When Echoes Speak: a memoir

by Dag Scheer

A blend of memoir and cultural exploration, When Echoes Speak distills the defining moments of an unusual life. In August of 1944, when Dag was five, she and her family fled Latvia to escape Soviet occupation. After five harsh years in a displaced persons camp in Germany, the family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Growing up, Dag was caught in a painful pull between her Latvian roots and her new life in America.Determined to find her own path, she left home to teach, first in England, then in Libya where she met Stuart Scheer, a young charismatic doctor. They traveled across Libya’s scorching desert terrain together, and their intense relationship deepened. After they married, Stuart’s work in the Foreign Service took them to eight different countries across the globe. In recounting the frustrations and delights of each new location and its unique culture, Dag probes her inner transformations. Ultimately, the shifting perspective of being perpetually out of place helped her find a sense of self.Through atmospheric descriptions and vivid portraits, When Echoes Speak offers glimpses into exotic worlds, taking the reader from a drab DP camp, to the throbbing rhythms of Rio’s frenzied Carnival, to heartrending encounters in Ethiopia. In looking back, Dag Scheer discovers intricate and rich patterns in her life and weaves together the connecting threads.

305 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 8, 2021

Reviews

[Val Axelrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in a time when travel has been disrupted Dag’s book enables visits to exotic locations and brings them to life. Her experiences in far flung lands are tethered with her innermost feelings and reveal a soft vulnerability to what each location demanded of her. The book also provides insights into the refugee experience as will be experienced by many hundred thousand people in the coming years. I highly recommend this book!