Schroon Lake

By Lueza Thirkield Gelb

Book Overview

The memoir of a girl, born in 1931 - the start of the Great Depression - to wealth and privilege, watching the money go down the drain until there was nothing. She watched, listened and absorbed her... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977880028
• ISBN13: 9780977880027
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Pulpit Harbor Press
• Length: 363 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A magical journey through life: insightful and uplifting

Living my early years in Poland, I was drawn to American literature, like many of my generation, in search of the mystery of a far-away land of adventure. That search often took me on unexpected spiritual tours. Reading Schroon Lake reopened that world to me with high intensity. I learned more about the American Spirit by reading this book than through my personal experience of 17 years in America. I would wholeheartedly recommend this story to the American Studies scholars in my native Poland and elsewhere, and to anyone who enjoys reading a fascinating book. Lueza Thirkield Gelb used her magic "pen" to create a vivid and moving memoir.

compelling family saga

A superbly written narrative about the trials of a family, cleverly spun through several generations, reflected through the eyes of the author and the walls of the family home on Schroon Lake.

An Adirondack childhood

In an age in which dissembling sometimes seems central to the culture, this compelling memoir is notable for its candor. Lueza Thirkield Gelb describes her mysterious father, adored by his daughter yet disliked by his son, and her hard-working mother who was keenly aware of how much her love for her husband had cost her. Lueza and I grew up together in Schroon Lake. The Thirkields faced culture shock when they moved from the status of privileged "summer people" to the hardscrabble year-round life of the Adirondack Mountains in the Depression and World War II. Each member of the extended family had courage. All faced different sets of problems and all, for the most part, kept their secrets to themselves. Lueza Gelb describes her relationship with each family member. Her story of her role as an observant child, constantly calculating how to grow up in this troubled household, is wisely and beautifully told.

Inside her own skin

Thirty pages into Schroon Lake, I was already telling friends, "sensitive, poignant and very well written." Lueza's focus on the self-inflicted wounds of her loyal, but too often resentful, father and mother succeeds because she so deftly brings the reader inside her own skin. Only those of you whose families have been flawless will fail to gain insights into your own parents, your own brothers and sisters and, indeed, yourselves. Do read it!

A Loving, Lucid Memoir That Honors a Family's History

Lueza Gelb's memoir sings with the tender ache and complex intimacies woven among the souls of a singular American family. With the delicacy of an archeologist unearthing and dusting off fragments of memory, she writes to honor and to comprehend the hidden stories and fierce love that bind us in blood and in marriage. With unflinching honesty and care, Gelb offers us a beautiful example of how telling our story in lucid prose may guide us toward an understanding of who we are. This book is a hard won and great achievement. A pleasure to read.