Harry Bernstein – författare

Harry Bernstein started chronicling his life at the age of ninety-four, after the death of his beloved wife, Ruby. In his first book, The Invisible Wall, he told a haunting story of forbidden love in World War I-era England. Then Bernstein wrote The Dream, the touching tale of his family’s immigrant experience in Depression-era Chicago and New York. Now Bernstein completes the saga with The Golden Willow, a heart-lifting memoir of his life with Ruby, a romance that lasted nearly seventy years.They met at a dance at New York’s legendary Webster Hall, fell instantly and madly in love, and embarked on a rich and rewarding life together. From their first tiny rented room on the Upper West Side to their years in Greenwich Village, immersed in the art scene, surrounded by dancers, musicians, and writers, to their life in the newly burgeoning suburbs, Harry and Ruby pursued the American dream with gusto, much as Harry’s late mother would have wanted.Together, through a depression, a world war, and the McCarthy era, through job losses and race riots and the joyous births of their two children, Harry and Ruby weathered much and shared an incredible love. But then the inevitable happened. One of them had to go first. When Ruby was ninety-one, she contracted leukemia and died. Alone for the first time in his life, Harry felt the loss acutely and terribly, and for a long while, despite continued good health, he was uncertain about whether he could go on without Ruby. It was then that he turned to the past for solace–and ended up fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a published author.Delightful and hopeful, tender and moving, The Golden Willow is Harry’s tribute to his beloved Ruby, to their long, happy life together, to the impact her parting had on his heart and his soul, and to the surprises and unexpected pleasures that continue to await him.From the Hardcover edition.

On a narrow cobbled street in a northern mill town young Harry Bernstein and his family face a daily struggle to make ends meet. This is the true story of those harsh years, overshadowed by the First World War.Amidst the hardship and suffering, Harry's devoted mother clings to a dream - that one day they might escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America. But the regular pleas to relatives in Chicago yield nothing, until one day, when Harry is twelve years old, the family looks on astonished as he opens a letter which contains the longed-for steamship tickets.But the better life of which they'd dreamed proves elusive. Deprivation follows them to Chicago - and for Harry, life becomes more difficult still as he finds himself torn between his responsibilities to his mother, and his first love...

Harry Bernstein was born into a world of hardship and suffering in a northern mill town, in the shadow of the First World War.His brutish father spends what little he earns at the tailoring shop on drink, while his devoted mother survives on her dreams - that new shoes might secure Harry's admission to a fancy school, that her daughter might marry well, and that one day they might all escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America.But as the years go by, life for the Bernsteins on their narrow cobbled street remains a daily struggle to make ends meet. For young Harry though, most distressing are his fears for his adored elder sister Lily, who is risking all by pursuing a forbidden love...

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press''s distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Drömmen handlar om drömmen om Amerika, det förlovade landet där det finns mat och pengar till alla. Där alla finner lyckan och där det inte finns några religiösa motsättningar. Det är framför allt lille Harrys mamma som drömt om att få lämna industristaden i England och flytta till landet i väster. När biljetterna till resan kommer från de avlägsna släktingarna ser hon äntligen en chans att familjen ska få det bättre. Kanske kommer hennes försupne man att bli en god far och make och barnen få gå i skolan och skaffa sig en fin utbildning.Allt detta går dock inte i uppfyllelse. Depressionen som råder i världen på 1930-talet drabbar så småningom även Harrys familj. Det är svårt att hitta ett arbete och även i Amerika blir livet tungt.Makens löften om bot och bättring bryts ständigt. De får klara sig på egen hand. Syskonen växer upp och den ena efter den andra står på egna ben och till slut så är det bara Harry och mamman kvar hemma. Harry gör så gott han kan och försörjer sig och modern på allehanda tillfälliga arbeten. Så småningom hittar han en flickvän som han kommer att dela livet med.Drömmen är en gripande fortsättning på den lovordade romanen Den osynliga väggen (2005), som Harry Bernstein debuterade med vid en ålder av 96 år. Han föddes 1910 i England men bor sedan länge i USA.