In His Father’s Footsteps

4 1/2 STARS!

A powerfully compelling story of strength, love and gumption! We’re magically thrust into a story of two people who face the worst and yet prosper with little more than the love they share and the clothes on their back simply because of their unique mindset of being grateful for every single thing they have in life. The two of them and the foundation they laid for their family simply made this story! The characters and early plot were complex and rich. The later story had a little less follow through but still gave a fulfilling conclusion. Overall I really enjoyed it!

Through tortuous situations, heartache and loss, Jakob Stein and Emmanuelle Berger manage to hold on long enough to be rescued from their imprisonment in a German conservation camp. Knowing little about each other, but knowing a kindred spirit when they see one, they decide to trust in their friendship enough to wed before being sponsored to freedom in the United States and let their love brew and grow naturally. They find themselves living miserly in low paying jobs and hard conditions, but are thankful for how far they have come since losing their family, history and possessions to such horror. As the years pass, they lean on each other through it all and devote their lives to the son they were blessed with as they bask in their love. They try to teach him how important family is, and the proper work ethic to go through life with in order to never be placed in a position of having to pull yourself up from rock bottom.

Their son Max grows into a well educated Harvard graduate who takes the knowledge and help his father shared with him to go on and prosper through real estate ventures to become an early success. He finds who he thinks is the love of his life and through an elaborate ceremony and opulent lifestyle sets out to grasp the world at his fingertips and go for a ride of riches and prosper. Years later he finds himself delighted with the birth of children, yet overworked and stressing more every day about becoming all that he can become while his marriage seems to get worse by the day with a woman that isn’t at all what he was expecting. Finally finding himself faced with a dire situation, he must reevaluate his life and struggle like his parents before him to make sure his family is at the top of his mindset as he forges a new life from the ruins he’s climbing out of.

In His Father’s Footsteps by Danielle Steel takes us back to April 1945. Emmanuelle Berger and Jakob Stein are in Buchenwald when U.S. troops liberate the camp. Jakob had been in the concentration camp for five years and his entire family was exterminated. Emmanuelle was near death when the soldiers arrived. To avoid separation, the pair marry and relocate to America with the help from a sponsor. They work hard at labor intensive jobs and live in a small, dingy apartment on the Lower East Side. One day, Jakob meets Israel “Izzy” Horowitz, a diamond dealer, who offers him a job. Jakob learns the business quickly and is soon Izzy’s right hand man. As Jakob makes more money, he invests it into real estate. Jakob and Emmanuelle have a son, Max who they dote upon. Max attends the best schools with the determination that he will never struggle for money. Instead of following in his father’s footsteps after graduating from Harvard, Max wants to make his own way in the business world. He marries Julie Morgan at a lavish society wedding and installs her in a luxurious home with a large staff. Max is a successful business with a beautiful wife, extravagant home and children. However, he feels that he cannot have enough money and is constantly at work rarely seeing his wife and children. A tragedy makes Max see that he has a failing marriage and is setting a poor example for his children. While Max achieved the American dream, he neglected the basic lessons his father taught him. Can Max turn his life around?

In His Father’s Footsteps is a well-written and engaging story. It is an emotional novel that takes us from horrific Buchenwald to the lavish Upper East Side. We follow our characters as they set out to achieve the American dream of becoming successful and having a family. Can you imagine living through the horrors of a concentration camp? It will indelibly leave its mark on a person as we see in this book. I could feel the characters emotions and struggles. The choices the characters made was based on their experiences. I thought the author captured the time period and the various settings. I admit that I enjoyed Emmanuelle and Jakob’s story better than Max’s. Max, though, was raised differently which caused him to make decisions that we may not like (or agree with) but were understandable. I appreciated the epilogue which nicely wraps up the book (we would expect no less from Danielle Steel). While there is some predictability to the story, it did not hinder my reading pleasure. I have been reading Danielle Steel’s books since I was twelve years old and I never get tired of reading her novels. I am giving In His Father’s Footsteps 4 out of 5 stars (I liked it).

An excellent read.

In His Father’s Footsteps by Danielle Steel is both a historical and contemporary epic novel that follows the fortunes of a family.
The reader travels from Buchenwald to America, from poverty to wealth, from family to empire. The novel is a journey to discover the true meaning of wealth – and that is always found in people. The wealthiest people in the story are not those with the most money but those who lived, loved and survived Buchenwald. They are the ones who realised the true wealth was in people as they witnessed the fragility of life. “Being Jewish had become a death sentence overnight.” Survival was a lottery.
The legacy of the camps was fear. It hung over lives forever – the fear that it might happen again. It was not something that could be shaken off. Family was precious. Money was a necessity. It could buy life. “Don’t live by what we were afraid of.” Passing fear down to the next generation is not a good idea.
As the novel progresses, the reader sees love being eroded and characters being seduced by wealth. “Diamonds always helped.” The reader projects the end before a character does. Wealth can bring choice but it can also be a prison to be trapped in a cycle of work – money – more work – more money etc.
Empires are built but the true empire is our family. They are to be treasured. What legacy will you leave for the next generation? If riches are all you leave, the next generation will be poor indeed.
I have dipped in and out of Danielle Steel since I first ‘discovered’ her in the summer of 1977 as I bought her second book Now And Forever. I really enjoyed In His Father’s Footsteps, Danielle Steel spun a compelling tale.

I am a true fan of Danielle Steele and have most of her books in my personal library–always look forward to her next novel.

The first part of the story belongs to Jakob and Emmanuelle, survivors of the Holocaust who are liberated from the camp of Buchenwald. Vivid descriptions of what the liberators found there tell of the plight of the prisoners. The fact that Jakob and Emmanuelle were the only members of their individual families to survive attests to their determination to survive. When they are classified as Displaced Persons (DPs), they decide to rebuild their life in America and are married shortly before they board the ship that will carry them. Their struggles at surviving in America and eventually making a life here are all colored by the knowledge that at any moment everything can be taken away from them as it was at the start of WWII.

The second part of the story tells of their son Max, born in the early years of the Baby Boom that followed the war. He grows up never knowing how poor his parents were at the start of their life in America and his parents doing everything they can to provide their son with all the best: a good education, good clothes, wholesome food, and anything he desires. It’s not until Max journeys to Europe in the early 1960s and retraces the footsteps of his parents at the Buchenwald Camp Museum that he realizes why his parents are the way they are. Max vows to provide for his own family – he marries a socialite – and never give either his wife or his children cause to want for anything. But his devotion to work and, in a phrase from the 1960s, The Almighty Dollar, cause him to lose sight of his neglect for his family.

The ending left this reader dissatisfied. In short Ms. Steele was basically a narrator instead of a writer. At times it felt as though the story had been written by a less polished writer and the publisher simply slapped Ms. Steele’s name on the cover in order to sell the book.

I’m happy that attention was paid to the Holocaust and its victims. Because the subject is an important one, I gave this three stars.

One of Danielle’s Steel’s best of late.

I LOVE READING HER BOOKS

Great book!

Better than last few Steel books I’ve read. I enjoyed reading this one.