Last Christmas my husband gifted me a book of short stories by Lore Segal after he heard her interviewed on public radio. I enjoyed Ladies Lunch and was eager to read more of Segal’s work.

Segal’s writing is a delight. I love her humor and unique perspective, her quotable writing. “What has changed my living room into this New Yorker cartoon fully of chinless showoffs standing in groups or pairs?” “She aligned the napkin with the spiritual precision of a Mondrian.”

Segal was ten years old when she was sent to England through the Kindertransport program during the rise of Nazi Germany. The stories in Part I in this volume, The Journal I Did Not Keep, are about the experience from the child’s viewpoint. I found this section to be memorable, affecting, and real. “They were making plans for a tomorrow in which I would have no part. Already they seemed to be getting on very with without me and I was angry.”

Part II is new and uncollected fiction and selected fiction from her books, including Ladies Lunch. I loved the Ilka stories. Newly arrived in America, discovering her way, meeting her ‘first Americans,’ and later losing her husband.

Part III is Memoir writing, essays, and miscellaneous writing.

I had to read the essay Jane Austen on Our Unwillingness to be Parted From our Money. Segal considers Sense and Sensibility and John Dashwood’s frugality in helping his family financially. She and concludes, “This truism–that human being will not pay anything they can get out of–sheds light on some ancient and modern truths: that wealth fails to trickle down…”

The volume attests to Segal’s gift.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley