Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A BookPage Best Book of the Year
"This exquisitely written book shows how recovery can come generations later through rebuilding connections—to people, the natural world, the past." —Robin Shulman, Washington Post
"It’s long been assumed of the region where my grandmother was born…that at some point each year the dead will come home," Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile, and reconnection. Her grandmother’s stories recalled one true home: the family farm left behind in Latvia, where, during WWII, her grandmother Livija and her grandmother’s sister, Ausma, were separated. They would not see each other again for more than 50 years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, Inara grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited.
When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, in a box of her grandmother’s belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija’s survival through years as a refugee. Weaving these two parts of the family story together in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she gives us a profound and cathartic account of loss, survival, resilience, and love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Upon a visit to her ancestral Latvia, Verzemnieks, who teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa, vividly imagines the dramatic youth of her grandmother Livija, a farm girl. Verzemnieks follows the desperate flight of Livija and her two small children to a refugee camp in 1944, with her husband at war on the Russian front. Upon settling later into the Latvian community of Tacoma, Wash., Verzemnieks's grandparents reunite, have children and grandchildren, and raise the author following her parents' divorce; their presence alone helps keep their memories of their beloved homeland alive for the curious girl. "Words can become as real as anything we see with our eyes or feel with these hands," Verzemnieks writes. She describes how refugees ousted from their lands form the collective bond of community in their adopted countries. By combining the memories of Livija and her sister, Ausma, with her own powerful impressions of Latvia, Verzemnieks has created a stirring family saga of exiles rich with compassion, loss, perseverance, myth, superstition, and courage.
