Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret

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Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret

by Steve Luxenberg (Goodreads Author)

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 837 ratings · 247 reviews

Beth Luxenberg was an only child; or so her son Steve believed until his mother, now fragile and almost an octogenarian, told a doctor that she had a disabled sister. Steve was puzzled: If his mother had a sibling, why had her existence been resolutely concealed for decades? His curiosity piqued, Luxenberg activated his journalistic skills to begin a probe into his family'...more

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Published (first published May 5th 2009)

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Apr 13, 2009 Abby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I stumbled upon an advance copy of Annie's Ghosts and picked it up thinking my mom might like to read it. Intrigued by some of the blurbs, somehow I started it and found myself carrying it around in search of free moments to read for the next several days--Mom would have to wait her turn. Obviously, family dynamics and hidden, secret things resonate with everyone. Although time does sweep back and forth, even within chapters, the author has done a great job crafting a narrative that even stands...more

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May 14, 2013 Shirley Freeman added it · review of another edition

Steve Luxenberg's mother had always identified herself as an only child. A few years before his mother died, Steve got a hint that the only child status might not be entirely accurate. Only after she died, and after some years of luck and research, did the story of Steve's Aunt Annie come out. Born in 1919, Annie had a severely deformed leg which was later amputated. She had serious learning challenges as well. At age 21, she was institutionalized with perhaps some mental health issues and she r...more

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May 13, 2013 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, family, non-fiction

Luxenberg managed to put his family's story together with background about the times, places and situations they lived through. After his mother's death, Luxenberg is alerted to the possible existence of an aunt - his mother's sister. Luxenberg's mother - Beth - had always claimed to be an only child. Never had she mentioned a sister to any of her children. Through the help of researchers in libraries and historical museums, Luxenberg was able to prove the existence of the sister - Annie - and w...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book this month as part of my 12/12/12 TBR challenge: 12 books in 12 months that have languished for a year or more in my “TBR” (To Be Read) pile. The bullet on this one is that I’m glad the challenge made me finally read it, for a variety of reasons. It’s thought-provoking and educational (in a good way)...definitely worth a read if you’re interested in mid-20th century history, the history of medicine, or investigative journalistic techniques.

I was first drawn to “Annie’s Ghosts” w...more I read this book this month as part of my 12/12/12 TBR challenge: 12 books in 12 months that have languished for a year or more in my “TBR” (To Be Read) pile. The bullet on this one is that I’m glad the challenge made me finally read it, for a variety of reasons. It’s thought-provoking and educational (in a good way)...definitely worth a read if you’re interested in mid-20th century history, the history of medicine, or investigative journalistic techniques.

I was first drawn to “Annie’s Ghosts” while shopping for my mom’s birthday a few years back because it’s a non-fiction exploration into a piece of family history that’s eerily familiar. Author Steve Luxenberg was an adult when he discovered that his mother -- who had always identified as an only child -- had had a sister.

In a similar revelation, my mother was in college before she discovered that her paternal grandmother hadn’t died when my grandfather was three, as family history had always held.

Luxenberg’s aunt died when he was nine; my great-grandmother died when my mom was eight. My grandfather -- her son -- only learned of her existence presence a year or two earlier, and my mom believes they might have even met once. Both women -- Luxenberg’s aunt, my great-grandmother -- had spent about 40 years, from the mid-1920s to early 60s, in mental institutions within the United States.

Determined to learn about the aunt he never knew, Steve Luxenberg digs into old court and medical files, and pieces together a history of mental illness and treatment in the mid-20th century. The book is not a dry treatise on the history of medicine, though; the tale is of his quest, and he shares every aspect of it with the reader in such a way that you feel like you’re looking over his shoulder, experiencing the excitement of each new discovery along with him.

And it truly is a voyage of discovery. Along the way, Luxenberg uncovers several other family secrets: how his father snuck into the US; how a paternal aunt had escaped the Nazi slaughter at Radziwillow in Ukraine; a brush with mental illness on the other side of the family. The stories are all vivid portraits of American life in a second-generation immigrant family of the mid-century, but more interesting is the way that each time, Luxenberg brings it back to his mother, re-examining the events with a new sense of how her unique perspective and desire to keep the secret must have informed her actions -- sane, sensible, or irrational -- for the rest of her life.

My great-grandmother has always been a figure of mystery to me. Who was she? What did they think plagued her? Did she love her husband? Her children? Did she miss them when she was put away -- or was she even aware enough to notice? I picked up this book for the first time hoping for some sort of insight into these things; of course, I didn’t find it. Luxenberg can only postulate about what his mother’s sister must have felt; his extrapolations are based upon sporadic medical records and their shift over time, combined with interviews with retired doctors from the hospital where she was housed, and a lot of research into the standard of care regarding the mentally ill in the mid-century. One of the most shocking things I discovered was that, by the end of the depression, the hospital where Annie Cohen (Luxenberg’s aunt) lived was so overcrowded that 45 women lived in a ward meant for 18, 140 were in a ward meant for 100, and patients literally were sleeping on the floors. It’s no wonder Annie Cohen -- and Minnie Schuster -- disappeared beneath a crush of humanity. And yet, each of those thousands of patients were people...at the least, someone’s child. But also, sisters, aunts, and mothers. Annie Cohen was buried next to her parents, but thousands of patients are in unmarked graves behind the hospital where she spent her adult life.

At its most basic level, “Annie’s Ghosts” is a plea for visibility and transparency. Pretending that her sister had never existed caused Luxenberg’s mother a large amount of damage; we can only imagine what the isolation and abandonment did for Annie’s already-broad paranoia streak. Today, a family in the same situation would never consider locking a relative away and pretending that they did not exist to such an extent. Time and again, Luxenberg traces stories of his familial tragedies to show the repercussions of secret-keeping. Secrets increase isolation; they don’t allow for healing. Luxenberg’s odyssey to uncover his family’s secrets and bring them to light was an intellectually stimulating, ultimately enjoyable chronicle of his attempts to understand his mother's misguided attempts to put her sister "behind her," and of his own journey towards understanding and accepting the part of his mother that he never knew.(less)

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Mar 12, 2010 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Without really trying, I have become a collector of other families’ secrets.” –Steve Luxenberg.

Steve Luxenberg’s memoir reads like a mystery. In the Spring of 1995, Steve finds out that his mother, Beth, had a sister, Annie, who was mentally and physically disabled. This and other family secrets unfold in a number of shocking revelations and frustrating dead ends.

His story explores the history of mental institutions and how those patients had fewer rights than criminals. It explores the life of...more

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Feb 17, 2010 Kay Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steven Luxenberg (Hyperion, 416pp, ISBN 9781401322472) is not your everyday family memoir. This poignant, memorable book will live in your thoughts long after it’s been returned to your book shelf. Annie’s Ghosts is a striking combination of family secrets, mental health issues in the forties and the entanglements of love, past and present.

The most astounding thing about Annie’s Ghosts? It’s true. The book begins after Steve’s mother’s death with...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shortly before his elderly mother's death, Steve Luxenberg learns his mother may have had a younger sister. Several months after the mother's death, Luxenberg learns that not only did his mother lie about being an only child, but she also hid the fact that her younger sister was committed at age 21 for her physical and mental disabilities.

Luxenberg's book details his painstaking research into this family secret. He meticulously reports on the findings of his hunt through medical and census recor...more

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Nov 27, 2009 Kim V rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell”

The Stranger by Billy Joel

When journalist Steve Luxenberg discovers after his mother’s death that she was not an only child, bur rather had a physically and mentally disabled sister, Annie, he embarks on a journey to uncover the truth behind his mother’s secret. What he discovers is a societal and legal system that for decades sequestered the mentally ill and disabled into institutions – leaving behind few traces of the person institut...more

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Nov 01, 2009 Sharon Riley rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Annie eventually is diagnosed with schizophrenia - was she really schizophrenic or was this just a catchall diagnosis.

p. 94 Patient imagines that someone wants to do her bodily harm.

p. 96 Annie's fears and paranoia, her screaming and crying, were driving the family crazy.

What is the definition of schizophrenia vs. schizo-affective disorder? At one time was a catchall diagnosis.

possible intermarriage in the family between cousins - were Annie's parents first cousins from the Ukraine?

Radziwillow...more

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Jul 17, 2009 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-read-more-than-bush-09

In Annie’s Ghosts, Steve Luxenberg (a Washington Post journalist) tells of discovering the secret his mother kept from him and his siblings—they had an aunt who had been institutionalized at age 21. As Luxenberg searches for answers about his aunt and why his mother elected to change her entire family history, he discovers just how difficult it is to obtain records from a time when mental illness was a secret shame for families. Even after he gets legal documents giving him the authority to act...more

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Jun 23, 2009 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Part mystery, part investigative journalism, and part family history, Annie’s Ghosts is about the discovery of family secret. Details of the secret unfolds like a mystery with writing that’s easy to read thanks to Steve Luxenberg’s investigative journalism background.

Steve discovers that his mother, who always made the point of telling everyone she was an only child, had a sister that almost no one knew about. Unfortunately, this secret is only unearthed on his mother’s deathbed. With only a few...more

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May 24, 2009 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've heard it said that secrets are rarely as secret as we might imagine them to be. Annie's Ghosts is the story of one family's secret--a woman who was both mentally handicapped and mentally ill.

The author, Steve Luxenberg, is a Harvard-educated Jewish (ethnically) journalist from Detroit. In 1995 his mother mentioned a disabled sister to someone who had always understood that she was an only child. This woman called the family for more information. Steve and his siblings decided that since hi...more

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May 23, 2009 Tripp rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's amazing how many mystery stories revolve around family secrets. One of my favorites, Thomas H Cook, has built a career writing books that deal with the emotional toll of family secrets and family history. Writers as diverse as Harlen Coben and Edgar Allen Poe have used the hidden history of families to tell their sorrowful tales.

Of course, real families have secrets too and Steve Luxenberg, of the Washington Post, found a doozy. Late in life, his mother, who had always made a great deal abo...more

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May 13, 2009 Nancy Oakes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Steve Luxenberg's sister phoned him one day and asked him if he knew that his mother Beth had a sister. But all of his life, he had been told by his mom that she was an only child, a statement that she would give to pretty much everyone upon meeting them. After her death in 1999, Steve's brother Jeff was going through her unopened mail and discovered a flyer from Hebrew Memorial Park offering for a small fee to put flowers on the graves of his grandparents as well as on the grave of Annie Cohen....more

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Apr 28, 2009 Allison Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Annie's Ghosts is an ambitious part memoir, part investigative journalism effort by veteran reporter Steve Luxenberg, who discovers a family secret he can't leave alone. Unlike the usual tell-all, emotionally driven memoirs on the market, Luxenberg's background makes this an impeccably researched, thoroughly engaging account based in facts. Brief passages summarizing relevant personal memories give the story a personal feel that isn't found in the average history book, but the focus of the book...more Annie's Ghosts is an ambitious part memoir, part investigative journalism effort by veteran reporter Steve Luxenberg, who discovers a family secret he can't leave alone. Unlike the usual tell-all, emotionally driven memoirs on the market, Luxenberg's background makes this an impeccably researched, thoroughly engaging account based in facts. Brief passages summarizing relevant personal memories give the story a personal feel that isn't found in the average history book, but the focus of the book is on the untangling of lies from a factual perspective. Luxenberg decides to tell the extraordinary story with the timeline of his own research and revelations rather than attempting to fictionalize past events, and this gives his story immense credibility.

When Luxenberg's mother is ill, he hears a hint of her deepest secret: a woman who drives her to doctor's appointments calls to ask if his mother had had a sister--she mentioned something about a sister who had been institutionalized as a small child. Luxenberg responds that his mother has always talked about her life as an only child, and more or less forgets the exchange until evidence surfaces after his mother's death that there was, in fact, a sister named Annie. Luxenberg's investigative reporting instincts kick in, and with his siblings' blessings, he digs around a bit, to find that Annie not only existed, she wasn't institutionalized until his mother was in her twenties. How can this be possible, with his mother's frequent discussions of being an only child? He looks for photos, anything at all about Annie from his mother's childhood, and comes up empty. He begins to widen his search, interviewing relatives and securing medical records (no easy task in this patient-protective society), to discover the heartbreaking fate of Annie and to look for evidence that would explain why his mother had kept this secret. His investigation dips into the Holocaust, the treatment of mental health and disabilities throughout the 20th century, and the American immigrant experience in an utterly fascinating narrative.

I don't normally read nonfiction: I usually find it either too dry or too fictionalized, but in Annie's Ghosts, Luxenberg has created a tale perfectly balanced between the personal and factual. The story is riveting, and told with such sensitivity and scrupulous reporting that I highly recommend it, even to those who usually avoid nonfiction.(less)

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Nov 01, 2009 Terry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I'm wavering between two and three stars for this book. The author's family past is definitely fascinating--not just for what happens to his aunt, but because they live through enormous moments in world and American history (the turn-of-the-century wave of immigration to America, the early twentieth century prosperity of Detroit, the Jewish diaspora, the Depression, the Holocaust...). While a reader shares in Luxenberg's journey of discovery, the reader also shares in his frustrations, which in...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Ellen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I admire the great lengths the author went to for researching this book. Maybe he felt it was a personal obligation not only to himself but to his surviving family members. I can not say that I would have gone to the trouble of attempting this investigation. I am disappointed he was not able to find a picture of Annie. But, there is a woman's picture on the cover. Does anyone know who this woman is?
In this day and age it seems we are more open about so-called secrets. We don't shun someone just...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Ginger rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

ou know a story is well written when it continues to haunt you well after you've turned the last page. This is one of those stories.
This book was recommended by one of the speakers at the 2012 St. George Family History Expo. The topic of the class discussion was using Prison, Criminal and Asylum Records in family history research. When the discussion turned to asylums there was a great deal of historical information given about those types of facilities and this book was mentioned as being a wo...more ou know a story is well written when it continues to haunt you well after you've turned the last page. This is one of those stories.
This book was recommended by one of the speakers at the 2012 St. George Family History Expo. The topic of the class discussion was using Prison, Criminal and Asylum Records in family history research. When the discussion turned to asylums there was a great deal of historical information given about those types of facilities and this book was mentioned as being a wonderful reference for manuevering the maze of research into those records.

At first I was intrigued by the premise that a person could exist for over 50 years and that existance could be so well hidden inside a system that family members never knew of the person. That is the story behind Annie's Ghosts. The author of this book grew up in a family where his mother always claimed to be an only child. Shortly before her death, during a visit with her doctor, she let a comment slip about having a sister who was institutionalized when the girls were very young. The comment was disregarded at the time, but 6 months after his mother passed away something happened that brought it back into the forefront of thought and set this family on a quest to find a member of the family that no one ever knew about.

That quest takes the reader on a journey through family interviews, collateral relationships, court records, medical records, bureaucratic red tape nightmares, and world history. I found myself sad (for Annie), angry (at the author's mother), frustrated (over the bureacracy the author encountered on his quest), even more angry (at a system that stripped the subject of her rights), elated (that the author was able to find the missing pieces to his puzzle), and in the end...somewhat empty, because nothing can be done to right the wrongs of the past for this family.

From a genealogical research perspective, this book shows the work involved in moving beyond immediate family for answers to seemingly unanswerable questions. If not for "collateral lines" and interviews with friends of the family, and friends of those friends, a lot of what was discovered about Annie would still be hidden somewhere in time. It is a testament to persistance. Many times the author covered a point, only to go back later and find additional information where he thought he had found everything he could. Family history work is just that...WORK. And the author did an amazing job in researching his aunt. He made me care about her. In the end I think that was the point.

Rest sweetly, Annie. You are not a forgotten daughter of Heavenly Father for you have a nephew who has made sure you will always be remembered. (less)

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Sep 27, 2010 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Steve Luxenberg never really thought it odd that his mother made a point of telling nearly everyone she met that she was an only child, often during their first meeting. It was just a part of her identity, like her name, that she thought was important and wanted to share right away. However, in 1995, Luxenberg learned that his mother had a sister, and he had to ask why she insisted on telling this untruth to new and old acquaintances. This book tells the story of Luxenberg� s investigation into...more Steve Luxenberg never really thought it odd that his mother made a point of telling nearly everyone she met that she was an only child, often during their first meeting. It was just a part of her identity, like her name, that she thought was important and wanted to share right away. However, in 1995, Luxenberg learned that his mother had a sister, and he had to ask why she insisted on telling this untruth to new and old acquaintances. This book tells the story of Luxenberg� s investigation into the life of his aunt, Annie, and his quest to understand why she was hidden.[return][return]This book is more of a story of the investigation than the story of Annie herself. Luxenberg talks about the bureaucracy that prevents family members from accessing information. He talks to mental health professionals and looks into how mental and physical disabilities would have been perceived at the time of Annie� s institutionalization. He talks to distant relatives and former friends that his mother lost contact with. He achieves some lucky breaks, but a lot of information is simply gone. The people who did know something are mostly dead, and the few people who are still alive are old, and their memories may not be entirely reliable. [return][return]Sometimes his investigation leads him in entirely new directions. For example, one cousin, Anna, seems so angry at Luxenberg's mom that he has to wonder if there's more to her resentment than just anger at Annie's treatment. And so he starts looking into Anna's life in Ukraine during the Holocaust, in hopes of understanding her point of view. At times, the side investigations run too long and take away from the main story. I found myself wondering if he was just trying to make sure he had enough material for a book because the information on Annie was so scarce. This isn't a huge problem, though, and much of the information Luxenberg finds in his slightly off-topic research was fascinating.[return][return]Luxenberg does a nice job of telling the facts without being judgmental. He clearly believes that Annie� s treatment was tragically misguided, but he recognizes that the people making decisions had different understandings about mental illness than we do today. Annie� s tragedy is, at least in part, a tragedy of being born at the wrong time. I must confess that I was furious at Beth and find her position hard to understand, but as a son, Luxenberg is going to want, even need, to find a way to make his mother� s choices understandable. The nice thing is that he presents an argument for her behavior in a fairly dispassionate tone. He� s not excusing her behavior, but he provide some reasons for it that make sense. Her reasons for keeping Annie a secret seem preposterous to me, but would I have felt different had I been in Beth� s shoes? A tough question, and a tough story.[return][return]See my complete review at my blog.(less)

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May 31, 2010 Donna Jo Atwood rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mental-illness, nonfiction, genealogy

Steve Luxenberg's family always knew their mother Beth had been an only child. So when she mentioned to a new doctor that she had had a disabled sister who had been sent away at age two, they figured it was an elderly thing. Then while sorting out her affairs after she died, they find a bill for cemetery maintenence for her parents--and her sister Annie.
When Steve began the search to find out more about Annie, no one in the family was prepared for the information and the additional family secret...more

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Jun 09, 2013 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first heard about 'Annie's Ghost' from an NPR interview with the author, Steve Luxenberg several months ago. I was captivated by the story he told and his articulateness. I came across the book again while reading a review on an ancestry research board. Everyone seemed to find it a worthwhile read so as an avid fan of genealogy, I reserved it at the library and picked it up this week. The book does not disappoint. The author is an investigative journalist who was left with a family mystery whe...more

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May 30, 2009 Carla rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is about the unraveling of one family's secrets, diligently, and above all respectively. It covers about a century of history and touches extensively on mental illness and disorders, institutions, the depression, the Holocaust, the auto industry during the first half of the 1900's, the value of the written word and photographs, and the irreplaceable knowledge and memories of experiences past that dies with our parents and grandparents. The author travels throughout much of the US and o...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Roberta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, history

This is a family history story written by an investigative journalist that reads like a mystery book. Reading someone else's family story written by a journalist could have been really boring but Steve Luxenberg keeps the story moving. After the author finds out that his mother was not the only child that she had always pretended to be, he sets out on a quest to find out who his mother's sister really was, where his grandparents had sent her and why his mother had always denied that she even exi...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Lynn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I attended a talk by the author at a genealogy conference in 2010 and bought the book then. He inscribed it "Every family has its stories." I I found the book to be a very satisfying read. The stories of his family and their secrets was fascinating, but what I enjoyed most were his efforts to understand what was behind them, both as a son and a reporter. He provides a combination of personal memories of the people involved, woven together with the events of history, spanning the twentieth centur...more

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Jun 22, 2010 Denise rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a story of a family with a hidden secret that a mother was hiding from her family about a sister that spent the most of her life in an institution. The sister, Annie, lived at home until she was 21 and then spent the rest of her life institutionalized. The mother's children found out about their hidden aunt not long before their mother died but did not ask her about her sister. After his mother's death then Steve the author tried to piece together the story and why his mother hid this fr...more

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Dec 07, 2009 Janell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Readers interested in history of mental health institutions, or a well researched book

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 07, 2011 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: rusty_economics

The author's mission to know more about his aunt purposely kept a secret for decades. It's a personal story that transcends into so many aspects relevant in everyday American life...mental health, patient's rights, sociology, economics, history and heritage.

Annie Cohen was born with a deformity, too much for anybody to deal with in those days before WWII -- not fitting into that image of the atomic American family. She was hastily sent to live at Eloise mental hospital in Detroit Michigan, and f...more

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Jun 10, 2013 Agatha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Washington Post journalist Steve Luxemburg discovers at the end of his mom’s life that she had had a sister he had never heard of. He is astonished! He and his siblings had always grown up being told that his mother had been an only child. After her death, he uses his journalistic background to ferret out the details of this sister and what happened. “Annie,” the aunt he never met, had been born with both mental and physical disabilities and, at age 21 (!), had been placed in an institution. Her...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Cristina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Cristina by: Janeen

Shelves: non-fiction

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Apr 10, 2013 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book started out slowly for me, trying to remember all the characters, but got easier as it went along. I like the way the author added the history of Detroit, like the riots and the famous Belle Isle. I hope people that are in charge or in authority would look at the problems of mental health and learn by their failures.
A lot of thought and hard work investigating this family secret went into this book. I still wonder why this secret was kept to his mother's dying day. We can speculate an...more

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About Steve Luxenberg

Steve Luxenberg is an author and an associate editor of The Washington Post. He has worked for more than 30 years as a reporter and editor. Two projects that he edited at The Post have won Pulitzer Prizes for his reporters. He grew up in Detroit, the primary setting for his nonfiction book, "Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret" (Hyperion, hardcover, May 2009; paperback, May 2010).

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“Secrets, I've discovered, have a way of working free of their keepers.” — 3 people liked it

“Without really trying, I have become a collector of other families' secrets. Whenever I tell someone about my detective work, the first question is invariably something like this: 'Can you tell me the secret?' Sure, I say. The next question often is: 'Want to hear my family's secret?” — 1 person liked it

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