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"This book is not a fast
read, but it creates an ambience that sits in the memory, long after
it has been read and laid aside" Bookpleasures
"A thought provoking memoir" Jewish Tribune
"Engrossing" 4 Stars
Peril: "a powerfully moving book that deals with the lingering intergenerational effects of the horrific history of the holocaust.." Bookpleasures
"culturally informative and emotionally moving story". "Far More Than 'Coming of Age': Holocaust and Love"Amazon
"She's accomplished something I wish I could have done: written a very personal memoir of her life growing up Jewish in Toronto.
Peril details the culture of the time, and is most affecting when she tells us about her complicated and perilous relationship with her Holocaust survivor mother and father and their harrowing traumatic experiences.
Whether you recognize familiar Toronto landmarks from her youth, recall television shows and music from back-in-the-day, relive the sometimes hilarious and sometimes chilling experiences of her adolescence, or suffer through the torments of her parents' concentration camp trauma and the tribulations of their decline, there's something in Peril to engage almost every reader"
David
Schatzky, psychotherapist and former CBC broadcaster
"'Peril' Goodman gives a
meticulous, humour-tinged account of growing up in mid-20th
century whitebread Toronto, the child of heroic survivors.
Peril captures Torontonia--Eaton's delivery trucks,
The Ports of Call, Sam the Record Man, the Liquor CONTROL
Board with no bottles on display--and traces the clash between
wary parents and a girl who, like the provincial town itself,
is seeking her own identity." Sheila Gostick Toronto-based writer and performer
"A somewhat unusual treatment of local history" with "hours of enjoyable reading" Mike Filey, Toronto historian writing in the Toronto Sunday Sun, November 25, 2012.
Pearl Goodman, the daughter of Holocaust survivors who grew up in
Toronto, has composed a humorous memoir, Peril: From Jackboots to Jack
Benny. The book interweaves TV shows, ads, movies and other elements of
the cultural landscape with her parents’ harrowing wartime experiences. Canadian Jewish News January, 2013
Translated from Dutch "the traumas she describes are terrible but she describes them with warmth and humour. Her dialogue sparkles and so you smile
despite the tragedy of ruined lives." http://
ditissuzanneleest.blogspot.nl/
2012/11/
pearl-goodman-peril.html
by Pearl Goodman
Author Pearl Goodman presents a
first-hand account of life with her parents - two people traumatized
by the Holocaust. With no resources to understand how their
devastating experiences may have translated into their behaviour and
their child-rearing practices, they attempted to rebuild their
shattered lives in Canada with a new language and a stone’s throw
from the feeling of being unwanted in the Anglo Toronto of the late
50s and 60s.
Ms Goodman
chronicles their stories and at the same time tell the story of the
impact of their trauma upon her and her brother as she searches for
her own identity. The Holocaust is not her experience and yet she
embodies a feeling of dread she can’t explain as a child. She
juxtaposes this backdrop with a light-hearted look at sibling
rivalry, at life in Toronto, at the 60s, and particularly at how she
was influenced by the images, ads and characters on American
Television.
Pearl
Goodman was born,
raised, and resides in Toronto, Canada. After graduating from the
University of Toronto, she taught high school English and Dramatic
Arts. Then she chose to train as a psychotherapist and has now been
in private practice for the past ten years. Words and the human
condition have always been her passions. Peril
is her first published work.
Pearl Goodman and the Proust Questionnaire on Open Book Toronto/Ontario
ISBN 978-0-9878244-6-2, 300 Pages, $21.95, Available on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, Chapters/Indigo Kobo Kindle and Google Play Distributed by Ingram
For those in Toronto, the book is also available at Type Books on Spadina Rd,and at Caversham Books on Harbord St near the University of Toronto
Hear Pearl Goodman interviewed about the book on the Jewish Digest Radio Show with Leslie Lutsky on Radiocentreville.com in Montreal. The show aired on February 16, 2013 - Listen here
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