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Louise Steinman

The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War Paperback – March 18, 2008

by Louise Steinman (Author)

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A soldier’s daughter unravels the secrets of her father’s experience in the Pacific Theater in this “graceful, understated” World War II memoir for fans of The Things They Carried (The New York Times Book Review)

Louise Steinman’s American childhood in the fifties was bound by one unequivocal condition: “Never mention the war to your father.” That silence sustained itself until the fateful day Steinman opened an old ammunition box left behind after her parents’ death. In it, she discovered nearly 500 letters her father had written to her mother during his service in the Pacific War and a Japanese flag mysteriously inscribed to Yoshio Shimizu.

Setting out to determine the identity of Yoshio Shimizu and the origins of the silken flag, Steinman discovered the unexpected: a hidden side of her father, the green soldier who achingly left his pregnant wife to fight for his life in a brutal 165-day campaign that changed him forever. Her journey to return the “souvenir” to its owner not only takes Steinman on a passage to Japan and the Philippines, but also returns her to the age of her father’s innocence, where she learned of the tender and expressive man she’d never known. Steinman writes with the same poignant immediacy her father did in his letters. Together, their stories in The Souvenir create an evocative testament to the ways in which war changes one generation and shapes another.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

North Atlantic Books
Publication date

March 18, 2008
Dimensions

6.05 x 0.71 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1556437013
ISBN-13

978-1556437014
See all details

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Exceptional . . . a graceful, understated memoir . . . that draws its strength from the complexities it explores.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Ms. Steinman skillfully weaves her father’s emotional letters into the present-day story line, sensitively taking readers through Norman Steinman’s transformation from naïve American soldier to hardened combat veteran. . . . The Souvenir underscores the indescribable way war affects not only veterans but also their families and future generations.”
—The Dallas Morning News

“The book is the story of entwined ‘gifts’ resulting from [a] personal journey—Steinman’s discovery of a side of her father she never expected to share. For many, her account could provide an understanding of how the war changed one generation and shaped the next.”
—Library Journal, starred review

“A moving memoir about reconciliation and honor.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The Souvenir is a powerful testament that, regardless of time and place, the effect of war on the human spirit remains the same. Steinman’s remarkable discovery shows how war separates our common humanity. It is a journey to repair that broken bond, a journey to know the humanity of those we have made enemies.”
—Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone

“Partly a detective story, partly a meditation on the legacy of war . . . this is a bold, unusual, and moving book.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost

“The Souvenir is an intimate and powerful story of the effects of war.”
—James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Father

“Luckily for her readers, Ms. Steinman . . . interviewed not only American veterans of the Pacific war, but Japanese veterans as well. In this quest, she discovered more than just her father’s wartime souvenir; she discovered her father’s war and those experiences that shaped the life of her family in the ’50s. . . . The Souvenir is a graceful blend of history, wartime storytelling and investigative reporting that dives deep into the traumatic experiences of war. Military enthusiasts, especially veterans and their families, will find The Souvenir a proactive [and] rewarding read.”
—The Jewish Veteran

About the Author

Louise Steinman is curator of the award-winning ALOUD at Central Library literary series at the Los Angeles Public Library. Her work appears frequently in The Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, and has appeared in syndication in The New York Times and other publications.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From the Prologue: Somewhere at SeaIn January 1944 when my father crossed the Pacific for the first time, he did not know where he was going. He did not know he was headed for New Zealand. He did not know that after a year of training and waiting, first in New Zealand then in New Caledonia, he and his army buddies in the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division would be transported to northern Luzon, the Philippines, where they would sweat out five and a half months of combat.The monotony, the uncertainty of the destination, the hot sun, the loneliness, the roiling sea all took their toll on him. “I’ve never felt so blue. It’s the thought of leaving you. I hope I can get over it soon, because it’s a terrible state of affairs,” he wrote to his wife—my mother—from the confines of a transport ship.As the realization of a long separation sank in—months, possibly years—his mood veered toward panic then settled into depression. Writing letters was his only relief. “Dear Anne,” he wrote home, “I’m sorry that you won’t hear from me for such a long time until you get this letter, but because of the safety precautions and secrecy involved (for our own good), I wasn’t allowed to tell you when I left the States.” To describe his location, he wrote simply “Somewhere at Sea” in the upper right-hand corner of each letter.My father—a graduate of De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx, with a math degree from New York University—was lacking his usual reference points. No Sunday New York Times, no conversations with his parents, no weekly lectures at the 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library. And the most grievous lack of all—his wife.It was not like the pragmatic father I knew to daydream, sitting motionless, spinning in his imagination every inch of his wife’s body. Her hair. Her smile. The way she wore hats. He composed letters in his mind, wrote them down when the seasickness abated...

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ North Atlantic Books; 2nd edition (March 18, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1556437013
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1556437014
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.05 x 0.71 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,746,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,162 in Asian & Asian Americans Biographies
- #3,697 in WWII Biographies
- #16,535 in World War II History (Books)

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33 ratings

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Louise Steinman

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Louise Steinman is a writer and literary curator. Her work frequently deals with memory, history and reconciliation. Her book, The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War, was cited as 'A graceful, understated memoir' that draws its strength from the complexities it explores.' (New York Times Book Review) 'an intimate and powerful story of the effects of war.' James Bradley, author, Flags of Our Fathers). The book won the 2002 Gold Medal in Autobiography/Memoir from ForeWord Magazine and has been the selection of all-city and all-freshman reading programs. The book chronicles her quest to return a war 'souvenir' to its owner and-- in the process-- illuminates how war changed one generation and shaped another. She is also the author of "The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation" (Beacon Press) and the Knowing Body: The Artist As Storyteller in Contemporary Performance (Shambhala/North Atlantic) , based on her decades as a dance critic, performer, and director.

She was the founder and for 25 years the curator of the award-winning ALOUD at Central Library series for the Los Angeles Public Library. She is the Co-director of the Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities at USC. She now works as an independent literary curator for various institutions. She recently edited the collectively sourced anthology (with illustrations by Beth Thielen), COUNTRY GONE MISSING: Nightmares in the Time of Trump, as a fundraiser for Swing Left. Her writing has been anthologized widely. She is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her most recent essay there is "Time Regained: Reading Jozef Czapski in Billings Montana," about Proust, the Gulag, and the salvation of reading. You can find her blog at www.crookedmirror.wordpress.com

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

33 global ratings

5 star		50%
4 star		13%
3 star		22%
2 star		9%
1 star		6%

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Tony Fels

A very moving account, both personal and historical

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 10, 2021

Verified Purchase

Louise Steinman has written a beautiful meditation on the consequences of war, based on her discovery of her father's letters from World War II in the Pacific. She travels from Los Angeles to the Philippines to Japan, as she relates her father's own experiences in these war zones, all the while raising profound moral and emotional questions that are just as important today as they were eighty years ago. She has well researched the history of the conflict, allowing her book to achieve a superb blend of personal and political dimensions.

Helpful

mari31

The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 25, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book was hard to find. I had decided to bring it to Europe for my English reading friends. It is a very moving true story of a woman who found letters from her father to her mother during WWII. She also found a flag her father sent home as a souvenir(and immediately regretted doing so). The flag belonged to a deceased Japanese soldier and was signed by many people from his village. The author decides to return the flag to his family.

One person found this helpful

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Barb F.

With all the rave reviews..

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 27, 2008

Verified Purchase

You see all the reviews having 5 stars out of 5 stars--I couldn't bring myself to agree. This book starts being really quite good--it drew me in--but then it started to dddddddrrrrrraaaaaaaaggggggggg. I put it down for a while and tried again (I did this 3 times) when I decided to give it up for good. I think it could have been better. :(

One person found this helpful

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JS

Interesting perspective on history

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 5, 2013

Verified Purchase

I thought the premise of the story was interesting, but there seemed to be too much back story of her childhood. I enjoyed the travelogue portion in Japan but found the return of the flag to be a bit glossed over.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 26, 2011

Verified Purchase

This was a fascinating journey of a daughter's mission to find the owner of a souvenir flag her father aquired in the second World War. The feelings and the emotions are raw and true. I feel the author did extensive research and ultimately wrote a book about this war that reads honestly and openly.

2 people found this helpful

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ali

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 23, 2015

Verified Purchase

Very informative and heartwarming

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Annie Lanzillotto author of L is for Lion

A Seizmic Mitzvah

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 7, 2014

Wow. She did the right thing. Many of us who inherited our father's war souvenirs, specifically Rising Sun or Sun Mark flags from our fathers who served in the Pacific in WWII, are faced with the question of what to do with the flag. Frame and keep it and pass it on within our family? Repatriate the flag to Japan? Donate the flag to a WWII Museum collection in the U.S.? What will be the honorable legacy for war souvenirs? Like the author's father, the flag my father captured is also inscribed with the name and history of a Japanese soldier. I too have grappled with these questions. The author does the full nine yards, researches her father's war, talks with the last living veterans, makes the liasons necessary to find living relatives of the Japanese soldier named on the flag, and goes to Japan... God Bless her and may her father's soul rest in peace as well as the soul of the Japanese soldier to who the flag belonged, and all the soldiers and civilians who died or suffered to war.... In the author's case, a seismic event spiritually echoes her quest.

This book is well researched, well structured narratively, and takes the reader by the hand as the author embarks on a journey to understand war, and her father's battles. This is a mitzvah. The bibliography is worth the read for anyone studying the WWII Pacific theater.

forever,
Annie

Annie Lanzillotto
author of "L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir" SUNY Press
and "Schistsong" BORDIGHERA Press

www.annielanzillotto.com

L Is for Lion: An Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Memoir (SUNY series in Italian/American Culture)
Schistsong (Via Folios)
Blue Pill
Carry My Coffee (Live)
Eleven Recitations

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Timothy J. Bazzett

WWII history on a personal level. Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 22, 2014

Louise Steinman's fine memoir/biography cum history, THE SOUVENIR, is a carefully researched and lovingly told look into her late father's experiences as a soldier in the South Pacific theater of operations during WWII. She wanted to understand her father's silence about those years and she found an entry through a cache of letters he wrote to his wife (her mother) and a tattered and bloodstained Japanese flag he'd sent home - the 'souvenir' of the title.

Steinman did her homework, in that she mixed the personal with the historical in such a way that a reader can follow her father's bloody and traumatic path of battles fought in the mountains of the Philippines. History buffs will especially appreciate her efforts in this. I was probably more interested in the personal side, the Norman Steinman part. Like the passage where he writes of the Russian adage, 'Nichevo,' which became his coda, a way in which to endure the constant threat and presence of death that surrounded him every day, taking his dear friends and comrades. Nichevo means, quite literally "nothing." Or as the combat-hardened veterans of Vietnam came to say, "It don't mean nothin'. Drive on."

In reading the stories here, both Louise's and her father's, I was reminded of a couple other books. One was Steve Luxenberg's Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret . Luxenberg's research turned up some disturbing secrets about his own father's service in WWII (also in the Philippines). The other book is Ethan Canin's fine novel Carry Me Across the Water: A Novel , about another journey from the present back into those trauma-ridden times of the war with the Japanese.

THE SOUVENIR, however, can stand on its own very well. A fine and readable story by a devoted daughter and a gifted writer. I will recommend it highly.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War Memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA

One person found this helpful

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