Jane Lazarre is the author of the memoir, The Communist and the Communist's Daughter.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir about your father, and how long did it take you to complete it?--Marshal Zeringue
A: I decided to write this memoir about my father over 40 years after his death for many reasons – some formal and intellectual, and some in Toni Morrison’s words, “deep story” reasons.
I realized I had large gaps in my knowledge of my father’s life as an immigrant, not even knowing what ship he came on from Kishinev, Romania in the early 1900s, nor much about his life in the American Communist Party, nor of his experiences as a volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s.
I knew he had been in prison in Philadelphia as a young man for making a political speech, but I did not know much more than that. Finally, I had in my possession a huge FBI file I had obtained many years before, and I wanted to make use of it.
As to formal reasons, I have...[read on]