How I Came Into My Inheritance, and other true stories - Tapa dura

A funny, original and intelligent memoir of growing up Communist in the USA; Dorothy Gallagher's parents, Jewish Communists from the Ukraine, emigrated to New York in the early 1920s. An only child, Dorothy was raised to "The Struggle" and to a blind devotion to Marx and Stalin. This book is the story of her unusual childhood, but it is also a much wider story: of Dorothy's parents - formidable, funny and deluded; of a host of aunts and uncles, each more eccentric than the last; and of the expectations, sacrifices and beliefs of an entire generation. Gallagher's narrative consists of a series of vignettes, a collection of pivotal moments and incredible anecdotes. Her huge cast of characters, including the con man who stole her father's heart in his old age, are believable and strangely touching. This is a delicate and beautifully written book, one that unites a humorous and warm portrayal of family life with an understanding of the events and movements that have shaped the peoples of Europe and America over the course of this century.

Dorothy Gallagher is a freelance writer. Her work has been published in the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times Book Review among others. She has also written two other books, Hannah's Daughters, an account of six generations of women in one family, and All The Right Enemies, a biography of the anarchist Carlo Tresca. She lives in New York.