New book - Living with Shadows by Merilyn Moos

Merilyn Moos has got in touch to let us know about the publication of her memoir, which we are happy to let LSHG supporters know about.  As Merilyn says: 

''Living with Shadows is a brief memoir about how I, the daughter of two German refugees and anti-Nazi activists, spent so much of my life 'living with shadows'. I was born into a home of secrets and silences. My father did not speak of his time as a militant anti-Nazi in Berlin nor about how he only just escaped Germany. My mother never spoke of having to flee Moscow, leaving behind her lover who died in the gulags. Neither parent ever spoke of their families. My parents were burdened with fear, regret and guilt. I sucked in their trauma but I also absorbed from them a political and cultural awareness rooted in their earlier lives in Germany. Each chapter of the book addresses distinct episodes in my life. In this short memoir, I reflect on the pains and joys of being the child of refugees.''

Living with Shadows

In this short memoir, Merilyn Moos, who was born towards the end of the Second World War, reveals how her life was framed by the two ‘isms’ of the 20th century: Nazism and Stalinism. Her parents had grown up in the political cauldron of early twentieth century Germany and became committed anti-Nazis before fleeing to Britain. In a series of brief autobiographical chapters, Merilyn Moos writes about how she was deeply affected by her parents’ political and cultural heritage and teases out the pains and joys of being the child of refugees: 'the second generation'.

Living with Shadows is a succinct and emotionally revelatory book which translates the 'grand events' of recent history into the personal details of lived experience....

Reviews

'I've just finished reading Living with Shadows which came through the letter box a couple of hours ago. It's is a terrific book: moving without being sentimental and brilliantly able to communicate the nature of our imbrication in the cultural and political air and shadows we inhabit and absorb. You are so wonderfully present in your writing that I can almost imagine you here in person. Thank you for writing it.' Ian Patterson, author of Nemo's Almanac,Guernica and Total War, co-edited,War and Literature and lots of poetry books

'Merilyn Moos is well known for her profound analyses of cultural history, especially the experience of the second generation whose parents fled Nazism, and of German resistance to Nazism. In this short and fascinating memoir, she reveals how her life in Britain was shaped by the cultural heritage of Germany as well as by the political forces of the twentieth century, and how the continuing ripples of the long, and dark, shadows of wars and revolution continue to affect her. Deeply personal yet politically luminous, this is writing that translates the largest cultural and political forces into the details of everyday life.'’Hugh Brody, author of Maps and Dreams and The Other Side of Eden

'The great grand niece of Albert Einstein and daughter of German refugees, Merilyn was born into a home of secrecy and paranoia. Her parents lived under Nazism and Stalinism.Her father was a member of the Red Front. After the Reichstag fire,he escaped the Gestapo by walking across Germany. Her mother fled Moscow, leaving behind her lover who died in the gulags.She never stopped mourning him or blaming herself.
Brought up in Durham, Merilyn's parents were burdened with regret and guilt. As a child, Merilyn took comfort in books, and as an adult in her sculptures and her own political activism.
This short memoir is a penetrating and personal reflection on her life.' David Wilson, founder of War Child