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S'està carregant… The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fictionde Julie Klam
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Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters by Julie Klam. The subtitle pretty much says it all, "A True Story of Family Fiction." Although the author is a novice at family research she does manage to discover that most of what she heard about the legendary Morris sisters was indeed fiction. The author tells an interesting story and points out an important lesson for all family researchers, both novice and experienced. It really is important to research everything you hear in family stories to dig down and discover the real truth behind them. I bought this book because I too am researching my family and was interested in others’ experiences. The book overall was ok, although it became clear pretty quickly there really isn’t a lot of information on the Morris sisters. Another reviewer addresses this issue well, but the tone was very out of step with the subject matter. Glib comments about institutionalization and Communism in Romania didn’t land well for me. And while she addresses her deficiencies as a researcher, it was really frustrating reading about some of her naïveté. What killed me though was page 227: She got the wills of the sisters, threw them into a pile, and then wondered how to find the death certificates months later?!?!?!? I could not understand why you wouldn’t read over the wills in detail, especially when someone went out of their way to acquire them for you. So, so silly. I don’t regret reading this book, though—I did come away with a couple new ideas for my genealogical research, and the chapters on her research trips to St Louis and Romania were the most interesting and vivid in detail. This book could’ve been better, though. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is billed as the author's attempt to find out the truth about four relatives of hers who were the subject of a lot of family lore: the four Morris sisters (there's a brother, but he scarcely gets a look in, in the lore or in the book) who went from a St. Louis orphanage in the early twentieth century to wealth, political connections, and affairs with millionaires in New York City. It starts off promisingly enough, and I looked forward to seeing Julie Klam tease out fact from fiction and use that process to explore questions of familial memory, but as the book progressed it became increasingly dull and irritating. Klam doesn't know much about how to conduct historical or genealogical research, and doesn't seem interested in picking up those skills along the way—but she does take a certain amount of pride in detailing just how slipshod her methodology is. She gives up after a day in a presidential archive when she doesn't immediately find a reference she's looking for, but flies to Romania for two weeks to look for... well, vibes? Also did I mention she goes to a psychic? In earnest? Like reading the research paper of a slacker student who thinks that surface enthusiasm and a superficially interesting idea is going to hide the fact that little thought and less work went into it. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
"Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the 20th century the sisters' parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in California - a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt. The sisters lived together in New York City, none of them married or had children, and one even had an affair with J.P. Morgan. The stories of these independent women intrigued Klam, but as she delved into them to learn more, she realized that the tales were almost completely untrue. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the revealing account of what Klam discovered about her family - and herself - as she dug into the past. The deeper she went into the lives of the Morris sisters, the slipperier their stories became. And the more questions she had about what actually happened to them, the more her opinion of them evolved. Part memoir and part confessional and told with the wit and honesty that are hallmarks of Klam's books, The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the fascinating and funny true story of one writer's journey into her family's past, the truths she brings to light, and what she learned about herself along the way"-- No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)974.7History and Geography North America Northeastern U.S. New YorkLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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