Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America
by Donald R. Katz
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Home Fires is the powerful saga of the Gordon family--real people, names unchanged. Spanning nearly five decades, from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, their story has the scope, depth, wealth of incident, and emotional intensity of a great novel, and an abundance of humor, scandal, warmth, and trauma--the recognizable components of family life. In the hands of Donald Katz, it is also a masterful chronicle of the turbulent postwar era, brilliantly illuminating the interplay show more betweenprivate life and profound cultural changes. Katz begins his account in 1945, when Sam Gordon, an electrician, comes home from the war to his young wife, Eve, eager to move his family into the growing middle class and the good life that beckons all around them. As the fifties yield to the sixties, the younger Gordons begin to fly out and away into the culture like shrapnel from an artillery shell, each tracing a unique trajectory. Katz charts the unraveling of Sam's and Eve's American Dream, to the slow, hopeful reknitting of the family. Deftly juxtaposing day-to-day family life with landmark public events, Katz creates a rich and revealing portrait of the second half of the twentieth century in America. show lessTags
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review is from: Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America (Paperback)
It is amazing that the Gordon family permitted the author to share the intimate details of the lives of the four generations of this family. Anyone, especially those who have lived in New York or the various places the families have lived will compare their own experiences as they read along. Interfacing national events of the the time, popular books (I even remember reading Crack in the Picture Window in 1957) and music, plays and musicals of the times)with events of the families lives demonstrates how in fact we Americans have been so affected by these national and new technological trends as we have moved along. Today Facebook show more and social networks would be included as the difficult political times. My immediate reaction was to formulate in my own mind families of my few close friends as well as of course my own. In a way I guess in total extended families in the US are like this. The happy ending in Florida is really nice. show less
It is amazing that the Gordon family permitted the author to share the intimate details of the lives of the four generations of this family. Anyone, especially those who have lived in New York or the various places the families have lived will compare their own experiences as they read along. Interfacing national events of the the time, popular books (I even remember reading Crack in the Picture Window in 1957) and music, plays and musicals of the times)with events of the families lives demonstrates how in fact we Americans have been so affected by these national and new technological trends as we have moved along. Today Facebook show more and social networks would be included as the difficult political times. My immediate reaction was to formulate in my own mind families of my few close friends as well as of course my own. In a way I guess in total extended families in the US are like this. The happy ending in Florida is really nice. show less
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Author Information
7+ Works 286 Members
Donald Katz is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and has been a contributor to The New Republic. Esquire, Outside, Sports Illustrated, and Men's Journal. His work has won and been nominated for several National Magazine Awards. Katz is the founder of Audible, Inc.
Awards and Honors
Awards
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, Biography & Memoir, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 306.85 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social Behavior - Dating, Marriage, Divorce Marriage, partnerships, unions; family Family
- LCC
- HQ535 .K38 — Social sciences The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality The Family. Marriage. Women The family. Marriage. Home
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 108
- Popularity
- 300,186
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.27)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 2
