Laurie Levinger
Nonfiction / history / biography
Laurie Levinger never met her uncle Sam, though his pictures were
in every house she lived in growing up. Sam died in 1937 in
the Spanish Civil War, to which he had gone as one of the three thousand
Americans who joined the International Brigades fighting Fascism. In
2001, Laurie's father gave her a box of letters and other memorabilia
about Sam - and Laurie's journey to discover who her uncle was began.
Love and Revolutionary Greetings is the story of a young man, idealistic and courageous, who fought and
died in an attempt to create a better world. It is the story, too, of Sam's mother,
of the family he left behind, and of one of the great convulsions
preceding World War II. Levinger has edited an affecting collection of
first-hand descriptions of the war and its aftermath - mostly Sam's
letters and his mother's written attempts to understand his life and his
fate, but also primary source material from others who were in the war
and Laurie and her family's own thoughts about Sam.
Readalikes:
- World War II Remembered by the residents of Kendal at Hanover? - also first-person stories of wartime
