.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for the advanced copy to review.
December 8, 2020
As with several of her other books the first half was fabulous but I felt somehow like the second half dragged on. It was almost as if it was another book. It needed a better editor. I loved the first half and would still recommend the book to anyone interested in what it was like for someone leaving Europe before WWII.
Tannen's father lived well into his 90s and documented his life thoroughly as he went along including letters and journal. He was an active bright man. The second half sort of dragged for me but perhaps other readers would be more interested than I was about her father's other love interest when he married Tannen's Mother. I tired of her writing that her father was driven by his sex drive in his youth, seems like an odd revelation for a grown woman who has studied human behavior much of her life.
I was more interested in what his family life was like, the life he made for himself with a bunch of daughters, and what she learned from her heritage. I have been to Poland and would like to go back. It helped me to relate more to the story and the places, it filled out some lost details that will help me upon my return.
It is interesting knowing Tannen's vocation how her early family life likely influenced her career choices and what it must have been like to plow through all her father's written work he kept through over a dozen moves through the years. It is unlike other books I have read because this was WWI not WWII. It is an important read for that reason, I am glad she wrote it.
Tannen's father lived well into his 90s and documented his life thoroughly as he went along including letters and journal. He was an active bright man. The second half sort of dragged for me but perhaps other readers would be more interested than I was about her father's other love interest when he married Tannen's Mother. I tired of her writing that her father was driven by his sex drive in his youth, seems like an odd revelation for a grown woman who has studied human behavior much of her life.
I was more interested in what his family life was like, the life he made for himself with a bunch of daughters, and what she learned from her heritage. I have been to Poland and would like to go back. It helped me to relate more to the story and the places, it filled out some lost details that will help me upon my return.
It is interesting knowing Tannen's vocation how her early family life likely influenced her career choices and what it must have been like to plow through all her father's written work he kept through over a dozen moves through the years. It is unlike other books I have read because this was WWI not WWII. It is an important read for that reason, I am glad she wrote it.
March 4, 2021
Very repetitive with many extraneous details. There is no pattern and no plot line at all. I pushed my way through this book because I wanted to know some of the fascinating details about life in Poland that were interspersed.
September 28, 2023
I like the impulse behind this book more than the book itself.
I like that Deborah Tannen has determined to share her father’s life, to get onto paper the long arc of his ambition and love for his family – especially, it seems, for Deborah himself. She is somebody, an academic celebrity I’d heard of, and someone who has shaped intellectual conversation. And she sees much of what made her work possible in the ambitions of her father.
You can see part of the trouble in just the book blurb, though. They call it there Tannen’s “memoir of her father.” But memoir, as I understand it, has to be of the self – barring Gertrude Stein’s self-consciously ironic Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – discovering itself. Yes, it can be a record of what took place, something derived from clear memory substantiated by memorabilia and research. But, if the memoir itself is going to rise to art – at least by my lights – it has to capture some of that discovery.
As it turns out, Tannen’s father never stopped writing about his own life. And, in conversation with her, rarely stopped talking about it.
That makes me jealous. How wonderful that he spent so much time reflecting on what he’d wanted for himself. I’d love to be able to find so complete a record of someone dear to me and now gone. I envy that Tannen can open a random journal or transcribed interview and hear her father’s voice. I have some such materials – my father’s short stories among them – but they’re limited. She has so much that she’s been able to let him narrate much of his story posthumously.
At the same time, her father is not always a great writer. It’s hard to read some of his awkwardly verbose letters.
And, perhaps even more uncomfortably, it’s hard to read about his decision over which woman he would eventually marry.
We know he’s married Tannen’s mother, but you get the impression he loved her rival more. Tannen herself talks of being attracted to that other woman, the one who could have been an intellectual challenge to her father, the one who was ultimately “easier.” Tannen’s mother wins the contest, she speculates, because she presented greater need. Her father dreamed of a life without demands upon him, a single life once he married off his sister and saw to the comforts of his mother.
In an obvious psychological trap, though, he married a women who held him more tightly, one who ultimately demanded more.
To her credit, Tannen traces all of that, but I don’t she ultimately confronts it as directly as she might. She wrote this book, so it is – if anyone’s – her memoir. But often, when those most disturbing questions arise, she resolves the tension with lengthy quotations from her father’s journals or interviews with her.
The final chapter, in which she reflects on the joy she and her father found with her mother and her mother’s family, reads a bit hollow to me. (For one thing, it’s a lot shorter than the one about the rejected Mrs. Tannen.)
In other words, there’s a disquieting note there, but Tannen doesn’t let it ring out in full.
Again, there’s a lot here – as an idea – but I think Tannen ultimately keeps from pushing to confront the heaviest questions that it raises.
I like that Deborah Tannen has determined to share her father’s life, to get onto paper the long arc of his ambition and love for his family – especially, it seems, for Deborah himself. She is somebody, an academic celebrity I’d heard of, and someone who has shaped intellectual conversation. And she sees much of what made her work possible in the ambitions of her father.
You can see part of the trouble in just the book blurb, though. They call it there Tannen’s “memoir of her father.” But memoir, as I understand it, has to be of the self – barring Gertrude Stein’s self-consciously ironic Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – discovering itself. Yes, it can be a record of what took place, something derived from clear memory substantiated by memorabilia and research. But, if the memoir itself is going to rise to art – at least by my lights – it has to capture some of that discovery.
As it turns out, Tannen’s father never stopped writing about his own life. And, in conversation with her, rarely stopped talking about it.
That makes me jealous. How wonderful that he spent so much time reflecting on what he’d wanted for himself. I’d love to be able to find so complete a record of someone dear to me and now gone. I envy that Tannen can open a random journal or transcribed interview and hear her father’s voice. I have some such materials – my father’s short stories among them – but they’re limited. She has so much that she’s been able to let him narrate much of his story posthumously.
At the same time, her father is not always a great writer. It’s hard to read some of his awkwardly verbose letters.
And, perhaps even more uncomfortably, it’s hard to read about his decision over which woman he would eventually marry.
We know he’s married Tannen’s mother, but you get the impression he loved her rival more. Tannen herself talks of being attracted to that other woman, the one who could have been an intellectual challenge to her father, the one who was ultimately “easier.” Tannen’s mother wins the contest, she speculates, because she presented greater need. Her father dreamed of a life without demands upon him, a single life once he married off his sister and saw to the comforts of his mother.
In an obvious psychological trap, though, he married a women who held him more tightly, one who ultimately demanded more.
To her credit, Tannen traces all of that, but I don’t she ultimately confronts it as directly as she might. She wrote this book, so it is – if anyone’s – her memoir. But often, when those most disturbing questions arise, she resolves the tension with lengthy quotations from her father’s journals or interviews with her.
The final chapter, in which she reflects on the joy she and her father found with her mother and her mother’s family, reads a bit hollow to me. (For one thing, it’s a lot shorter than the one about the rejected Mrs. Tannen.)
In other words, there’s a disquieting note there, but Tannen doesn’t let it ring out in full.
Again, there’s a lot here – as an idea – but I think Tannen ultimately keeps from pushing to confront the heaviest questions that it raises.
June 8, 2020
#FindingMyFather #NetGalley 4.5 stars rounded up to 5. Deborah Tannin has written a remarkable memoir of her father's life- actually of her whole family's lives. She started it many years ago and she was encouraged by her father. It was a labor of love.
I had read her previous books on discourse so I pounced on this one, which turned out to different than I anticipated. The parts I really got interested in where her father's early life in Warsaw, his communism and how it affected his family.
The ending of the books wraps it up and normalizes their somewhat unusual family line. I'm glad I read it and thank NetGalley and Random House for this advanced copy. I will enjoy seeing how others feel about the book.
I had read her previous books on discourse so I pounced on this one, which turned out to different than I anticipated. The parts I really got interested in where her father's early life in Warsaw, his communism and how it affected his family.
The ending of the books wraps it up and normalizes their somewhat unusual family line. I'm glad I read it and thank NetGalley and Random House for this advanced copy. I will enjoy seeing how others feel about the book.
July 30, 2020
Tannen writes an incredibly insightful book about her father. She was fortunate to be privy to so much information. Her father kept journals, letters, talked extensively to her and also was interviewed by a researcher who delved into even more nuances of her father's life. The family history is endlessly fascinating. Tannen is besotted with her father and less infatuated with her mother. In the two chapters that deal,with her parents' marriage and the other woman, Helen, the author is quite repetitive in belaboring her point. I think she drove it needlessly into the ground. This is an excellent book on family history. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
July 27, 2021
Deborah Tannen is an engaging writer and I've enjoyed many of her books. The title is somewhat misleading as Tannen and her father were close throughout his life, becoming closer as he retired and aged. She relates his story of immigrating from Poland and finding his way in America. I enjoyed the immigrant story as well as the one of their family dynamic.
March 13, 2025
This was a beautiful biography that Tannen wrote about her father. Her perspective combined with her father's first-hand accounts of his life tells an encapsulating story. I especially appreciated her vulnerability regarding her father's romantic life. I would recommend to anyone looking for something a little different and rather endearing.
February 25, 2022
I assumed this would be yet another biography about an interesting man's life, but it was so much more. The book read like a novel - with the author piecing together much about her self as she learned more about her father. And the descriptions of life in Jewish Warsaw long ago are priceless.
October 9, 2020
A tender precious book about family and history and making decisions.
February 21, 2021
Interesting personal history of a World War I survivor.
April 3, 2021
Her gift with words urns family lore into an interesting book.
May 2, 2021
Wonderful read that I stayed up all night to finish.
July 9, 2021
Though I love memoirs, this was a DNF for me--a meandering story, with much of interest, that failed to hit a narrative rhythm.
July 28, 2021
Interesting journey from Hasidic Judaism in Poland to atheist in NYC as well as a love triangle involving the author's parents.
May 6, 2021
Finding My Father is a memoir of Eli Tannen’s life. But it's also a story about his daughter's quest to understand who he was, where he came from, and the history of her family. The author pulls accounts from his journals, documents, notes, letters, and recorded conversations she had with him about his life, which is like a walking tour through history. Her father lived in the Jewish community of Warsaw, Hasidic community, before, during, and after World War I. His whole experience of work captures one Jewish immigrant experience.
This book is such a lovely biography...and endearing tribute...to the author's late father. And I loved how he wasn't afraid to launch a whole new career so late in his life. Even at 50, he still had half a life to go because he died at 98. It's very encouraging and empowering to think that at any moment, we can all start following our dreams. It's never too late.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/deb...
This book is such a lovely biography...and endearing tribute...to the author's late father. And I loved how he wasn't afraid to launch a whole new career so late in his life. Even at 50, he still had half a life to go because he died at 98. It's very encouraging and empowering to think that at any moment, we can all start following our dreams. It's never too late.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/deb...
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews