Cary Lowe is the author of the award-winning book
Becoming American: A Political Memoir.
He has published over fifty essays on political and civic issues in
major newspapers, as well as professional reports and articles in
professional journals.
Mr. Lowe is a retired California land use lawyer with 45 years of
experience representing public agencies, developers, Indian tribes, and
non-profit organizations. He holds a law degree and a Ph.D. from the
University of Southern California. He taught courses in law and urban
planning at USC, UCLA, and UC San Diego, and he writes and lectures on
land use and environmental issues. In addition to his legal experience,
Mr. Lowe is a credentialed mediator affiliated with the Land Use &
Environmental Mediation Group of the National Conflict Resolution
Center.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://carylowewriter.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carylowewriter/?modal=admin_todo_tour
As a book bloggin’ and book luvin’ Princess, I’m always
curious to find out how authors got the ideas for their books. Can you tell us how you got the idea to write
your book?
My memoir Becoming American
grew out of a trip I took with my daughter to explore the places of our family’s
origin in Eastern Europe, including searching for a hidden cemetery near Prague
where my paternal great-grandparents were buried. On our return, I wrote a stand-alone
story about our adventures for family and friends. That led me to write more
stories about my life growing up in Europe in the years following World War II,
with parents who were Holocaust survivors. After writing a half dozen such stories,
I visualized making them the heart of a book, describing not only my youth in
Europe during an interesting and volatile time, but also my family’s
immigration to the United States and my professional and political careers here.
That first story became the opening chapter and portions of subsequent chapters
of my memoir. And the book evolved into a chronicle of my experience in becoming
American.
Can you give us an excerpt?
CHAPTER
1
THE
SEARCH
Growing up in postwar Austria, my greatest
hope was someday to become an American. A real American, like the khaki-clad
soldiers occupying the country or the cowboys in the westerns at the local
cinema. My father, a refugee from Vienna who worked on the Nuremberg war crimes
tribunal, promised me that hope would be fulfilled one day. What I didn’t
realize then was that becoming American would cut me off from my roots. Many
years later, after my parents and my brother had died, I resolved to restore
that connection.
***
On a sunny autumn
afternoon in 1997, I arrived with my nine-year-old daughter at the entrance of
a long-closed Jewish cemetery near Strakonice, in the countryside south of
Prague. Thirty-five years after we had left Europe for America, a search worthy
of Indiana Jones had brought me and Coralea here from our home in Los Angeles.
Inside, I hoped to find the graves of my paternal great-grandparents.
Stepping out
of the car into a light breeze, I felt the momentary burst of elation of a marathon
runner crossing the finish line. Then reality interrupted. Pursing my lips, I
turned to Coralea.
“I just hope
this is the right cemetery,” I said. “Aunt Mimi told me only that it was near
Strakonice, but she didn’t seem sure. It’s been a long time since she was
here.”
“It has to
be the right one,” Coralea responded with the certainty of youth.
Six-foot
stucco-encased walls and eight-foot wrought-iron gates blocked our way. If I
could get in, would I find the graves? How would I read Hebrew inscriptions on
the headstones?
I felt as
nervous as when I stood before a federal judge to take my oath of United States
citizenship at the age of seventeen. I clasped Coralea’s left hand. She
squeezed back. I took a step toward the gates, then another and another, with
her in tow, until the gates loomed over us like sentinels. An ancient-looking
lock the size of my fist secured chains wrapped around the innermost bars. I
searched for a sign with information on how to gain entry.
A musty
smell, a combination of rust and fallen leaves, momentarily caught my
attention. Trembling, I reached out with my left hand, grasped the rough bars,
and shook them. I knew I would not be entering through those gates.
“We’ve come
so far,” I said. “We’ve got to get in there.” Yet, the graves beyond the gates
seemed impossibly out of reach.
I thought of
the stories of my father’s narrow escape from Vienna on the eve of World War
II, of my mother’s years in hiding during the war and her harrowing escape, and
of their improbable return to Europe for the Nuremberg trials. I recalled the
similarly amazing stories of survival told by nearly everyone I knew. As my
father said, “If they didn’t have an amazing story, they wouldn’t be here to
tell it.”
Turning to
Coralea, I said, “I wish my parents could be here with us.”
“Especially
grandma,” she replied with a sigh. “She wanted to bring me back here so much.”
Closing my
eyes, I searched for an answer. My thoughts rushed back over the unlikely path
that had led me to this time and place. I recalled my childhood in Austria,
just a few hours’ drive away. The Iron Curtain had blocked us off from our
roots for years, just as the cemetery walls threatened to do now. Although the
slaughter was over, the guns were silent, and the armies mostly had gone home,
I lived amid the aftermath of the war — the bombed cities being rebuilt, the
Hitlerhaus that cast a cloud over my hometown, my refugee nanny Herma,
displaced persons in squatters’ camps, and concentration camp survivors piecing
their lives back together.
I remembered
my first interactions with Americans — the military occupiers, the intelligence
agents that gathered at our home and told wild tales, and my childhood friends
in Austria and later in Germany. And the combination of excitement and apprehension
I felt later, realizing I was becoming gradually Americanized. I marveled at
how immigrating and becoming an American citizen had launched me into a life of
political involvement in my adopted country.
Most of all,
I thought how much those experiences had changed my life. I had evolved from a
German-speaking, Austrian-born child of war survivors into an English-speaking
American, eagerly drawn into a new and exciting culture. What I experienced and
witnessed in the years after the war had shaped how I viewed the world, how I
interacted with people, and how I identified myself.
In becoming
Americanized, however, I had lost much of my connection, to those early years
and to my family’s places of origin. They had receded behind the more recent
people and places of my American experience.
I opened my
eyes, bringing me back to the present. The gates seemed even more ominous.
Still holding my hand, Coralea looked up at me expectantly. I peered between
the bars at the rows of headstones. The closest ones looked ancient, like those
in the old Jewish cemetery in Prague, with weathered, barely legible Hebrew
lettering. Behind them stood newer markers, taller and more ornate. Weeds and
grass had so overgrown much of the cemetery that I wondered when anyone had
visited last and opened those gates. Whatever I might find inside, I could not
imagine being denied after coming this far. I struggled to figure out our next
step until Coralea interrupted my thoughts.
“You can do
it, Dad,” she said. “You found this place. You can find a way in.”
***
If you could tell your younger writing self anything,
what would that be?
First, take writing courses early, rather than learning solely
by trial and error. Next, be ambitious and begin submitting your writing for
publication as soon as you feel it’s ready. The market only gets tighter and
more competitive over time. Finally, don’t limit yourself to short pieces. Try
writing a full-length book as soon as you have a good enough story.
What would you say is one of your interesting writing
quirks?
Whether I’m writing an essay, a short non-fiction piece, or a
book chapter, I like to end each with a takeaway for the reader – a lesson or
moral that emerges from the story.
Do you hear from your readers? What do they say?
I received consistently positive feedback regarding the
fifty plus essays I published in major newspapers and professional journals,
though some readers disagreed with my views on public issues. So far, the
feedback regarding my book, in person and in on-line reviews, has been quite
positive as well, apart from a few readers again disagreeing with my political
perspective.
What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?
Members of my writing group, while usually complimentary of
my writing otherwise, frequently tell me I have not shared enough emotion in my
first-person stories.
What has been your best accomplishment?
As a writer, my best accomplishment has been completing my
first book and getting it published.
Do you Google yourself?
I subscribe to Google Alerts, so I receive notification
whenever my name appears on-line.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
I have begun working on a book about travel experiences with
my wife, who is disabled. Many years ago, I began writing a book about my
experiences in the Navy, but put it aside to concentrate on law school and then
my career. I used some material from that manuscript in my current book.
Fun question – if you were princess or prince, what’s one
thing you would do to make your kingdom a better place?
I would ensure that every young person receives an education
in civic affairs, in the hope of increasing interest in important issues and improving
the quality of public discourse. In the meantime, I’m hoping my book
contributes to that goal.
Do you have anything specific that you would like to say
to your readers?
I hope my memoir Becoming American will entertain you
with a good story, but also that it will teach you something important. You may
have read essays which I previously published in major newspapers. This book is
much more personal., as well as broader in scope. In addition to telling you
about my life experience, I attempt to address one of the great public
controversies of our time – the place of immigrants in our society and the
meaning of being a real American. With that in mind, I wish you happy reading,
and hope that you come away from my book entertained and also inspired.
