NO GOODBYES: A Father-Daughter Memoir of Love, War and Resurrection

by Naava Piatka

"Forgive, but don't forget!" was Mr. Piat's slogan. When actress/playwright/author Naava Piatka interviews her Holocaust survivor father, Xavier Piat, she is amazed to hear such intimate, graphic revelations of family drama, political upheaval, sexual seduction, divorce, mass murder, betrayal and ultimate creative triumph. Soon, she is thrust into an epic saga of one man's journey through the shifting European landscape of Communism, Nazism, Zionism, Nationalism and immigration - where survival depends on luck, who you know, and finding the friend beneath the foe. From Russia to Lithuania, France to England, South Africa to the USA, Mr. Piat's recollections include a cast of colorful characters of political leaders and entertainers, with Menachem Begin, Kommandant Klee, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Molly Picon, Sol Hurok, Chayela Rosenthal, Maurice Chevalier, Marilyn Monroe and Danny Kaye. Reflecting on their complex father-daughter relationship, Naava discovers that her former god is a sentimental human, who emerged from the horrors of war and death camps, the sole survivor of his once large family. In entering his world, she begins to redefine her own. In letting her in, she learns to let go. NO GOODBYES reminds us that we can connect through our stories, that suffering can turn into celebration, and that the power of family and love endures beyond death.

332 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

Reviews

[Cailean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply moving, this memoir covers so much emotional territory it's difficult to summarize. Deciding to finally write a book about her father's life, while he was still living, she not only heals many of his wounds through his retelling but also many of her own as she learns about her father through his past. He grew up in Vilna, and lived through WWII and suffered many losses of family and possessions, lost of trust and happiness, and yet lived to raise a family and come to terms with his past at the end of his life. This is not a chronological memoir, as I half-expected it to be. Rather each chapter covers a particular event or span of time in her father's life -- his stamp-collecting, the Vilna ghetto struggles, etc. And each of those chapters discusses that event in its entirety - meaning how it related to his entire life. In that sense, her writing is more like those charts that are circles within other circles rather than a straight-line. With my own Jewish history and family from South Africa, I enjoyed a lot of the cultural and geographical references in the book. Moreso, I enjoyed the main messages of the book - to enjoy life and love deeply.

[Boo Dick · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a great story somewhere in this memoir but the disjointed writing style renders the reader with a superficial connection. As soon as I became emotionally invested in a passage the author changed the focus or spewed a furry of rhetorical questions. But, considering the circumstances under which this book was written and the author's relationship with her father, disjointed and superficiality should be expected.