CONNECTING WITH BOOK REVIEWERS

After reading my memoir, several book reviewers have commented that they experienced similar events in their own lives as military brats. It feels comforting that I am the only or one of the few brats who experienced alcoholism in the family (in my case my mother, and later my younger sister), physical abuse, and feelings of aloneness while relocating so many times to different states and countries. Making new friends at each new location, getting used to new schools and climates was interesting but also demanding. Often I changed locations every year, mostly every two years, though. I also attended three third grades and found each school challenging. Because of these childhood challenges, I decided never to enter the service, myself, or ever marry a serviceman. I didn't wish any future children I may have to experience the same instabilities which I did.

 

From left, myself, my sister Marilyn and our neighbor, Michael, who lived across the street from us. I was nine, my sister, five,  and Michael was 10 at the time, in Heidelberg, Germany, in front of our home.

"Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat"

My memoir about my childhood as an army brat of an army major is out in soft cover and in Kindle. It's the longest work I've published so far. It is self-illustrated with photos taken from the '40's through the '60's my father took. Many of them were shot by me from slides he made.

Here is an excerpt from the opening chapter, Journeys Abroad:

Our maid Eliska gazed at me with large brown eyes. "Babala," she told me with tears streaming down her cheeks, "You will write? Right? Promise me you'll contact me after you return to the States." (Babala was how Germans pronounced my name at the time.)  Eliska was my mentor, the one I told all my problems to. Without Eliska, I don't know how I'd survive moving from school to school, changing friends and dealing with German boys who beat up American kids at the school bus stop.

I nodded my head in reply for what else could I do? I was only nine years old at the time......

Barbara's new memoir, Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat is published on Kindle for $2.99. The author's experiences as an army brat in Germany, Japan and the States during the 40's through the 60's is explored. Problems military families have moving from post to post, changing friends, and schools is also highlighted and how some of these difficulties lead to dysfunctional families such as alcoholism, drug abuse and truancy at school.

Negative Reviews of Books

Occasionally authors will receive negative comments of their books. On my last novel published in 2013, Letting Go, and written under the pseudonym, Belinda Tors, a reviewer disliked the unsupportive relationship between a mother (the main protagondist) and her daughter. The mother had left her abusive husband and was going through a divorce. However, the characters in the novel were based on real people the author knew in life so she couldn't change their relationships! Although some reviewers may have idealistic views of the characters as if everything were written in Heaven, that is not so in real life or in novels. What makes a novel interesting is depicting struggles between different characters. If the reviewer wishes the interaction of characters to change, they should write their own novels depicting these changes. However, then it would be a different book. Even in Romances, there are struggles between characters or they wouldn't be interesting. Its struggles between characters which drive the plots of books. If I had changed my plot, the book would have been nothing but humdrum and sold few copies. How do some reviewers become reviewers?

CULT LEADERS ARE CHARISMATIC MEN

What do women find in cult leaders which they don't find in ordinary men? Even well-educated women such as a newspaper reporter from Daytona Beach named Elsa couldn't resist the charms of Tyrell, a metaphysical religion cult leader who had women at a local ballroom and at his faith healing sessions swooning over him. Elsa, like most emotionally-abused women, returns to Tyrell several times before she finally leaves him for good. But Tyrell was only looking for followers and worshipers, not a genuine relationship. Elsa got more than she bargained for in hanging out with Tyrell!

FEARS OF LEAVING THE ABUSER

When I attended Adelphi University in New York State in the late 80's and early 90's for my Master's Degree in Social Work, I did a field placement with battered women in Poughkeepsie, New York. I also wrote a paper on the percentage of battered women who leave their abusers and how often they do so based on national statistics I gleaned from local libraries. One statistic I read in 1990 said that abused females tend to leave their abusers between three to five times before they finally leave for good. My own experiences with these women while serving my field placement showed this to be true. Also, my own experiences as an abused wife during my first marriage demonstrated that I had to leave my husband at least one time before I left him for good. The main reasons for this are economic, which is why middle and upper class women are more hesitant to leave than lower class women. The higher class husbands are usually the main economic providers. In many lower class families, the wives and girlfriends are supporting their husbands and domestic partners. This is definitely true in my case as during my marriage I was attending college and working on my Bachelors' Degree in English. It wasn't until after I graduated with my BA that I was able to find a job above minimum wage to support my daughter and myself.

The heroine of my novel, Letting Go, Margery Arturo,  also leaves her husband temporarily until she finally is able to graduate from college and obtain a real job. Margery also becomes a counselor at a battered women's shelter and encourages other women in how to develop independence from their partners. This novel is based on my own personal experiences as well as my observations developed in working with this group.

If anyone has any comments to add to this subject, you are welcome to reply on this blog. Thanking you for taking an interest in this important subject.

On the Memoir, Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat

Barbara Towers is an Army Brat. She experiences events which most Army Brats have such as traveling to foreign countries, dealing with members of the servant class in these countries, and changing schools, neighborhoods and friends. Barbara lived in the tumultuous time following World War II with the occupation of Germany by Allied forces. There was much resent of the occupying allies during that period. Both German and Japanese citizens often took it out on their occupiers by stealing from the foreigners on their soils, bullying their children at the school bus stops (Barbara and her American friends experienced this) or complaining to the Military Police about service families. Once German residents of Heidelberg fussed about Barbara's German shepherd attacking one of their teenage boys who had broken into her house and stolen a Sunbeam mix master from her mother. Not only did Barbara's family have to pay the doctor bill for the lad,  but they also had to purchase a new pair of pants for him to wear and get the old pair mended at the tailor shop. Nevertheless, this teenage boy continued to harass Barbara and other American kids at the school bus stop and take things from them. Barbara was only nine years old at the time, a lot younger than this sixteen-year-old German kid. The American government encourages all Americans to maintain cordial relations with foreigners while they are living in their countries, regardless of how they are being treated by the natives.   This is a good philosophy to maintain, even though it sometimes seems unfair.