Mother's Last Words

The War has affected the lives of the two protagonists: Misha and Alida. Misha is the son of a teenage mother, Blanche, a French Jewess, interned in a Lebensborn Nazi brothel. His father, a Polish Jew on leave from his Ukrainian SS unit, sires a bastard son.Alida is born in Havana, Cuba of French Jewish refugees who fled from the Nazi Vichy government. She reaches her teens as a talented ballerina. Misha earns a PhD degree in spite of his sadistic stepfather and guilt-ridden mom....
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The War has affected the lives of the two protagonists: Misha and Alida. Misha is the son of a teenage mother, Blanche, a French Jewess, interned in a Lebensborn Nazi brothel. His father, a Polish Jew on leave from his Ukrainian SS unit, sires a bastard son.Alida is born in Havana, Cuba of French Jewish refugees who fled from the Nazi Vichy government. She reaches her teens as a talented ballerina. Misha earns a PhD degree in spite of his sadistic stepfather and guilt-ridden mom. Further studies lead him to the US. Circumstances bring Misha and Alida together. They marry and take up residence in Urbana-Champaign. Soon, Alida gives birth to a premature baby son and, oddly, undergoes radical hysterectomy. His lover Susanna joins Misha in the US and complications develop. Months later, Susanna's body is recovered from a countryside lake, and Misha is the prime suspect in the first-degree murder trial.A MOTHER'S LAST WORDS, William Samelson's brilliant and baffling novel is set in the US, Germany, Cuba, and Israel during the Six-Day War. It begins with Misha's incarceration accused of Susanna's murder. The jury's verdict is death by lethal injection. Unsuccessful appeals bring us closer to Misha's execution.A Mother's Last Words is both historical and criminal conjecture. It is a chilling portrayal of a cultural climate fraught with greed, random/sinful sexuality, and sinister social habits.