I have read My Father’s House: Remembering my Swedish-American Family which has now found a new home in the library of The Bristol Historical Society. Thank you for that. I found it most interesting. You write so easily and descriptively that one feels they are there witnessing those events.
I’m very familiar with a lot of the names that you have included. Jim Critchley’s sister Celia was my first boss when she hired me as a high school page for the Bristol Public Library and ultimately as a fulltime employee. Mona O’Hara, whom you mention as the inspiration for your given name, was a library Board member for several years.
I remember Paul and Astrid Gustafson and their daughter Janet and the aroma of Astrid’s coffee. I was told how she would put eggshells in the brewing coffee.
Places and businesses that you mention bring back fond memories of how vibrant Bristol was at one time, with a great downtown. You mention the Freshman Building of the high school, which has been home to the Bristol Historical Society now for some twenty years. Your old high school on the Boulevard has been recently renovated and updated for its reopening as a magnet school.
Ironically, back in 2001, I wrote an article about Officer James McNamee (1890-1930) who was killed in the line of duty whom you mentioned as your sister’s friend.
It has been a pleasure revisiting these memories.
Thank you for your contribution,
Ellie Wilson, Program Planner for the Bristol Historical Society
Recently I posted this review on amazon and Goodreads. (Maybe as you read it, you’ll think of My Father’s House.
“The core idea is that authentic love and friendship are possible only between individuals who are independent and equal.” (p.50)
Maybe It’s personal. After all, my parents were immigrants from Sweden, immersed in a Swedish-American culture that constituted the theme of my own growth experience in the twentieth century. Or maybe it’s just that it’s so sensible. Maybe it was my parent’s encouragement of positive goals in life and utter discouragement of humiliating child training techniques. Maybe it was the belief my neighborhood encouraged in taking responsibility for one’s own life even while granting the same right to others. Maybe it was believing in a United States where that was possible for everyone. Maybe it’s what I know as a psychologist that the core idea of authentic love as described in the author’s opening is indeed the way of personal and cultural growth. And maybe it’s what I learned in my mature years that the freedoms I accepted were not so equally available to everyone. Maybe it’s the dream I still hold for a United States where one day the ideal will be reality. Whatever the reason, that opening theme clutched my heart with longing and joyful sadness.
Maybe it’s that I believe loving someone or something is open to accepting their imperfections and believing the good can be strengthened even as the bad is corrected. Maybe it’s that genuine love of my country includes the belief that, like an effective parent, I can help correct it for the good.
O r maybe it’s just that I have often thought how freeing it would be not to worry about being available to love and care for one’s child while at the same time being able to pay for sufficient food and housing, or the best possible education for encouraging individual growth and responsibility from toddlerhood through adulthood, or paying for the maintenance of good health, or not losing one’s home because of a catastrophic accident or illness, or being sure of a good healthy life in old age. How it would make sense to me to pay sixty percent of my income in tax if all needs were covered so forty percent would be available to me to develop my own creative – or just plain comfort – goals. How very practical. How free of unnecessary stress. How very much what the Nordic way has to offer, based on the idea that “authentic love and friendship are possible only between individuals who are independent and equal.” (p.50)
As for the author’s personal message and style, it is so clear that she has a fondness both for her native Finland and her adopted United States. And I love the way chapter by chapter she takes down the objections to the Nordic way.
I like the final conclusion: “Individualism is one of the great foundations of Western culture. But unless society secures personal independence and basic security for the individual, it can lead to disaffection, anxiety, and chaos … While some of the praise heaped on the Nordic nations in the international media and various studies has surely been exaggerated and overpositive—no place is flawless, as Nordic people themselves will be the first to point out—the Nordic countries have undeniably created a model for what a high quality of life and a healthy society can look like in the twenty-first century.” (pp.328-329)
An excellent novel makes one think, and think I did as I read this one. The story covers the early period of my life – the great depression. and how different My Father’s House was from what Elsa and her family experienced. While my mother fed the hoboes who came in from the street, and the town provided some part-time jobs for them, Elsa encountered cruel mistreatment from the “good” people who defined the sufferers as lazy, dirty, illness purveyors ruining the economy of their small town. One suspects that the “good” people of my town would have been no kinder had the number of migrants been larger. In my innocent, fortunate childhood I experienced no destruction of Hooverville’s, the temporary “homes” of the dispossessed. But I can’t fail to see the same things happening today in only slightly different circumstances
Enough of what the story activated in my private awareness. What about the writing. This is a long novel, as so many are recently. And I wondered whether, if I’d been an editor, I would have recommended eliminating some of the “unnecessary” detail. Why so many words to convey the basic impression of land and dreams literally blown away in the wind, of lives lived in day-to-day misery, of friendships and kindnesses, of familial love buried in the rules of propriety, of gender restrictions. By the end of the book, I realized how important all the details were as I experienced the frustration of day after day of hope followed by disaster – of disaster followed by hope. I felt the frustration, the suppressed anger, the cruelty, the love.
And, to return to my original point. To recognize that this is the story of today, wearing different details, but still the same.
I confess it took me a bit to get caught up in the story, but once I did I couldn’t put it down. That’s what I don’t like about a good novel. It interferes with my sleep. But I thank Kristin Hannah for the experience. Obviously this is a book many have read and recommended. Now I’m joining the parade.
My really sharp and clever web creator/improver, Hugh Gower of Nimbus studios, just added a link on my web site, https://forgivenessoptions.com, that will take you to excerpts from the two recent articles about my books. Just click on the photo of “My Father’s House” and you’ll find it.
I’m thrilled to provide a link to this great article The Bristol Press did about My Father’s House. That’s my home town paper where I grew up in Forestville/Bristol Connecticut. The only problem is they included my full name as author, but the only way to find it is via Mona Gustafson — period. Swedish, you know.
FYI. The list price for My Father’s House is $18.99. My royalty after everyone gets their slice is $0.45. (Unless, of course, it’s purchased directly from me.)
My son points out that’s about the percentage the farmer gets who produces the food in the first place. Food for thought — pun recognized.
Still I write — because I want to. And I want people to read what I write. What better reason? (And yes, reviews are worth at least as much as money.)
I enjoyed reading this book aloud with my friend whose vision is limited by Macular degeneration. It evoked many memories of my own upbringing as I recognized similar personalities in my family, bringing back happy and sad events and circumstances. Doesn’t every family have them!
I appreciated Mona’s on-going descriptions of what was taking place in world events starting with WW !, immigration, the Great Depression (I heard a lot about that from my own grandparents and parents!), re-building the Nation, Pearl Harbor, WW II, The Korean Conflict, crystal sets, radio, air flights, etc During the reading of this book I found myself looking back at so many past memories of my life and being grateful for the wonderful, loving family into which I was born.
I wondered whether the author’s selection of psychology as her life career reflected her upbringing and family’s trials and tribulations? It was so sad and frustrating to see Jennie’s decline even as we witnessed her husband’s sustained adoration and love of his wife during these difficult times.
This was not a particularly uplifting book but an honest and comprehensive description of a loving, ambitious and talented immigrant who conquered the many challenges presented him in order to become the successful, respected and loved man that he was. His love for God, his community and his family is evident.
Congratulations to Mona for publication of this story that has obviously been a “work in progress” for many years. It is a wonderful and complete tale of “My Father’s House.” As for the author’s style, I enjoyed reading the minute details and highly descriptive passages. Some readers, however, might not appreciate this style.
At the end of the book, I thought that if Metro Golden Meyer hooked this, it would be a block buster. The characters are lovingly and distinctly portrayed with all their strengths and foibles, and their development through times of war, depression and into the seventies. I grew fond of Father Carl – born in 1880 and emigrating from Sweden 1910.
For this Norwegian reviewer it was overwhelming to try to remember all the names of the characters – but still I found myself reading in bed at 04 am, wondering about how Jennie and the family would cope with her “sensibilities” – I will not tell the readers how that went. Among the clear descriptions of life in these times,It was such a clear and loving tale of how too much consideration can devastate a persons life. “Let’s not borrow trouble” was the fathers adage, it seems the family adapted it too – as we humans do, with grave consequences.
Mona’s professorate in Psychology and her interventions created a strong and dramatic change in the family – the last chapters were a great eye-opener of what happens when the cat in the sac gets out – and the fresh new air pours in.
4 stars – reflecting the bit overwhelming number of names and relationships.
I feel well fed after reading it.
Leelah Saachi
And grateful;
Writer
I SEE THIS AS A BLOCK BLUSTER MOVIEAt the end of the book, I thought that if Metro Golden Meyer hooked this, it would be a block buster. The characters are lovingly and distinctly portrayed with all their strengths and foibles, and their development through times of war, depression and into the seventies. I grew fond of Father Carl – born in 1880 and emigrating from Sweden 1910as a block buster movie
At last count of reviews of “My Father’s House” I found five more “ratings” than there are reviews on amazon.com. Somehow I doubt that five people would have bothered to rate without writing a review. Knowing that the accepting/rejecting algorythms operate in mysterious ways, I suspect some of the lonely “ratings” went with reviews that never got published. I know of one person who tried three times to get hers posted. The third time was the magic. But she was never notified that her first two had not been accepted. Obviously I treasure any reviews, so here’s my question. Did any of you write one that you don’t see posted? If so, I’d be most happy if you would keep trying
I just finished writing a review for Ijeoma Oluo’s “So You Want to Talk About Race.” Here it is.
Having read a plethora of books as a member of our “BLM Ally” group I didn’t expect another one could add much. But I was wrong. It was probably the chapters organization that made the difference, but I left it with my heart hurting and my mind brimming. And there were the specific lists – almost “to-do” — that helped as we search for actions we can take while we are confined by COVID-19 restrictions. No matter what reading you have already worked through you’ll find help presented here in an attractive writing style.
So what does that have to do with dinosaurs? Me — and my career.
In the process of writing — and editing a zillion times — My Father’s House, I have come to appreciate that I did lead a privileged life. I confess, I didn’t know it. I was too busy living it. I do remember being upset in High School when I read about Senator Bilbo, though, described in Wikipedia as “a filibusterer whose name was synonymous with white supremacy.” I wish I had saved the essay I wrote.
But that doesn’t make me a dinosaur. It’s my career that did that. I spent years teaching developmental and personality psychology. Now I’d have to rewrite the syllabus, realizing that it was all about white, probably Northern European folks. And the psychology of women? Not only did it not even include women of the top 1%, it also wasn’t about women of any color other than pale white.
Okay, that’s all you get. I’ll save the rest for later. But I hope you get the gist.
No, I don’t feel guilty. Just more aware and motivated.
monagustafsonaffinito 