The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich: A Son's Memoir

by Reich, Howard

• ISBN13: 9781586483623
• ISBN10: 1586483625
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-12
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

On the evening of February 15, 2001, Sonia Reich, Howard Reich's mother, packed some clothes into two brown shopping bags, put on her gray winter coat, locked the door to her home in Skokie, Illinois and fled. Someone was trying to kill her, "to put a bullet in my head," Sonia told anyone who would listen. Polish and Jewish, Sonia Reich had survived the Holocaust by staying always on the run. She and Howard's father, Robert, also a Holocaust survivor, had fled to America, moved to Chicago, and raised their young son to tell no one that they were Jewish. It was only after moving to Skokie, a town filled with Holocaust survivors, that his family would live as Jews. Still, his parents told Howard almost nothing about their past.The First and Final Nightmare... is Reich's moving and bittersweet memoir of growing up in Skokie, discovering an odd and personal American freedom in jazz, and his riveting, revealing investigation into his family's past and the nature of his mother's illness, called late-onset Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a poignant story of a mother and a son, a haunted past, and the irony of what may happen when that often repeated admonition to "never forget" becomes a curse.

Author Biography

Howard Reich is the veteran jazz critic of the Chicago Tribune and the winner of many awards. A longtime correspondent for Downbeat magazine, he is also the author, with William Gaines, of the critically acclaimed biography Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton. He lives in suburban Chicago.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Preface: February 15, 2001	xi
Leaving Germantown	1	(18)
Skokie Blues	19	(26)
Swing Time	45	(24)
The Past Returns	69	(26)
Chasing the Story	95	(30)
A Glimpse into the Dark	125	(22)
What Happened in Dubno	147	(30)
Heading Home	177	(12)
Epilogue: February 15, 2006	189	(2)
Appendix: A Guide to Resources	191	(4)
Index	195