Greenwich Meridian Memoir is an epic tale of immigration and love spanning three continents and two generations. The story takes place on the backdrop of two major historical events in former Czechoslovakia: Prague Spring 1968 and Velvet Revolution 1989. The two events have propelled the major characters into unpredictable action as they journeyed into the unknown. Inspite of the trials and … tribulations, Ella and Vaclav have never lost their love for each other. The next generation Emma & Ludek followed in their footsteps.
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“Greenwich Meridian Memoir” is a story of survival and love. It chronicles a family who is forced to leave their homeland because of political unrest and thereafter, seek places to live and work that will offer them a complete and rewarding life. Covering many years, it shows the tenacity of a family struggling to find their way.
Carol Briggs
I hope Emma’s book GREENWICH MERIDIAN MEMOIR will be made into a movie because her family’s story is so captivating. Since she lived in Czechoslovakia, the Sudan and the U.S., her insightful perspective on politics and people is stellar. I learned something new on almost every page I read. Her father’s daring escape to freedom into Austria when he almost had to swim the Danube was incredible. Her mom’s constant emotional pull between the East and the West, and whether to leave her extended family and culture to go to the U.S., is heart wrenching. Emma tells of her experience as a 29 yr. old joining thousands in Wenceslas Square in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution to protest communism. Actually, her book would make an excellent text book in schools. Join her in reliving a journey you will always remember.
If you are looking for a book to read that will open your horizons and give you a new perspective on the “Covid Times” we are now experiencing, I recommend Emma’s title “Greenwich Meridian Memoir”.
I didn’t expect to be all that interested in a memoir. Generally not what I would first pick up to read. Well, I was proven wrong. It took me only 3 set downs to complete the story, a tell tale sign that I was lured in.
This personal family story gives one a look at immigration, emigration, communism, and socialism in a new light. A read that fits right in with July 2020. Not saying that one may change their mind on such issues by reading this book, but why not look through someone else’s eyes for a minute?
Personally, I think a worthy addition to the title; Greenwich Meridian Memoir, would be “Socialism With A New Face”. Let’s draw people in.
When reading this book, I found myself looking for the voices of different family members. I was not disappointed.
I felt like I was traveling with them through the good times and the bad. I would think hearing this book in the character’s real voices would bring emotions we all may need about now.
I loved the book and learned that I need to get out of my lovely little world and see, feel, and experience life through new markets.
Come along with Emma and her family on a journey through time and geography. Learn of injustice, endurance, faith, love and the tenacity of the human spirit. Culture, history, sociology, politics. All are presented in a remarkably personal and intimate style. This book presents a fascinating story of an epic journey that will keep you captivated as you become caught up in the hopes and dreams of some ‘regular people’ doing highly ’irregular’ things with their lives. What a cornucopia of peoples, places, customs, foods, hopes and dreams!
The reader is given a first-hand look at life in a socialist society from the perspective of several points of view. Those of us in ‘democratic’ states have a lot to learn from these people. I must say that the details of personal family interactions and reactions to this government made the book come to life.
It seems timely that this book is here now to inspire us during the undeniably unusually stressful and turbulent times we are enduring. I know I have certainly gained inspiration and insight into what can be accomplished with persistence and hope.
Read this book. You won’t regret it.