This was my first time reading Lore Segal’s work, and I enjoyed it. Her personal background is interesting, and gives her a unique perspective on the immigrant experience. Recommended for readers of historical fiction.

THE JOURNAL I DID NOT KEEP by Lore Segal is simply put a walk with words through her life. Seemingly simplistic verbiage actually showcases some key moments in her memory, her family history. Candidly speaking creative genius. I feel as though I know Lore Segal through her writings. I laughed through many section of her LADIES LUNCH. And then wept as well. In THE JOURNAL I DID NOT KEEP I am once again reminded the talent in telling a story through what I guess are poetic movements. We are moving through her life story, and it is so visceral that we feel every moment.
Once again I am reminded to keep hankies handy. If not my weepy eyes cause me to take breaks. It is during those breaks that my mind travels to the rich history of my family. And then it too takes the path down my husband’s family tree.
There is a rhythm in how this author writes. An ebb and flow that is truly mesmerizing and only takes a few lines before you are a captive audience. When she speaks of the kinder transport I think of my mother-in-law’s niece Teresa. There is a great truth in the reality of those children connecting with their birth families.
In addition to the construction of the book like a series of vignettes, the historical events are like punches. Quick, harsh, and then left. Movement is intrinsically vital to the story that travels back and forth effortlessly through the present time in Manhattan to the past in Vienna. 2024 back to 1936 and then some.
No matter what nationality or religion you are there are many shared family memories that are certain to bring a smile to your face. Life isn’t always bright and sunny. But most have not experienced this dank darkness. It is through survivors that we learn the truth. Through their stories. My own Bubby, grandmother, cooked much like Lore Segal’s. Her home was a mishmash of things. It was a place of love and traditions.
THE JOURNAL I DID NOT KEEP is a story of stories. Each story has relevance to memory. Lore Segal speaks of memory in many shades of gray. Surprised at what she did remember, feeling at odds at the accuracy, dismayed at the changes and highly affected by start recollections of people in the past and their destiny. When older folks tell stories of when they were young we are tempted, at times, to intervene with comments about their factuality. As if that really matters. Lore Segal’s less in THE JOURNAL I DID NOT KEEP is that it doesn’t. If a fact is slightly altered who does it hurt. The truth will come out and for some that truth is too harsh for the mind to recall in stark detail.
I quote Lore Segal, “remembering is a complicated thing.”
Grappling with herself over whether to change some things that are now, in the present, not socially or politically correct. In the end she decides to include her tales intact.

For readers who are familiar with Lore Segal's works, this is a wonderful literary gift. It is a beautiful combination of fiction and non-fiction in one volume, a little different from usual reads.

It stays true to the title, and is an epic combination of Segal's personal experiences in Nazi Austria, and during the exodus. If you're familiar with her work, you can easily find her voice from the first page. If you're not, then this serves as a great introduction to the literature Segal has given to the world, and her contributions to American Literature.

The book is divided into parts, part 1 describes the Nazi years and her experiences from the viewpoint when she was a child.
Part 2 is collected fiction from her works, and part 3 is mostly miscellaneous essays and memoirs.

Highly recommended.

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